International assistance and state-university relations in Indonesia (1978--1998): Seeking autonomy within a bureaucratic polity

This dissertation investigates goals and efforts of international assistance to Indonesia's higher education from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, and explores how they have affected and responded to changing State-university relations in Indonesia over that period. In depth analysis of institutional documents over the years, interviews with key players and graphical analysis of existing quantitative data lead to the conclusion that international assistance in Indonesia facilitated and at times actively encouraged changing patterns of State-university relations from direct State control towards policies and steering mechanisms inducing increased institutional autonomy.;Case studies reveal empirical evidence of a mutually reinforcing dynamic involving donors and domestic reformers that had a profound impact on the way higher education is managed in Indonesia. International donor goals and ideologies about institutional capacity building---while often ambitious---responded surprisingly well to domestic and international contextual conditions and were picked up by actors supporting more decentralized decision making, and in the process helped develop domestic rationales for a changing government role. International assistance efforts have been instrumental in changing, expanding and diversifying the resource basis for higher education in general and of selected institutions specifically, and in building critical capacities at specific places within the system. Donors have helped create enabling conditions conducive to increasing autonomy at Indonesia's public universities. Regarding effects on institutional management and decision-making, however, the results have been mixed. On the one hand, the analysis of outcomes does indicate a prominent role of international assistance efforts in developing and in some cases implementing institutional strategies to diversify resources or to generate income, both of which are considered to be significant elements of financial autonomy. International donors, however, centered predominantly on planning and capacity strengthening activities directed at either the central level (i.e. national) or the level of the academic unit (i.e. faculty, department, study program) and overall have remained much less convincing at the institutional level.