INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2007: THE PRESIDENCY,LOCAL ELECTIONS AND THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY

This article begins by reviewing the politics of the presidency, including the relationship between the president, the political parties and the House of Representatives (DPR). Referring to survey data, it analyses the dynamics of public support for President Yudhoyono, and takes a preliminary look at the 2009 presidential election. It also discusses the manoeuvring between Indonesia's two largest parties, Golkar and PDI-P, in the context of recent debates in the DPR concerning a package of draft political laws.

Indonesia is undergoing continual reform with regard to local, as well as national, politics. The introduction of direct elections for heads of government at the local level is a major political development that may help accelerate democratic consolidation. Based on an examination of local election results, this article concludes that the advent of direct elections has fuelled the formation of unprecedented cross-ideological political alliances. It appears that the ideological polarisation of national politics is often no longer reflected in provincial and local politics.     

THE RISE AND FALL OF INDUSTRIALIZATION: THE CASE OF A SILK WEAVING DISTRICT IN MODERN JAPAN

The production of habutae, a simple silk fabric, expanded rapidly between 1890 and 1918 in Japan's Fukui Prefecture, with large exports to Europe and the United States. The production of habutae, initially woven by hand, was labour intensive, but it gradually became capital-intensive after the introduction of power looms. Production and export of this fabric declined precipitously from 1918. In this paper, we attribute the rise and then fall of Japan's production and export of habutae to its changing comparative advantage, which is associated with shifts from labour-using to capital-using production technology initiated in the United States.     

STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN INDONESIAN INDUSTRY AND TRADE: AN INPUT‐OUTPUT ANALYSIS

This study evaluates the current achievement of industrialization in Indonesia and clarifies what the major challenges are for sustaining industrialization. This is done by examining structural changes in the economy from the period before to the period after economic crisis using the method of input‐output (I‐O) analysis. After tracing the history of economic development in Indonesia, changes in industry and trade between 1995 and 2000 are viewed using skyline chart analysis, industrial linkage analysis, and growth‐factor decomposition analysis. Results indicate that from 1995 to 2000, the manufacturing industry expanded the share of production, strengthened export orientation, and lowered import dependency. However, these phenomena appear to have resulted primarily from slumps in growth factors other than export demand as well as sharp declines in the value of the rupiah. This study shows that the current decrease of investment is a bottleneck in industrialization and indicates an urgent need for Indonesia to improve the investment environment, particularly for foreign investors.     

INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2008: THE AMBIGUITIES OF DEMOCRATIC CHANGE

The ‘normal’ politics of 2008, in between the big electoral events of 2004 and 2009, illustrated the ambiguities of democratic change. Hung gubernatorial elections in North Maluku and South Sulawesi led local elites to ask Jakarta to intervene. A long campaign of demonstrations and violent intimidation by fundamentalist groups against the unorthodox Islamic group Ahmadiyah persuaded the government to impose a semi-ban on the group. At the same time, a senior intelligence officer was put on trial over the 2004 murder of the human rights activist Munir. And the Corruption Eradication Commission continued to arrest powerful people for corruption, although these arrests also began to stimulate increasingly organised resistance. All in all, politics in 2008 demonstrated an openness, and even a willingness to learn, that augurs well for the future.     

THE EUROMARKETS AND THE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT IN THE 1960S

The rapid development of the Euromarkets and the more gradual opening of the West German and other capital markets to external borrowers were significant events in the reglobalisation of financial markets beginning in the 1960s. Finding it increasingly difficult to borrow in the domestic British and US capital markets, the New Zealand government sought to take advantage of the Euromarkets. As well as providing an antipodean perspective on the early Euromarkets, this paper comments on developments in the City of London in the 1960s, and outlines the process by which a relatively inexperienced borrower set about building a communicating infrastructure that enabled relationships to be forged with overseas financial institutions.