There are reasons for thinking that this is at last Indonesia's moment on the world stage. Having successfully negotiated its difficult transition to democracy after 1998, Indonesia has held three popular elections with a low level of violence by the standards of southern Asia. Recetly its economic growth rate has been high (above 6 per cent a year) and rising, where China's has been dropping and the developed world has been in crisis. Indonesia's admission in 2009 to the G20 club of the world's most influential states seemed to confirm a status implied by its size, as the world's fourth-largest country by population, and the largest with a Muslim majority. Some international pundits have been declaring that Indonesia is the new star to watch, and that its long-awaited moment in the sun may at last have arrived.

This report provides guidance on how Indonesia can consolidate gains in access to basic education and develop an education system that will support an economy in transition towards high-income status.

The presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–14) was a watershed in Indonesia's modern democratic history. Yudhoyono was not only the first Indonesian president to be directly elected, but also the first to be democratically re-elected. Coming to office after years of turbulent transition, he presided over a decade of remarkable political stability and steady economic growth. But other aspects of his rule have been the subject of controversy. While supporters view his presidency as a period of democratic consolidation and success, critics view it as a decade of stagnation and missed opportunities. This book is the first comprehensive attempt to evaluate both the achievements and the shortcomings of the Yudhoyono presidency. With contributions from leading experts on Indonesia's politics, economy and society, it assesses the Yudhoyono record in fields ranging from economic development and human rights, to foreign policy, the environment and the security sector.

This edited volume argues that the rise of Islamic conservatism poses challenges to Indonesia’s continued existence as a secular state, with far-reaching implications for the social, cultural and political fortunes of the country. It contributes a model of analysis in the field of Indonesian and Islamic studies on the logic of Islamic conservative activism in Indonesia. This volume presents informative case studies of discourses and expressions of Islamic conservatism expressed by leading mainstream and upcoming Indonesian Islamic groups and interpret them in a nuanced perspective. All volume contributors are Indonesian-based Islamic Studies scholars with in-depth expertise on the Islamic groups they have studied closely for years, if not decades. This book is an up-to-date study addressing contemporary Indonesian politics that should be read by Islamic Studies, Indonesian Studies, and more broadly Southeast Asian Studies specialists. It is also a useful reference for those studying Religion and Politics, and Comparative Politics.

That Indonesia’s ongoing occupation of West Papua continues to be largely ignored by world governments is one of the great moral and political failures of our time. West Papuans have struggled for more than fifty years to find a way through the long night of Indonesian colonization. However, united in their pursuit of merdeka (freedom) in its many forms, what holds West Papuans together is greater than what divides them. Today, the Morning Star glimmers on the horizon, the supreme symbol of merdeka and a cherished sign of hope for the imminent arrival of peace and justice to West Papua. Morning Star Rising: The Politics of Decolonization in West Papua is an ethnographically framed account of the long, bitter fight for freedom that challenges the dominant international narrative that West Papuans' quest for political independence is fractured and futile. Camellia Webb-Gannon’s extensive interviews with the decolonization movement’s original architects and its more recent champions shed light on complex diasporic and intergenerational politics as well as social and cultural resurgence. In foregrounding West Papuans’ perspectives, the author shows that it is the body politic’s unflagging determination and hope, rather than military might or influential allies, that form the movement’s most unifying and powerful force for independence. This book examines the many intertwining strands of decolonization in Melanesia. Differences in cultural performance and political diversity throughout the region are generating new, fruitful trajectories. Simultaneously, Black and Indigenous solidarity and a shared Melanesian identity have forged a transnational grassroots power-base from which the movement is gaining momentum. Relevant beyond its West Papua focus, this book is essential reading for those interested in Pacific studies, Native and Indigenous studies, development studies, activism, and decolonization.

Studies of Indonesian politics have long focused upon the military and the bureaucracy because it is within these institutions that formal power is located, not the parties, unions, chambers of commerce or corporations. However, such an approach can neglect the powerful influences exerted upon the state by social and economic forces. This important and controversial new book examines the way in which one of these forces, capital, has emerged in the past two decades as a major influence upon the state, its officials and policies. The emergence of the capitalist class is examined, along with its internal divisions and conflicts and its relations with the state. In particular, attention is given to the fusion of the ruling strata of state officials and the capitalist class - the potential basis for a new ruling class. This is set against the weakness of capital caused by its division into domestic and international, state and private, Chinese and indigenous. These factors are in turn set in the context of international influences - the rise and fall of the oil boom, the activities of the IBRD and IMF, the decline of export earnings and the fiscal difficulties of the state. Since its original publication in 1986, Indonesia: The Rise of Capital has been the best selling academic book on Indonesian politics and the most cited in the SSCI and Google Scholar citation indexes. About the Author At the time of this publication in 1986, Richard Robison was Senior Lecturer in the Asian Studies Program at Murdoch University. He is now Emeritus Professor at Murdoch University and has been Professor of Political Economy at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague (2003-2006) and Professor and Director of the Australian Research Council's Special Centre for Research on Political and Social Change in Contemporary Asia (1995-1999). He is the author, editor of 14 books and has published in major international journals, including World Politics, World Development, Pacific Review, New Political Economy and the Journal of Development Studies. Professor Robison has been awarded Senior research fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust.