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Scrutinising Nusantara: the making of an authoritarian city

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  • Amir, Sulfikar

Abstract

In August 2019, Indonesian President Joko Widodo unexpectedly announced the plan to build a new capital called Nusantara. It will relocate the capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan by 2024. This paper critically examines Indonesia’s ambition to build Nusantara within a short time. In this paper, a narrative policy framework is applied to unpack the core reasons and assumptions that underpin Widodo’s adamant decision to carry out a large-scale urban project of the new capital despite social and financial constraints. By interrogating two fundamental fallacies underlying the Nusantara project, in the rationales and the construction process, I show how the new capital project is deeply problematic. The notion of techno-nationalist urbanism is proposed to underline the contradiction in the logic and rationality of Nusantara’s urban system as a result of authoritarian symptoms. Further, the paper links Nusantara to the nature of power embodied in Widodo’s strong desire for a legacy and its impact on Indonesian democracy in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Amir, Sulfikar, 2023. "Scrutinising Nusantara: the making of an authoritarian city," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119201, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:119201
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/119201/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    capital relocation; Nusantara; techno-nationalist urbanism; authoritarianism; Indonesia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment

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