Indonesia Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy in the 21st Century ― Rise of an Indo-pacific Power

This book examines the changes in Indonesian foreign policy during the 21st century as it seeks to establish itself as a great power in the Indo-Pacific region.

This book combines the insights of both neo-classical realism and social identity theory to discuss Indonesia’s emerging power status while laying emphasis on domestic drivers and constraints of its international behaviour. There are three key organizing components of the book – emerging power, status signalling and the Indo-Pacific region. The Indo-Pacific region constitutes a spatial framing of the book, while ‘emerging power’ provides an analytical category to explain Indonesia’s rising power and international status. By and large, Indonesia has been rising and this rise is gradually becoming a permanent fixture in both the domestic and global discourses. Though leaders are adding new styles and characteristics to Indonesia’s rising narrative, there are a few unmistakable overarching trends which point toward continuing trends of confidence and growing ambition in emerging Indonesia’s international behaviour. Though there has been an increasing level of discussion on the country’s emerging power status, there has been little discussion on how the 21st century Indonesia is debating and signalling its emerging power status. This book is built around four key signalling strategies of Indonesia as an emerging power – expanded regional canvas, muscle projection, leadership projection, and quest for great power parity. They represent Indonesia’s expanding geopolitical entitlement, growing desire for a status-consistent behaviour, response to the prevailing strategic uncertainty in the Indo-Pacific region and its attempt to advance its strategic interests by leveraging its status and leadership roles.

This book will be of much interest to students of South-East Asian politics, strategic studies, international diplomacy, security studies and IR in general. 

Vibhanshu Shekhar is an Adjunct Faculty at the American University, Washington DC, USA, and is author/editor of five books on foreign policy.