Beyond the “Berkeley Mafia”

A guiding light? State-owned enterprises minister Erick Thohir illuminates documents for then-president Joko Widodo in Nusantara, October 2023 | Photo: Setkab Ri on Facebook

In an article by New Mandala, Ahmad Syarif asserts that banker and investor technocrats in Indonesia have eclipsed academic economists as a key source of influence over the direction of economic policies.

“[F]ollowing the presidency of Joko Widodo (Jokowi), the technocratic landscape began to shift, with bankers and professional investors gaining greater influence. Like academic technocrats, these bankers and investors are neither elected officials nor formal party members. However, their credentials stem from careers in the private sector—particularly in banking and investment firms—where their expertise in asset pricing, risk assessment, and corporate finance contrasts with the policy-oriented, analytical focus of PhD-trained economists such as the Berkeley Mafia technocrats.“

“Bankers largely emerged from the post-reform era of Indonesia’s banking system—particularly within state-owned banks—which tend to adopt a conservative stance on risk. In contrast, professional investors arose from coalitions of conglomerates, creating investment vehicles such as private equity and asset management firms. These conglomerates turned to non-bank financial institutions in response to post-reform regulations that made it difficult for them to establish their own banks.

These divergent professional paths have shaped not only these two new groups of technocrats’ career trajectories, but also their political networks and technocratic styles once they enter government.”