Scribbles from the Ivory Tower
International Relations, Politics, and Academia in plain language
The recent press conference conducted by Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, provides some bearings on the direction of Indonesia’s foreign policy in 2022. In this post, I summarize the press release (check against delivery here, English subtitles provided) and offer some thoughts on Indonesia’s plans for 2022.
Continue reading “Indonesia’s foreign policy aspirations in 2022”
What can we expect from Indonesia in Jokowi’s second term? In this post, I summarize President Jokowi’s inauguration speech and try to analyse what Indonesia’s foreign policy in the future would look like.
Continue reading “Jokowi’s Second Term: More Domestic than International”
This is a rejected commentary piece, which I thought would be better posted here than being forgotten on my hard drive.
Recent achievements of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in the Caribbean include the recent establishment of diplomatic relations with Barbados and the first full-fledged diplomatic visit to Suriname after 26 years in 2019. Looking from the MOFA’s performance report in 2018, the Caribbean seems to have gained renewed attention having been absent from foreign policy discourse since the Yudhoyono administration.
Continue reading “Sketching out Jokowi’s Caribbean economic strategy”
A revised version of this commentary has been published in The Jakarta Post, 22 June 2019. For citation purposes, please refer to the published version. This is a pre-submission final draft and should not be cited.
If Indonesia wishes to make any meaningful strides in advancing its Indo-Pacific Cooperation Concept, Jokowi would need to focus on engaging ASEAN leaders instead of focusing more on domestic policy.
Continue reading “In the Indo-Pacific, Jokowi needs to be more assertive and engaged”
Scribbles from the Ivory Tower 