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The purpose of this study was to analyze whether the Indonesian government uses social media to establish a dialogue with its public and to participate in a new public sphere facilitated by the Internet. A mixed-method approach of social network analysis(SNA), a survey, and focus group discussions were used to examine the Indonesian government communication model performed on social media, based on the symmetrical communication theory of public relations (Grunig & Grunig, 1992). A network analysis of the Indonesian government’s social media conversation in daily communication, campaign communication, organizational crisis, and emergency communication (Mergel 2017) shows that two-way symmetrical communication has been implemented in a limited way. Two-way communication is performed only in daily communication when answering questions related to government services. A survey of the Indonesian government’s social media officials (n= 252) at the ministry level revealed that the predominant model of government communication is one way communication in the form of disseminating positive information about the government and obtaining public attention. Additional models included two-way symmetrical communication, two-way asymmetrical communication, and the practice of dominating conversation. A regression analysis revealed that government PR practices on social media was influenced by the government’s social media officials’ knowledge of symmetrical communication, their positions in the organization, and the number of workshops they attended in the previous year. Focus group discussions of three government stakeholders—journalists, NGO workers, and communication professionals—confirmed the SNA and survey finding. It also revealed that dialogue between the government and its citizens occurred only when government was harshly criticized on social media. Additionally, the Indonesian government applied strategic activities to counter criticism by deleting negative comments as well as by using social media teams to spread and amplify government information or messages. This study shows that advanced communication technology was mainly used to serve the government’s interests in dominating conversation, forming public opinion, and countering criticisms on social media. Hence, the new public sphere, facilitated by the Internet, can be considered as just an illusion created by the Indonesian government via their policies and regulations to be actively using social media as public communication channels.

Indonesia is a large energy user, with energy supply heavily based on fossil fuels and with a long history of subsidies to energy use. The Indonesian Government has set out to make the country more energy-efficient, in the process reducing energy use per unit of real GDP (energy intensity), while reducing the reliance on fossil fuels. To contribute to improved policy development, this study attempts to identify the determinants of the changes in energy intensity across industries and relative to other countries in Indonesia's region and analyse the factors that affect energy efficiency. To support this process, this thesis sets out to analyse changing trends in energy intensity in Indonesia relative to its ASEAN neighbours, to improve understanding of changes in energy use and energy intensity in key industries within Indonesia, to document variations in energy intensity across Indonesia’s 34 provinces and to draw from these analyses some lessons about the future direction of energy policies in Indonesia. The analysis is based on final energy consumption rather than total final energy supply, and hence excludes energy used in the production of final energy. It draws mainly on data on real value-added and energy consumption by industry from various sources. The analysis also relies heavily on decomposition analysis, enabling the change in energy intensity to be split between changes in the structure of economic activity and changes in the within-industry energy intensity. The first research problem compares the energy intensity performance in Indonesia to other ASEAN-6 countries from 1971 to 2016. In terms of structure and industry effects on aggregate energy intensity, all the ASEAN-6 countries showed a shift in industry value added to more energy-intensive industries, which was to varying degrees offset by falling within-industry energy intensity. However, the analysis shows that both element of this trend was most pronounced in Indonesia. As the energy intensity of manufacturing and, particularly, transport, is much higher than that of the rest of the economy, by 2016 over 90% of total final energy consumption was from the manufacturing and transport sectors. For this reason, this study concentrates more detailed analysis on the manufacturing sector and transport sector. The second research problem discusses energy intensity in the manufacturing sector from 1980 to 2015. The overall energy intensity of Indonesia’s manufacturing sectors has seen a strong and continuous decline, with a reduction of 65% over the 35 years, reinforced by some limited changes in industry structure towards lower intensity. Over the whole period, this reduction was dominated by increases in energy efficiency within industries, as indicated by a 62% fall in the within-industry intensive index. By contrast, the effect of moving to a less intensive industry structure was much less important (a 9% fall in the structural index). The greatest rise in energy efficiency within the industry happened before the Financial Crisis (from 1980 to 97). The shock of the Financial Crisis saw an unexpected reaction when value-added fell by 13% but energy use remained largely unchanged, implying a rise in energy intensity. From 2000 to 2015 the earlier trends resumed, but at a more subdued pace, where over this period aggregate intensity fell by 23%. The third research problem presents a review of energy intensity in the transportation sector from 2000 to 2016. Energy use in transport grew more slowly than overall energy use in Indonesia for about 30 years after 1971, falling from 58% of the total in 1971 to only 38% in 2000, but since surged back to 51% by 2016. Over 2000 to 2016 total final energy consumption in transport has grown by 10% per annum so that transport now provides a large and rapidly growing component of total energy use. In 2016, almost all passenger kilometres are travelled on roads (95.6%), with virtually no rail (0.5%) or water (0.3%) passenger travel, but with a small but rising share of air travel (3.6%). Rail is also absent in freight movements in Indonesia, accounting for only 0.2% of total tonne-kilometre movements in 2016, which are mainly divided between road for 41.1% and water for 53.6% in 2016, although air freight is rising rapidly, reaching 5.0% in 2016. The fourth research problem investigates the disparities of energy usage levels specifically in energy intensity amongst 33 provinces in Indonesia from 2010 to 2015. The results capture the existence of a convergence process and the shrinking in energy usage disparities across the 33 provinces in Indonesia from 2010 to 2015. In addition to the inequality measures, the decomposition analysis was also applied to explore the driving forces of the energy intensity across provinces in Indonesia. The results show that the structural effect was the main factor resulting in the increase in energy intensity in most provinces, while the role of intensity effect has differed in different provinces. Regarding policy in the transport sector, the government needs to encourage rail, discourage air and continue to focus on the reduced energy intensity of road (prices, vehicle technology, and better roads). In freight, the central dynamic over 2000 to 2016 has been the modal shift from the energy-efficient water and rail to road and air. Energy efficiency policy should encourage continued freight movements by water, discourage the rise of air freight and encourage rail developments. By comparison with transport, manufacturing has seen, over the period since 1971, a steady fall in overall energy intensity, and this has continued after 2000. This has been due to strong declines in within-industry energy-intensive, with falling energy intensity across most industries at the three-digit level, and some structural changes (such as the falling share of value- added in the high energy using cement and lime sector) and more general industry upgrading. Continued attention to the modernisation of industrial technologies and structure seems necessary.

This thesis explores the historical development of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Indonesia. Existing literature in the field is influenced by experiences in Western liberal democracies, where pressure from internal stakeholders leads to what is called a “bottom-up” approach; pressure that leads firms engaging in CSR for voluntary rather than mandated reasons. However, this research found that the adoption of CSR in Indonesia did not follow this Western trajectory. Instead, CSR developed from a “top-down” approach where the Indonesian Government acted as the key driver of change. Reflecting this, the enactment of the Company Act 2007 made Indonesia the first country in the world to explicitly require every company to undertake CSR activities. In exploring this unusual policy outcome, this research sought answers to the following research question: Do theories about CSR that stem from Western democratic societies, which typically depict the drivers of CSR activity coming from below – with the company then voluntarily devising their own strategic CSR response – apply in developing societies? In exploring answers to this question, this thesis adopts a historical approach, considering the changing role of the Indonesian government since 1945 with particular attention paid to the so-called New Order era (1965-98) and the Reformation era (1998-2015). This case study answers the questions utilising legitimacy theory, institutional theory, and stakeholder theory through analysis of relevant regulations, official statistics, document analysis interviews with key stakeholders, and analysis of company Annual Reports. This research found that at first, the Indonesian government initiated CSR activities through the policies pursued by State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) that have occupied a disproportionately important role in the Indonesia economy. Under the New Order era, CSR policies were mainly directed towards improving economic and social outcomes in agriculture, where Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) were the norm. As part of their activities, all SOEs were legally required to assist SMEs. The Indonesian government, both directly and indirectly, through the SOEs, was also the driver behind the extension of CSR to the local levels through measures directed towards the formation and operation of farm-based cooperatives. Under the Reformation era, however, the focus shifted to a legislative mandate. Since the issuance of Law No. 20/2008, all SOEs are required to perform social activities in accordance with the Partnership and Community Development Program or “Program Kemitraan dan Bina Lingkungan” (PKBL). As the Program’s title suggests, PKBL involves SOEs entering into “partnerships” with mostly small enterprises (mainly micro-enterprises). Since 2007, with the issuance of the Company Act, the Indonesian government has also required privately-owned firms to engage in CSR. As stated in the Indonesian Financial Accounting Standard (PSAK), all companies listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) must disclose their CSR activities in their Annual Reports. However, in examining the companies’ Annual Reports, this thesis found that only 401 of the 530 listed companies actually disclosed CSR activities in their Reports. Moreover, this research found that 90 percent of companies undertaking CSR activities were actually engaged in what can best considered as philanthropic forms of community development that are unlikely to have any transformative effect. Accordingly, this thesis concludes that although the Indonesian government has acted as the primary driver of CSR within the country, the benefits that are accruing at this stage are sub-optimal. This thesis found that whereas research performed in Western democratic societies has focused on the influence of salient stakeholder in CSR activities, in Indonesia the power of stakeholder may not influence the company if the company has political connections that can mitigate this stakeholder power. Less powerful stakeholders may become beneficial to the company if a stakeholder can align itself with the company’s interest, such as building their reputation or gaining local acceptance. The findings of this study contribute significantly to the extant research base on the development of CSR in Indonesia. An understanding of the Indonesian government’s social responsibility role helps fill the comparative void in the CSR historical literature dealing with developing societies.

This thesis examined the extent and the manner of the gender mainstreaming policy implementation in three Islamic primary schools in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It investigated the commitment, gender ideology and practices of policy makers, school principals, teachers, and the school committees. Furthermore, the thesis analyzed gender roles depiction in the primary school textbooks as well as investigated the students‘ perception of gender roles.