How does Indonesia exercise agency in the contested and complex regional environment?

Abstract

Recent developments in the Asia-Pacific or Indo-Pacific region have illustrated the emergence of a contested region and unfolding regional order. Within the multiplicity, as argued in the introduction of the special issue, all stakeholders, including the weak state actors, not necessarily the superior ones, are participating in the process of order-building. This article looks at how Indonesia, the largest member country of ASEAN, pursues its agency amid the contested regional formulations between China and the US. The argument is that Indonesia promotes its concept of a rules-based interaction beyond the dominant great power politics, as a potential agency enabling the creation of a pluralised regional order. This agential position provides the basis to rethink the relevance of the established conceptual framework of hedging commonly used to understand small and middle powers’ foreign policies toward the major players. The author sees that Indonesia hedges in different ways, demonstrating a distinct conceptualisation which is likely to make a contribution to the project of Global IR.

Keywords:

• Indonesia
• agency
• hedging
• Indo-Pacific
• order
• Global IR

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Korea Foundation.

Notes on contributors

I Gede Wahyu Wicaksana

I Gede Wahyu Wicaksana is a senior lecturer of International Relations in the Department of International Relations Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Universitas Airlangga Surabaya Indonesia. He has published in Asian Security, European Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of International Relations and Development, Asian Politics & Policy, Asian Journal of Political Science, International Relations of the Asia Pacific, and The Pacific Review, among others.