When trade and foreign policy collide: Indonesia in Doha development round

Abstract

This article examines Indonesia’s conflicting roles in global trade governance, particularly in the Doha Development Round. This article argues that multilateral trade governance is utilised by Indonesian foreign policymakers to be the arena for Indonesia’s aspiration to exercise a greater role at the global level. This aspiration is reflected in its support towards liberalisation agenda at the global level. However, the commitments made, as well as the rhetoric calling for a more liberalised multilateral trading system within the Round, are not in line with Indonesia’s protectionist-leaning domestic trade policies. This condition, arguably, is the result of the co-optation of trade policy in Doha Round by the Indonesian foreign policy agenda. While the Ministry of Trade has full authority to formulate trade negotiation position, Indonesia’s aspiration for international status pursued by foreign policymakers has significantly influenced its trade policy agenda in the Doha Round. Thus, Indonesia’s behaviour in the Doha Round can only be interpreted as role-playing in which Indonesia ‘play the role’ to enhance its international status rather than based its position on coherent domestic economic interest.

Keywords:

• Doha Development Round
• foreign policy
• Indonesia
• trade policy
• WTO

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 G20 here refers to offensive coalition of agricultural exporters in the Doha Round.

2 At the beginning, the alliance consisted of 33 members hence the name of the group. However, it grows to include 47 developing countries.

3 Later, the notion of Strategic Products was replaced with Special Product in order to avoid confusion caused by the word strategic that can refer to military-related issues.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Moch Faisal Karim

Moch Faisal Karim is an Assistant Professor within International Relations Programme at Bina Nusantara University. His research has been published in Contemporary Politics, Third World Quarterly, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Pacific Review, Asian Journal of Social Science, European Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of International Migration and Integration, and Journal of ASEAN Studies. Faisal holds PhD from the University of Warwick and was previously a Global Challenges Junior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study and the School of Public Policy at the Central European University, Budapest, and the Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin.