The Regime and the Airplane: High Technology and Nationalism in Indonesia

This article discusses high-technology development in Indonesia. Focusing on the Indonesian Aircraft Industry (IPTN), it critically examines how nationalism becomes an impetus for technological development and addresses the implications of nationalism in the pursuit of high technology. Situated in the NewOrder regime, influential elements of the regime’s economic and political systems that accommodate the idea of technological leapfrog are traced. It is argued that the failure of the leapfrog idea is because of overreliance on a technological determinist view and the practice of strong technocracy. Furthermore, it is posited that technological nationalism is a rhetorical strategy used by technological elites to legitimate the high-technology policy and to absorb ample economic and political resources that unexpectedly produce farreaching implications in society.