Defending developmentalism: Indonesia and the politics of the New International Economic Order, 1974–2024

Fifty years after its adoption in 1974, there has been a surge in scholarly and political interest in reviving the New International Economic Order (NIEO) in the contemporary global political economy. This article assesses the legacies of the NIEO by looking at Indonesia’s responses to the NIEO during and after its adoption. We argue that Indonesia’s position towards the NIEO has been characterised by ambivalence, which reflects an intention to defend developmentalism, which has become the main feature of Indonesia’s conception of international economic order since the New Order, and an aspiration to bridge the Global South and the Global North. Indonesia supported the NIEO primarily to defend its extractive developmentalism at home. Nevertheless, Indonesia has re-articulated elements of NIEO in its proposal for “a new world order” to defend its industrial downstreaming policies. This assessment brings lessons to understand the legacies of NIEO for the contemporary international economic order.