Problem or potential? Indonesia's new law on youth

This research critically examines the Indonesian Law on Youth and the academic text that accompanies it. It applies a Foucauldian ‘working hypothesis’ of ‘governmentality’ to problematize the two documents as state non-coercive attempt to ‘govern’ youth. ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’ and the Foucauldian historical investigation are used to analyze the two documents and the broader socio-historical contexts that shape them. The analysis divides Indonesia in three historical period: the post-Independence, the New Order and the post-Soeharto to trace the ways in which the ‘governance’ of youth has evolved along with the state’s ‘logic of government’. It focuses on the interplay between the broader neo-liberal agenda and the dynamics of domestic politic as the important contexts that shape the ‘governance’ of youth in post-Soeharto period. The key findings are divided into two parts. Firstly, the historical inves-tigation revealed the contending interests of various actors and institutions that shaped the ‘governance’ of youth in post-Soeharto period. This era is characterized by the legacies of the authoritarian regime, the stronger influence of neo-liberal agenda and the emergence of new elites at the national and local level. Secondly, the text analysis discovered the manifestations of these dynamics in shaping the ‘governance’ of Indonesian youth in the Law on Youth and the academic text that accompanies it. The two documents constantly portray youth as “potential human resources” who face “challenges” to realize their potentials. The Law itself is designated to deliver “youth development” to facilitate youth to realize their “potentials” and address their “challenge”. How-ever, “youth development” appears to reflect the attempt to ‘conduct the conduct’ of youth.