Defending Foreign Policy at Home: Indonesia and the ASEAN-Based Free Trade Agreements

Abstract

Scholars have devoted little attention to foreign policy motive of Indonesia’s free trade agreement (FTA) policy. This article finds that, under competitive international pressure, Indonesia has instrumentalised some FTAs to serve its “Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-first” foreign policy, specifically to ensure the geopolitical and geoeconomic relevance of ASEAN. Three FTAs display this motive: the ASEAN Free Trade Area, later extended to the ASEAN Economic Community, the ASEAN–China FTA, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Domestically, the pro-ASEAN group has supported this motive against other influential domestic actors, especially the nationalist and the pro-liberalisation groups. However, diffused political authority has led to an inconsistent FTA policy across various trade policymaking phases. The “pro-ASEAN” FTA policy has been relatively stronger in both the negotiation and ratification, but substantially weaker in the implementation phases.