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Why Cooperate? I ndonesia and Anti‐Maritime Terrorism Cooperation
Author(s) -
Febrica Senia
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
asian politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1943-0787
pISSN - 1943-0779
DOI - 10.1111/aspp.12162
Subject(s) - terrorism , elite , government (linguistics) , trait , business , chose , political science , international trade , law , politics , computer science , philosophy , linguistics , programming language
I ndonesia's cooperation in maritime security initiatives is vitally important because half of the world's trading goods and oil pass through I ndonesian waters including the S traits of M alacca, the S trait of S unda, and the S trait of L ombok. However, Indonesia has a mixed record of support for various initiatives led by the United States, joining certain arrangements but opting out of others. This article explains why by carrying out a comparative analysis of four maritime cooperation arrangements, using government documents and elite interviews in S outheast A sia. This article argues that I ndonesia's decision to cooperate is formed by the calculation of absolute gains. I ndonesia chose to cooperate whenever it saw that the benefits of cooperation exceeded the costs.