Mr Muhamad Arif1
1School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Biography:
Muhamad Arif is a PhD Candidate at the School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, researching Indonesia’s maritime strategy in the South China Sea. Since 2016, he has also been affiliated with the Department of International Relations at Universitas Indonesia. In 2024, he was awarded the Blue Security Fellowship at La Trobe University. His research interests include the intersection of domestic politics and foreign policy, maritime security, and strategic culture. His work has been published in Contemporary Southeast Asia, Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, and Melbourne Asia Review.
Abstract:
This research examines the changes and continuities in Indonesia’s strategy toward the South China Sea (SCS) disputes, focusing on the past two decades of leadership under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–14) and President Joko Widodo (2014–24). Indonesia’s responses have varied across time, ranging from assertive diplomatic activism and restrained coercion to passive or unilateral approaches. Existing literature on Indonesian foreign policy struggles to explain this variation. Structural realism cannot account for why Indonesia adopted different strategies despite similar strategic environments (e.g., during Yudhoyono’s second administration and Jokowi’s first). Similarly, domestic-centred analyses, such as those focusing on leaders’ idiosyncrasies, fail to explain why the same leaders pursued different approaches (e.g., Yudhoyono’s first vs. second administration or Jokowi’s policies before and after 2016). To address these gaps, this research employs a neoclassical realist framework. By defining strategy as the use of varying combinations of foreign policy tools – diplomacy and coercion – this study tests the validity of the Threat Perception-Domestic Politics model. It argues that the interplay between threat perception (high or low) and domestic political conditions (constrained or permissive) shaped Indonesia’s approaches to the SCS disputes. This research contributes to the growing, yet still limited and under-theorised, study of Indonesian foreign policy. As Southeast Asia’s largest country and informal leader, Indonesia’s behaviour in the SCS significantly influences the conflict’s dynamics. Understanding its strategy is therefore of practical importance for maintaining regional stability.