ABSTRACT
The conditions that led to more effective industrial pollution management in Singapore and Taiwan appear to have been largely absent from New Order Indonesia. Before the collapse of the New Order government, intense international pressure on the Indonesian government from the donor community and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to reform its environmentally destructive forest policies fell on deaf ears. 1 The same might be said of international pressure to improve industrial pollution management. 2 A deep-seated mistrust of markets and foreign investment—alongside a large domestic market that made it possible for the government to sustain its promotion of import-substitution industries, even while it was promoting exports—appears to have limited the effect of international environmental market pressure on domestic producers. 3 Indonesia has a low per capita income; a fairly small industrial sector (until recently); a relatively small educated urban middle class; and an authoritarian government that controls the media and independent organizations in civil society. All of these factors contributed to the lack of public pressure to clean up the environment (World Bank 1994a, 173). 4 And each factor was reinforced by pervasive patrimonial networks between high-ranking government and military officials and big business that made it difficult for the New Order government to achieve a consensus on pollution management. 5
