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Article Evaluation

The article deals with the degree of corruption in Indonesia. The country has been plagued by corruption and it has resulted in high economic and social costs. I lived in the country for about three years and during my time there, I could see the high degree of corruption. Unfortunately, the article fails to address the topic in a detailed manner. Very brief summary is given, some sections need more elaboration while some sections should be inserted.

The section ‘economic and social cost’ touches the topic but fails to give more information and instances of corruption. From the readings done in this course and outside the course material, I can put up so many examples and effectively explain the effects of corruption, social and economic, in Indonesia. The authors point on that interference in public laws and policies for personal gains have weakened the political competitiveness of the country. While this true, the authors should have given more information to show why this happens. Moreover, the article briefly mentions how poor get affected by corruption the most, but again no further explanation. For example, the poor get affected by corruption the most because they have to spend a large proportion of the income paying bribes to access health services. The section ‘Efforts to curb corruption’ presents two examples of initiatives taken in Indonesia, however, both were unsuccessful. Over the years, many other initiatives have been formed to end corruption. One example is, the Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, KPK).

Some viewpoints are underrepresented such as the entire wave of corruption during President Suharto time, it marked the beginning of using the public office for personal gains, no matter what the effects are. During our seminar discussions, we did talk about Corruption in Indonesia, we discussed the extent of corruption during Suharto’s time. It is not possible to talk about corruption in Indonesia without mentioning the name of Suharto. Additionally, we did talk about growth the negative effects of corruption in terms of social and economic costs and how they collectively lead to underdevelopment in Indonesia.