Ecocracy and Public Policy: Reconfiguring Nickel Downstreaming in Indonesia's Economic Structural Transformation
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Abstract
Natural resource downstreaming policy became Indonesia's main economic transformation strategy. However, implementation triggers structural paradoxes and normative tensions between investment acceleration and the Green Constitution mandate. This research analyzes this transformation failure using a sociological approach through the lens of institutional governance and ecocracy principles. Results prove the policy is trapped in the hollow in the middle phenomenon, where absent midstream industries cause exports to be dominated by intermediate products. Defective licensing architectures create functional paralysis of state institutions, allowing foreign capital to operate without binding technology transfer obligations. Furthermore, asymmetrical power relations decentralize ecological burdens to local communities while centralizing corporate profits. This paper concludes the state must radically reconfigure its interventions. The offered solution is integrating absolute ecocracy clauses and mandatory technology transfers into licensing instruments to effectively ensure that economic sovereignty operates in perfect harmony with intergenerational environmental justice across the entire industrial supply chain ecosystem nationwide.
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