Welfare regime and the patrimonial state in contemporary Asia: visiting Indonesian cases

ABSTRACT

A systematic understanding of how patrimonial state contributes to the wider-ranging role on a series of welfare configurations in Asia is still lacking. This article, therefore, will investigate this issue with Indonesia as case study. It is argued that Indonesia is one of the Asian countries where patrimonial rules have still been affecting the welfare regime dynamics for many years, even as the institutional structures of the democratic regime have been driving forces of equality. This explanation will be centred on two of the critical conjunctures in the emergence of patrimonial state. The first was during the Dutch colonial period. The second was during the productivist era.

KEYWORDS:

• Welfare regime
• patrimonial state
• social policy
• Asia
• Indonesia

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their review.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Also known as an exclusive loyalty to the government.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tauchid Komara Yuda

Tauchid Komara Yuda is a junior researcher and bachelor student in the Department of Social Development and Welfare, Universitas Gadjah Mada. He was affiliated as associate researcher in the Institute for Democracy and Welfarerism (IDW), Indonesia. His study focuses primarily on social policy, with particular emphasis on welfare regime, citizenship, welfare politics and populism politics its effect on welfare outcomes. He is one of the student awardees of Australia National University (ANU) – Indonesia Gifted Researcher Program 2017. In the same year, he was also recognized as the paper presenter for the prestigious East Asian Social Policy (EASP) annual conference at Nagoya University, Japan.