Sub-National Government and the Problem of Unequal Development in ASEAN Economic Integration: Case of Indonesia

Authors

  • Agus Suman Brawijaya University
  • Pantri Muthriana Erza Killian Brawijaya University
  • Ni Komang Desy Arya Pinatih Brawijaya University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21512/jas.v5i1.2060

Keywords:

ASEAN, Indonesia, development gap, sub-national government

Abstract

Economic integration, as a prevalent phenomenon in contemporary international relations, brings with it several problems including in the practice of development. Krapohl & Fink (2013) argue that regional integration can follow three different developmental paths which are intra-regional interdependence, extra-regional dependence and intra-regional asymmetries and hence regional integration can actually reinforce current situations rather than changing it. With regards to this, ASEAN is following the second path, creating a reliance on external actors and thus requiring member states to be highly competitive in the global level. However, this strategy ignores an important element, the intra-national development gap, since ASEAN is mostly focused in overcoming the intra-regional gap. This paper therefore seeks to elaborate the problem of increasing intra-national development gap due to regional integration by using Indonesia as a case study. The findings show that regional integration in Indonesia can actually widen the national development gap due to three main reasons. First, ASEAN integration is highly top-down in nature, thus limiting the role of Indonesia’s sub-national governments (SNGs) and private actors in the process; second, differing capacity of Indonesia’s sub-national governments to engage in IR provides higher opportunities for some while creating hindrances for others and lastly, the high transactional cost of intra-national economic activities in Indonesia causes the benefits of economic integration to be highly concentrated in one area. Therefore, there needs to be a larger role for SNGs in regional integration particularly in the most underpriviliged area of Indonesia.

 

Dimensions

Plum Analytics

Author Biography

Ni Komang Desy Arya Pinatih, Brawijaya University

Ni Komang Desy Arya Pinatih is currently lecturer at International Relations Department, Brawijaya University, East Java, Indonesia. Her research interest is transnational crime, regionalism and Southeast Asian studies.

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Published

2017-11-13
Abstract 614  .
PDF downloaded 350  .