Indonesia���s Engagement with Africa

<p>This book provides a comprehensive study of Indonesia's contemporary foreign policy engagement with Africa highlighting the archipelago���s recent reawakening to the continent. It explores thoughts on Afro-Asian relations in general and their future in the changing geopolitical context. It provides a vision of Indonesia���s foreign policy and political situation at the highest level of leadership. It places Indonesia in a multi-comparison context which helps us reconsider Indonesia today and widens our views on Indonesia���s needs to be better known through new perspectives and voices able to better convey the realities of its polity aspirations and complexities. It proposes through the study of Indonesia���s African endeavour to better grasp the contemporary Indonesian <i>Zeitgeist</i> and <i>Weltanschauung</i>. It also analyses the political power alliance formed by President Jokowi and former General Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan leading a state-led developmentthrough state capitalism mobilising State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The Bandung Conference host aspires to project its domestic development achievements towards Africa focusing on Africa for Africa and not merely as part of a sometimes-abstract Afro-Asian discourse. Nonetheless Afro-Asianism continues to be mobilised to facilitate market penetration and serve domestic interests.</p><p>The book shows how Indonesia���s foreign policy toward Africa relates to domestic political contestation and consolidation political legacy and commodity-based industrial policy and Chinese and ���China in Africa��� networks and ideational influence foremost among other networks of influence in the Jokowi era. The book also underlines how Indonesia���s knowledge production and academic deficiencies negatively impact its foreign policy capabilities notably as a potential robust alternative partner for Africa. It will be beneficial for students academicians researchers and diplomats. </p>