Academics in public office as policy entrepreneurs: their important role in Indonesia’s administrative reform

Indonesia has a tradition in recruiting a particular ‘species’ ofpolicy entrepreneur, mentioned in the present article asAcademic Administrative Entrepreneurs (AAEs). AAE is defined asa university professor who is employed into public office due totheir expertise in specific policy areas and their access to variousforms of knowledge, social, and political capital. AAEs investigatedin this study were instrumental in leading and managing nationaladministrative reform policy in post-authoritarian Indonesia (1998-onwards). This article explores how AAEs start and initiate thereform agenda, identifies what resources they invest, challengesand barriers they encountered, and their effectiveness in leadingand managing change. Based on a series of interviews with AAEsand their colleagues, it is observed that AAEs are qualified to beidentified as a policy entrepreneurs as they meet essential ele-ments required where the balance of knowledge, political andsocial capital and good timing in relation to the political salienceof their expertise enable them influence processes of administra-tive reform. However, they tended to be more effective on incre-mental change which contains little political risk where it is notedthat the context of transition to democracy works as an importantantecedent condition of their effectiveness.