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Disaster capitalism? Examining the politicisation of land subsidence crisis in pushing Jakarta’s seawall megaproject

Octavianti, T; Charles, K

Disaster capitalism? Examining the politicisation of land subsidence crisis in pushing Jakarta’s seawall megaproject Thumbnail


Authors

K Charles



Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of 'disaster capitalism', in which fear of disaster is exploited to facilitate the entry of a capitalist project, with regard to Jakarta’s flood policy. After a major flood hit the city in 2013, the Indonesian government launched a flagship megaproject, the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development (NCICD), as the solution for the city’s sinking problem. The plan involves closing Jakarta Bay by means of a 32-kilometre offshore sea wall and reclaiming 5100 hectares (ha) of land. Following a corruption scandal in a related reclamation project (for 17 artificial islands), the NCICD plan was evaluated for six months in 2016. Although many criticisms of the plan surfaced during the evaluation period, they were not able to bring about radical change, i.e. cancellation of the project. Informed by the concept of 'critical juncture' (an analytical approach focusing on a short period of time in which actors’ decisions have a higher probability of affecting a particular outcome), we analyse the extent to which the framing of the sinking crisis by political actors can explain such a 'near-miss' critical juncture, where change is both possible and plausible but not achieved. Drawing data from newspaper discourse, interviews, and policy documents, we find that the project’s proponents have eloquently framed the sinking crisis in order to ensure preference for the seawall policy, including the project concerning the 17 islands that was claimed by the critics as the capitalist part of the project. It can be concluded that the 'disaster capitalism' notion helps understand this 'near-miss' outcome.

Citation

Octavianti, T., & Charles, K. (2018). Disaster capitalism? Examining the politicisation of land subsidence crisis in pushing Jakarta’s seawall megaproject. Water Alternatives, 11(2), 394-420

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 29, 2018
Online Publication Date Jun 1, 2018
Publication Date Jun 1, 2018
Deposit Date Feb 8, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Disaster Capitalism? Examining the Politicisation of Land Subsidence Crisis in Pushing Jakarta’s Seawall Megaproject
Print ISSN 1965-0175
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 11
Issue 2
Pages 394-420
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/867241
Publisher URL http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/tp1-2/1903-vol11/333-issue11-2
Related Public URLs http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol11/v11issue2/443-a11-2-10/file

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