Interview #6: Ari A. Perdana

Ari A. Perdana is at the moment studying at University of Melbourne, Australia. In Indonesia he’s involved with CSIS as well as Economic Faculty of the University of Indonesia where he earned his degree in 1998. Ape has two masters degree, Master of Economics of Development dari Australian National University (2000) serta Master of Public Administration in International Development dari Harvard Kennedy School (2006).

Additionally, he also worked as consultant to the World Bank as well as writing for regular media. His main focus are issues on poverty and employment. Ape is a big football fan (Liverpool FC – !?!) as well as serving as the Executive Director in Centre for Celebrity Studies. He is living with two women – a lovely wife and a beautiful 3-year old daughter. You can find his notes on Facebook or on cafe salemba.

You have two masters degree, both in economics? What’s the difference?
As a matter of fact, my second master’s is in Public Administration. So it’s not economics, although substantially it was very heavy in economics, and I took mostly economic courses.
The difference, as the title speaks, the emphasis was more on the policy analysis, versus the more theoretical emphasis of the economics degree.

Back then during the “reformasi” song and dance, you were part of the student movement, how did you get involved?
I was a college student of the final/thesis year at that time, so I practically had not much to do except – supposedly – preparing for my skripsi. Around December ’97 and January ’98, the economy got worse, and political tension started to rise. Some fellow students outside Jakarta have already started doing protest on the street. The Jakartans were still calm, partly afraid, and partly ignorant.

Some fellow students in Jakarta area have been politically active in underground activisms. However, unlike them, I didn’t have a background in political activism. True, I was interested in politics, and I was somehow active in student organization. But it was not that kind of activism. But back in January ’98, I knew something big would happen to this country, and I would feel sorry if I didn’t get involved.

So I looked around to make contact with fellow students at UI. The university was in semester break, so not many students around, especially those from outside Jakarta. But I still met some friends from FISIP, Sastra and Teknik who have started some meetings. The meetings led to the then ‘Keluarga Besar UI’ or KBUI.
In February ‘98, after most of the students returned to campus, the group became more established, though we tried not to make KBUI a formal organization. I became the ‘Koordinator Fakultas (Korfak) Ekonomi’. Don’t worry about the title, but it sounds cool. My role was to coordinate and lead the mass from the Economics faculty.

That was how it started, and the rest was history.

Who came up with the phrase “Reformasi”?
I am not sure, but since the beginning, after the crisis started, the word ‘reformasi ekonomi’ has been widely used. I think because at that time, we could’t use the words ‘revolusi’ (revolution) and ‘suksesi’ (leadership change). The government would have the justification to crush the movement. So we hid them behind a softer word ‘reformasi.’ But what we had in mind was, clearly, to bring down Suharto and his cronies.
You were in FEUI, what was the general idea of ‘reform’ then?

At the beginning, there was a divergence of what was in people’s mind. Before the end of 1997, Suharto was still very powerful, and few people would bet he was going to step down (voluntarily or not). So, ‘reform’ at that time was about how to escape from the crisis and introducing a little bit of democracy.

But gradually, the idea converged. And even so since January 1998. There won’t be change or reform as long as Suharto stays. So ‘suksesi’ was the necessary condition for ‘reformasi.’ All the details can wait, but the first task is to get rid of Suharto.

You understand economy well. Looking at Indonesia now, how far is it from your thoughts then?
I’m always passionate about this country. Many friends of mine are pessimistic about Indonesia; that things are not improving much since Suharto fell down. This is not true. We now have democracy, free press, stronger institutions. In short, we have much of the prerequisites to further develop the economy.
But I agree, the room for improvement is still big. Poverty continues to go down, but it could have been faster. Labor relations can and should be improved, so are social indicators like health and education. Decentralization solved some of the problems, but at the same time created new ones. I am against re-centralization, but many issues related with decentralization need to be straightened up if we want to see improvements in those indicators.

I am not a good macroeconomist, so I can’t really comment on the macroeconomic indicators. But it’s difficult to get a good credit if we are neighbours with India and China, while in reality we are doing well.

I’m concerned with the lack of any serious debate on Indonesian economic policies these days. Outside politics, there’s almost no such thing as real public debates on important policies (banking policies, market deregulation, etc.) I think it’s because everybody who knows enough are too busy being desktop economist. What do you think?
I share this concern. I studied in the US, in a public policy school. There, when we discussed a policy, we also discussed how we can go to there, what are the constraints, what are the trade-offs, are there cheaper options that will generate the same impact, and so forth.

A good example is the current debate on health care reform. Obama wants to ensure everyone gets the access to health insurance. But what would happen to the insurance market? How to bring the cost down? These are the devils in details, but people do get in to the specifics.

Not that policy debates don’t happen in Indonesia, but when we go into the specifics, people tend to lose interests. People like to engage more in ideological debates: market economy alias neoliberalism alias Western-driven capitalism versus ‘ekonomi kerakyatan’, economic nationalism or whatever.

It is not true that people are too busy being desktop economists. The thing is many people don’t like to hear (mainstream) economists’ arguments, for whatever reason. Perhaps because we don’t sound heroic or sexy?
But I think we are going there. The quality of policy debates is improving, as I can see it. The economic issue during election campaign issue is a good indicator. In 1999, nobody knows what to say if it comes to economic policies, slightly better in 2004. This year, though still superficial, people are discussing what is neoliberalism, what’s wrong with ‘ekonomi kerakyatan.’ I think the level of debate will improve in the next election.

How do you see today’s university life in Indonesia?
I am only a part-time faculty member so my view may be different from my colleagues who are there full-time. But, as a simple summary, most of us want to be excellent, professional academics. We want to write as many academic papers, publish in the top journals. But we also want to earn our living. Most of the income are from consultancy works or projects and teaching, not ‘serious’ research.
Some colleagues may have established the reputation so they can afford to do serious research and earning a lot. But many other still don’t.

I don’t know much about the student life. I can see the era of street activism has passed. Some students still have a dream to replicate 1998, but things are different now. You can say bad things about the government in campus without fear of being kidnapped. And we have political parties to channel our political libido. So I’d say to my students, your challenge as a student is not to overthrow a government but how to be competitive. And that’s the reality.

Where are you now? What are you doing? When do you plan to come back to Indonesia?
Back to school – doing Ph.D. in Economics at The University of Melbourne, Australia. Still in my first year, doing courseworks. I still have some works in Indonesia, and should be doing some field works in Indonesia next year. As for a permanent return, that depends on, first, whether I survive my study. Second, if I do survive, how long I can finish my study. Third, what happens after that.

What would you do then?
Football commentator has always been my biggest dream. If it doesn’t work, being an economist doesn’t sound bad, does it?

Do you wear tie to work?
No – thank god I don’t have to.

Why is café salemba no longer funny?
Good question. Maybe because of our loyal customers, that Treespotter guy, doesn’t come as frequent as he used to. Perhaps we should consider hiring him…