Organizer: NYSEAN; Master’s Program in International Relations (MAIR) at NYU
Type/Location: Hybrid / New York, NY
Description:
Join NYSEAN and NYU MAIR for a talk by Eve Warburton, research fellow at the Department of Political and Social Change at Australian National University (ANU) and Director of the ANU Indonesia Project. Dr. Warburton will discuss her new paper on the motivations of businesspeople to enter politics in Indonesia.
Abstract:
Why do businesspeople seek direct political office, rather than lobby government from the outside? There is growing international research on this topic, but limited empirical work has been done in Indonesia—a major middle-income democracy where political institutions are increasingly filled with, and run by, businesspeople. Using a mix of qualitative fieldwork and survey results, this paper investigates what motivates a growing number of Indonesian businesspeople to enter politics. We argue that businesspeople in Indonesia seek public office to cut out political middlemen. They seek unmediated and privileged access, first, to rents and, second, to protection from a range of threats by state and non-state actors. We emphasise the presence of a self-reinforcing cycle: as more businesspeople gain privileged access to rents and security by holding office, more risk is created for outsiders—thus incentivizing them to seek office too. While businesspeople may initially enter politics as a response to weak rule of law, the cycle also contributes to a decline in the quality of political and legal institutions.
About the Speaker:
Eve Warburton is a research fellow at the Department of Political and Social Change in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. She is also Director of ANU’s Indonesia Institute at the College of Asia and the Pacific. Her research is concerned broadly with problems of representation and governance in young and developing democracies, with a focus on Southeast Asia and Indonesia in particular.
Registration:
To attend the event in person, please register here.
To attend the event online, please register here.