How can an underdeveloped country like Indonesia draw on outside resources for its national development without sacrificing its independence? Approaching the problem from the vantage point of the Indonesian elite, this important work explores the complex interactions between domestic political factors and the shaping of foreign policy. To illustrate the ways in which underdevelopment has affected Indonesia's international participation, Professor Weinstein presents a graphic picture of what Indonesia's leaders see when they view the outside world, and he systematically seeks out the sources of their perceptions. He shows that most of the elite see the international system as dominated by exploitative powers that cannot be relied on to assist Indonesia's development. He examines the relationship between perceptions and politics under both Sukarno and Soeharto and offers an illuminating comparison of the bases of foreign policy under each leader, revealing dramatic changes and surprising continuities. His cogent analysis helps to explain the sharp reversal of policy in 1966, and his conclusions form a convincing hypothesis that can be tested in other Third World countries. This book, now brought back to life as a member of Equinox Publishing's Classic Indonesia series, will attract specialists in Southeast Asia, as well as readers with a broader interest in the politics and economics of underdeveloped countries. FRANKLIN B. WEINSTEIN was Director of the Project on United States-Japan Relations at Stanford University, where he also taught in the Department of Political Science. A graduate of Yale University, he received his PhD from Cornell University.

Offering the first comprehensive history of U.S relations with Indonesia during the 1960s, Economists with Guns explores one of the central dynamics of international politics during the Cold War: the emergence and U.S. embrace of authoritarian regimes pledged to programs of military-led development. Drawing on newly declassified archival material, Simpson examines how Americans and Indonesians imagined the country's development in the 1950s and why they abandoned their democratic hopes in the 1960s in favor of Suharto's military regime. Far from viewing development as a path to democracy, this book highlights the evolving commitment of Americans and Indonesians to authoritarianism in the 1960s on.

In Authoritarian Modernization in Indonesia’s Early Independence Period, Farabi Fakih offers a historical analysis of the foundational years leading to Indonesia’s New Order state (1966-1998) during the early independence period. The study looks into the structural and ideological state formation during the so-called Liberal Democracy (1950-1957) and Sukarno’s Guided Democracy (1957-1965). In particular, it analyses how the international technical aid network and the dominant managerialist ideology of the period legitimized a new managerial elite. The book discusses the development of managerial education in the civil and military sectors in Indonesia. The study gives a strongly backed argument that Sukarno’s constitutional reform during the Guided Democracy period inadvertently provided a strong managerial blueprint for the New Order developmentalist state.

Indonesia’s trajectory towards successful economic growth has been long and capricious. Studies of the process often focus either on the Netherlands Indies or independent Indonesia, suggesting the existence of fundamental discontinuities. The authors of the 17 essays in this book adopt a long-term perspective that transcends regimes and bridges dualist economic models in order to examine what did and did not change as the country moved across the colonial-postcolonial divide, and shifted from reliance on exports of primary products to a multi-centred economy. The aim is to analyse how economic development grew out of the interplay of foreign trade, new forms of entrepreneurship and the political economy. The authors deal with entrepreneurship and economic specialization within different ethnic groups, the geographical distribution of exports and resource drains from exporting regions, and connections between an export economy and mass poverty. One recurring issue is the way actors from different ethnic groups occupied complementary niches, highlighting the rich variety of roles played by Asian entrepreneurs. A study of the international sugar trade shows how regime change fostered co-operation between different ethnic groups and nationalities involved with trading networks, inter-island shipping, urban public transport, and the construction sector. A comparison of export earnings and population groups involved in trade before and after 1900 shows that unexpected agricultural and industrial transitions could underpin a fundamental shift in income growth, with improved living standards for broad sectors of the population.