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The concept of Social Licence to Operate (SLO) has predominantly been applied in the extractives industry, and its understanding and application within forestry has been limited to date. Nevertheless, achieving an SLO is crucial for forest companies, especially given that forestry has long time horizons, high exposure to the global market, and many and varied stakeholders. We examine how forestry companies operating in Indonesia attempt to gain a SLO from their host communities. We analyse the roles of the three main stakeholder groups in forestry operations in Indonesia: companies, communities and governments. We specifically examine: (1) whether the concepts that underpin SLO (legitimacy, credibility, and trust) can be applied to the practices of the forest industry in Indonesia; (2) the general applicability of the SLO concept in the Indonesian context; and (3) what can be done to improve SLO practices in the Indonesian forest industry. We argue that obtaining and maintaining a SLO is an outcome of complex interactions between many factors and actors, rather than being the direct result of company actions. In the Indonesian context, SLO is a relative new and not fully understood or utilized concept. By examining two forestry companies operating in Central Kalimantan, we scrutinize the roles of companies, communities, and the local and central government in the governance of SLO to create a better understanding of this emerging concept.

Since the post-Suharto era in 1998, decentralization has been established as the major institutional reform in Indonesia. It has been implemented as the policy framework which aims not only to generate development but also to promote democratization through the establishment of direct elections for local executive leaders. In fact, promoting democracy by establishing local executive elections in Indonesia is challenging. The inability of national policy to adapt to the local customary practice creates a barrier in implementing the ideal concept of democracy, namely free and fair elections. This chapter addresses the problems of free and fair elections by examining the practice of the “noken” system in Papua, the name of a traditional bag which evolved as an election mechanism in several districts in Papua’s central highland area. This research utilizes eight indicators of free and fair elections to analyze the problems in every stage of election: before the election, on the election, and after the election. Based on the literature, policy-study, and data from newspaper articles, this research argues that the practice of noken system contravenes with the principles of democracy. The absence of law and regulation to standardize this customary practice becomes a major drawback in promoting democratic governance at the periphery region.

An exposure to international trade through an economic integration initiative potentially creates winners and losers at the domestic level. This chapter highlights the policy preferences and policy dialogues amongst stakeholders that shaped ASEAN economic integration within the automotive industry in Indonesia by tracing the economic integration process and critically reflects on the often-neglected competing interests, and policy agenda settings. Policy preferences are defined as state motivation to pursue economic integration on the regional level, while policy dialogue is a domestic political process that involves various groups namely internationalist and backlash coalitions. Focusing on the automotive industry as an illustrative case, this chapter utilizes the qualitative approach of process tracing as a strategy to collect the data from key interviewees (government and private sector). Given the low intra-trade interaction in ASEAN, the analysis suggests that economic interdependence in sector-specific trade as the main driving force constructing policy preference. By eliminating trade barriers in the automotive industry, political elites aim to transfer domestic policy preferences to the regional level in order to secure domestic support through wealth-creation. Integrated ASEAN economies could contribute significantly to the development of the automotive industry with crucial improvements for a member country's income per-capita. The policy dialogue process traced shows that Indonesian domestic political-economic interaction was in diverged opinions between the internationalists that fully support integration and the backlash that approach economic integration cautiously. The latter perceived non-tariff barriers as an acceptable strategy to protect the domestic economic interest. However, both actors' strategies are constrained by their power, authority, as well as bargaining over the needs to address certain internal and external issues.

Financial inclusion, defined as the proportion of individuals and firms making use of formal financial services, has become a central theme in discussions about how to achieve so-called inclusive development. Inclusive development refers to striving for equal development of all individuals, particularly including marginal- ized (that is the very poor) groups. According to many, financial inclusion plays an important role in achieving inclusive development. Unequal access to financial ser- vices can exclude people from the process of economic growth. This chapter studies the role of financial inclusion in the development process, taking a cross-country perspective in South East Asia as well as an interregional perspective using data from Indonesia. We first develop a conceptual model, linking financial inclusion operationalized as bank branch access, to economic growth. Based on this concep- tual model, the empirical part of our analysis consists of three sections. First, we use an Asian cross-country comparison to enrich our understanding of the main patterns of financial inclusion and inclusive growth. Second, turning to the case of Indonesia, we first discuss the processes of restructuring and regionalization of the banking sector. These processes have led to substantial changes in access to banking ser- vices, particularly in nonurban areas. Third, we provide econometric evidence on the relationship between regional access to bank branches and regional economic development, demonstrating that financial inclusion is associated with per capita economic output at the provincial level. The Indonesian regional analysis relies on a panel regression of 33 provinces over 5 years (2011–2015). We find that financial access is significantly and positively associated with the regional economic level of development in Indonesia, controlling for the general economic circumstances and development level of the region. These results suggest there is a definite challenge for the g

Since the post-Suharto era in 1998, decentralization has been established as the major institutional reform in Indonesia. It has been implemented as the policy framework which aims not only to generate development but also to promote democratization through the establishment of direct elections for local executive leaders. In fact, promoting democracy by establishing local executive elections in Indonesia is challenging. The inability of national policy to adapt to the local customary practice creates a barrier in implementing the ideal concept of democracy, namely free and fair elections. This chapter addresses the problems of free and fair elections by examining the practice of the “noken” system in Papua, the name of a traditional bag which evolved as an election mechanism in several districts in Papua’s central highland area. This research utilizes eight indicators of free and fair elections to analyze the problems in every stage of election: before the election, on the election, and after the election. Based on the literature, policy-study, and data from newspaper articles, this research argues that the practice of noken system contravenes with the principles of democracy. The absence of law and regulation to standardize this customary practice becomes a major drawback in promoting democratic governance at the periphery region.