 The Archipelagic Paradox Islands, Cities and the Modern State, 1808-2008Howard Dick ()
Economics and Finance in Indonesia, 2010, vol. 58, 37-55 Abstract: Indonesia has embraced the concept of an archipelagic state along with the implications for foreign policy. Yet, in the realm of domestic policy, there is still little substance. Transport and communications are fundamental to national integration yet suffer from a massive backlog of investment and chaotic regulation. This paper seeks to explain the lack of archipelagic thinking by combining historical and comparative perspectives. The main argument is that for two centuries state policy has sought not so much to integrate as to standardise the archipelago within a system of territorial administration that over-rode natural economic regions. This grand scheme has so far had only partial success but in the midst of this vast national construction site there has emerged one exemplary centre, the mega-city of Jakarta. Urbanisation has fundamentally altered Indonesia’s economic and political geography and there is much to be learned from European experience. Keywords: economic geography; territorial state; colonial bureaucracy; economic system (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lpe:efijnl:201002 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Economics and Finance in Indonesia from Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia Contact information at EDIRC. |
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