The Drivers of Government Megapolicies: Internal Settler Colonisation in Indonesia

Why do governments pursue megapolicies, or disproportionate investments in structural change? Megapolicies include large-scale welfare, agricultural improvement, and population resettlement programmes. They are puzzling because of their high costs. Governments could have pursued alternative policies, or the same policy in a more modest or incremental manner. This puzzle eludes current explanations, including of settler colonial megapolicies. Scholars of megaprojects—infrastructural, development, or research projects that are similarly of large scale—debate over how decision-makers estimate benefits and costs, but neglect alternatives, in pursuing megaprojects. Does megapolicy decision-making similarly involve estimates of benefits, costs, and alternatives? I use the critical realist method of transcendental argument to adapt this intuition to the megapolicy puzzle. I propose a model where governments, as situated in specific forms (states, nations, and regimes), depend on several sublimes (statehood, national community, regime stability) for their existence. Governments pursue policies that advance the interests (extracting resources, controlling territory, distributing goods) essential to these sublimes. Governments weigh such benefits against costs and the availability of substitutes. The rationalised utilities influence the governments’ policy ambitions and investments. An Indonesian case study illustrates how this model manifests in context-specific ways. Transmigration is the world’s largest and longest-running population resettlement programme and a megapolicy par excellence. I analyse archival sources on transmigration from the ISEAS Library and National Library of Australia. The case demonstrates how megapolicies arise when governments consistently rationalise the significant positive utilities of these policies. As in the ‘Malevolent Hand’ and ‘Iron Law’ driving megaprojects, megapolicies suffer from benefit shortfalls and cost overruns. However, decision-making is a process of rationalisation rather than estimation. Policies follow varied trajectories rather than the ‘break-fix’ pattern of megaprojects. We can adapt the model to other megapolicies, megaprojects, and governmental behaviours. Policymakers benefit from selectively pursuing megapolicies, communicating their rationale, and improving decision-making processes.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Teng, Wen Li

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Larsson, Tomas

• politics
• government
• megapolicies
• public policy
• settler colonisation
• internal colonisation
• Indonesia
• transmigration
• population resettlement

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/9f7dfd7d-e1d9-483b-a5e8-af0b012be83b/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.118336

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/384291