Regulatory States in the South: Can they Exist and Do We Want them? The Case of the Indonesian Power Sector

Abstract

The last 30 years or so have witnessed a near revolution in the form, function, extent, role, and practices of the modern nation-state — at least the Western nation-state.’ The state as the ultimate, all-encompassing entity that designs, finances, owns, manages, and delivers various services directly to the public has withered. Central planning, state-led development, and the state as co-ordinator and orchestrator of economic and social innovation are now artefacts of a bygone era. The “interventionist” Keynesian welfare state along with its extensive bureaucracies and command and control governance mechanisms has been progressively dismantled, while its footprint on the economic life of the state has been massively downsized. In the space of a single generation, we have witnessed one of the great transformations of the modern era: the death of the “interventionist” state and the rise of the “regulatory state” (Hood et al. 1999; Majone 1999: 1; Levi-Faur 2005).