The Decline of Indonesia’s Leadership Role in ASEAN: Systemic and Domestic Constraints of Jokowi’s Foreign Policy Alterations

This article addresses how systemic stimuli and domestic constraints, specifically on the perception of foreign policy executives, influence Indonesia’s leadership decline in ASEAN under Joko Widodo’s first presidential term. Through the lens of neoclassical realism, it is concluded that Indonesia’s leadership decline in ASEAN is attributed to the changing geopolitical landscape of Asia, with the assertive rise of China and the need to find other models of grand strategies in facing the regional hegemon. Furthermore, there is a unified perception of the irrelevance of maintaining a leadership role in ASEAN, and how the foreign policy executives of the Indonesian President and the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have concluded to this approach. Implementation of this research is the contribution to the foreign policy framework in facing certain systemic stimuli in the region of Asia, and to understand the role of a unified perspective among foreign policy executives to the actual output of foreign policy. This article contributes to the discourses of; (1) neoclassical realism, specifically on the role of systemic stimuli and elite perceptions as intervening variables in understanding alterations in foreign policy behavior, and (2) empirical analysis of Indonesia’s leadership role in ASEAN during the presidency of Joko Widodo. Received: 16 August 2021 / Accepted: 25 October 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

To lead or not to lead: regional powers and regional leadership

Recent trends demonstrate that states with sufficient capabilities to be granted regional power status by its peers (primarily other states within their region) can nonetheless renounce regional leadership. This article analyzes the puzzling behavior of these detached or reluctant regional powers. We argue that resorting to an approach grounded in neoclassical realism is helpful to explain why regional powers might not exercise leadership. In this article regional leadership is conceptualized as an auxiliary goal within the grand strategy of a regional power. This goal will be pursued in the absence of certain structural and domestic constraints. Great power competition determines the incentives for regional leadership at the structural level. Capacity to extract and mobilize resources for foreign policy affects the decision to pursue leadership at the domestic level. We apply the analytical framework to analyze Brazil’s detachment from South America after the Cardoso and Lula presidencies.

Domestic Constraints on Foreign Policy Change in Belarus

After 2014 the relationship between Russia and its ally Belarus was strained. Russia was dissatisfied with Belarus’s foreign policy and sought to influence the latter’s international affairs. This article considers the extent of change and continuity in Belarus’s foreign policy, and thus whether Russia’s criticisms reflect consequential shifts, covering the period 2016–2019. The analysis begins with the removal of EU sanctions, which afforded Belarus new opportunities, and ends before the protest movement that emerged ahead of the election in 2020. The study considers three policy areas: international trade; diplomacy more broadly; and foreign policy concerns for prestige. The article argues that Belarus made appreciable policy changes in response to structural pressures in the period 2016–2019, but the parameters of these foreign policy shifts were necessarily highly constrained by domestic interest group competition which prevents Belarus distancing itself from Russia. It concludes with a brief reflection on how the 2020 election protests and repressions affect the dynamics described.

Congo’s president now faces pressure to deliver

Significance Tshisekedi thus enters the third year of his mandate able to form a new government, ending his unhappy coalition with Kabila’s Common Front for Congo (FCC) platform, which until now maintained an iron grip over domestic politics. Impacts The three political blocs that contested the 2018 polls are now unravelling; the FCC may be the only one with the coherence to survive. Some politicians who feel frustrated in the new dispensation may try to manipulate security dynamics to bolster their political position. Strong international support will bolster Tshisekedi significantly, but this will only go so far in easing domestic constraints.

A Case for Crisis in Japanese Security Policymaking

This chapter raises the question how has Japan’s security policymaking elite negotiated the stringent domestic constraints and somewhat less influential regional constraints to expand Japan’s security policy practice in the post-Cold War period. It introduces the alternative explanations that are offered by publications influenced by realism and social constructivism theories.

Traits of positive and negative discrimination of the Copts in medieval Egypt as described by the “History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria”

In the course of the Middle Ages, the Copts experienced a variety of drastic changes in the attitude of Muslim rulers towards them, from confidence to disgrace. The latter included not only the increasingly rigorous tax policies, but also social and domestic constraints.

India–ASEAN Trade Relations: Examining the Trends and Identifying the Potential

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is an important trading partner for India. Through its Act East Policy, India seeks deeper economic integration with ASEAN. In this article, we investigate the pattern of trade between India and ASEAN, using comparative advantage by country (CAC) and market comparative advantage (MCA) as criteria, which are more appropriate measures for showing comparative advantage in a specific market. These measures indicate some major Indian exports to ASEAN are not competitive. When domestic industries are not competitive, governments protect them through tariffs and non-tariff barriers, which act counter to deeper economic integration. We also identify the sectors in which India has the potential to become competitive but is not because of distortionary domestic policy measures. These domestic constraints prohibit Indian firms from participating in the ASEAN supply chain network, an important factor in developing deeper economic integration. Two such sectors—namely aluminium automotive components and the ready-made garment industry—are examined as case studies. Notwithstanding these distortionary policy measures, India still offers a bigger market to do business. The ability to supply lower cost chemicals and affordable pharmaceutical products at the time of COVID-19 is an added plus.