Seeing Indonesia as a Normal Country, Implications for Australia
This report, recently featured in the Straits Times‘ article, “Indonesia’s Political Miracle“, is designed to take stock of developments in Indonesia and identify ways of enhancing our bilateral relationship. The authors, Andrew MacIntyre and The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative, Douglas Ramage, provide important insights based on their deep understanding of the subject. A central theme of the paper is that Indonesia has become a normal country, the world’s third largest functioning democracy, with a very lively, engaged parliament. Indonesia’s transformation of course poses challenges for Australia. In some ways, vibrant democracies are harder to deal with than dictatorships. The authors’ core message in this Strategy is that it’s the consolidation of Indonesia’s democratic governance that we should focus on as we improve our bilateral relationship and pursue our interests in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia”Pacific.
