Articles/Essays/Notes

Where is my compassion?

Reflections 14 years after the Asian Tsunami

In 2004 and 2005, in addition to running my consultancy firm, I also moonlighted – quite literally – as a copy editor at The Jakarta Post. This me...

Escape at 14

A nothing story

I was 14, a quiet boy living in an outer suburb of a small and isolated city called Perth1, in a large and remote state called Western Australia, in a...

Indonesian Land Law and Foreign Ownership of Land

Indonesian Land Law is quite different to the laws that apply in most Western or developed countries. Foreigners wishing to use or purchase land for w...

An Ungrateful Australian

On Tuesday, 17 December 2002, BM wrote: I think, on balance, that if I am to be ruled, I would much rather be ruled by complete fucking moron civilian...

Culture Matters in Indonesia

An email exchange with Dennis De Tray, Indonesia country director, World Bank 1997-1999

> The views contained within this article are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect past or present opinions or policies of any other person ...

Ethno-Religious Conflict in Maluku

A manufactured war

> "Tragically again, of the approximately 20 Christians who were killed [by Muslims] in the village of Benteng Karang, 15 of them were them were burnt...

Australia's Place and Influence in Asia

Since the very beginning of a notion called 'Australia' some 200 years ago the European occupiers of this continent have rarely felt at peace with its...

The role of FDI in the development of Singapore

A model development path?

The rapid economic development of the NIEs (Hongkong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) over the past three decades has necessitated the utilisation...

The Myth of the Jakarta Lobby

Brian Toohey's article, "Time to rout the Jakarta Lobby", was published in The West Australian on 27 September 1999, just four weeks after t...

The New Order State and the Tempo Affair

A conflict of values

The sun began to set upon Indonesia's corporatist 'New Order' state starting in the early 1990's. Speculation about the presidential succession was ri...

East Asia and the Roots of the Economic Crisis

From a Western perspective

The past two decades or so has witnessed the increasing dominance of neoliberal perspectives within international political, social and economic think...

Indonesia's Economic Development

in comparison to South Korea and Taiwan

The rapid pace of economic development in East Asia over the past few decades has awed the world. This is particularly so for the so-called Newly Indu...

Security and Australia's involvement in the world

Australians have always felt uncertain about their place in the world.  As a transplanted, predominantly European, society situated within Asia, ...

The Development of Australian Foreign Policy

It only been these past few decades that Australia has begun to pursue a relatively independent foreign policy, from under the shadows Britain and the...

The Importance and Consequences of Trade in Southeast Asia

until 1870

To trade is human. Like the ability to communicate abstract ideas, trade is one of those activities that differentiates Homo sapiens from the rest of ...

The development and future of the nation-state

Humanity's political 'state of nature' has characteristically been defined in terms of small, nomadic family groups with little need for complex organ...

Globalisation and the Nation-State

It is frequently alleged that the nation-state in the 1990's is at a precarious moment of history, poised to somehow inevitably disintegrate under the...

Analysing the end of Suharto's Indonesia

The role of culture in Indonesian politics

The incantations and vocabulary of the new era are rapidly taking hold in Indonesia since the fall of Suharto and his New Order regime. KKN, reformasi...

Globalisasi, Kedaulatan Nasional dan Konflik Masa Depan

Gary Dean (Universitas Gadjah Mada, NIM 96/111909/EK/13500) Yogyakarta, Desember 1997 Selama dasawarsa belakangan ini kata 'globalisasi' secara berang...