Elite role conceptions and Indonesia’s agency in the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific: reclaiming leadership

Abstract

In June 2019, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) issued a shared regional vision, the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). The document ended a debate about how to respond to the concept of the Indo-Pacific, the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy, and new additions to regional security architecture, especially the Quad. Indonesia, traditionally a leading voice in ASEAN, exerted significant diplomatic capital developing and securing agreement on the AOIP after a period of diminished leadership from the organisation. Dominant explanations for this behaviour cannot fully address why the country led in constructing AOIP despite what most analysts agree was the disengagement of President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo (2014 -) from foreign policy. Developing an original ‘role integration’ model, this article argues that Indonesia was able to lead on AOIP because President Jokowi’s preference for maritime cooperation and economic diplomacy integrated with the Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s efforts to maintain ASEAN unity and centrality in this instance. The findings of this research offer both new empirical insights into the domestic decision-making processes that shaped Indonesia’s agency in AOIP and add to the role theory literature by shifting the analytical focus from domestic contestation to cooperative dynamics that can shape the national role conception.