Donald K. Emmerson
Director, Southeast Asia Forum
Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University
Garuda Rising, Black Swan Waiting: Economic and Political Futures of Indonesia
6 June 2011
Having weathered the American Financial Crisis of 2008 relatively unscathed, Indonesia is doing well economically. Alongside an expected annual GDP growth of at least six percent in 2011 and 2012, exports have risen while unemployment has declined. Inflows of FDI have increased sharply as investment advisers have included Indonesia in emerging-market coinages such as MIST, CIVETS, and the “Next Eleven.”
Indonesian politics are stable. Occasional instances of religious bigotry and terrorist intent are notable not as omens of greater turmoil to come, but as outliers unlikely to reverse established habits of peaceful accommodation.
Radical Islamism is politically unpopular. Papuan resentments continue but appear containable. Corruption is endemic but not catastrophic. Exceptions to civilian control of the military are few. Democracy is becoming—some say it has become—“the only game in town.”
Drawing on his research on and experience in Indonesia, Professor Emmerson will assess the arc of the garuda as she tries to fly still higher and farther. He will also discuss the chance that a black swan – an unexpected but consequential future event – may be waiting for the time to arrive when it will thwart Indonesia’s trajectory of success.
About The Speaker
Emmerson is the director of Southeast Asia Forum in Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Stanford University. Since joining Stanford in 1999, he has taken part in various working groups on U.S.-Asian relations including a SEAF-cosponsored National Commission on U.S.-Indonesian Relations. The Commission's report led to Congressional hearings and an executive-branch initiative to assist Indonesian education. Emmerson has also testified before Congress on Asian affairs on several occasions.
Emmerson was honored by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodow Wilson International Center for Scholars with a two-year research associateship awarded to “top scholars from across the United States” who “have successfully bridged the gap between the academy and policy.”
In 2011 he joined other specialists in Canberra at a conference to examine the foreign policy of democratic Indonesia. In 2010 he advised Appleseed Entertainment on the filming of a documentary on Indonesian democracy. His research interests include Southeast Asia; ASEAN; Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore; Islamism; the Muslim world; regionalism; democratization; U.S. foreign policy; and the sociology of scholarly knowledge.
Emmerson has a PhD in political science from Yale University and a BA in international affairs from Princeton University. His doctoral dissertation was published as Indonesia’s Elite: Political Culture and Cultural Politics. Read More (Appendix 1)