Vedi R. Hadiz is an Indonesian political sociologist. He is known for research on the political economy of development,oligarchic power,and the relationship between religion and politics,with a particular focus on Indonesia and comparative cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
He is Professor of Asian Studies at the Asia Institute and a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the University of Melbourne.[1] He has held senior leadership roles at the university,including Director of the Asia Institute.[2]
Hadiz has held academic appointments in Australia and Singapore. This includes the appointments at Murdoch University’s Asia Research Centre,the National University of Singapore,as well as his later move to the University of Melbourne.[1][2]
He is an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and has been profiled by the Academy in coverage of research recognition lists,describing his field as political economy and political sociology with a focus on Indonesia and Southeast Asia.[3]
Research
Hadiz's research has explored the organisation and reproduction of political and economic power in post-authoritarian contexts. The idea that institutional reforms—including decentralisation initiatives that are frequently marketed as "good governance"—should be examined as part of larger social power dynamics rather than as essentially technical policy design is a recurrent theme in published scholarly discussions of his work.[citation needed]
His book Localising Power in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia:A Southeast Asia Perspective (2010) develops this argument through case-based analysis of local political dynamics after the fall of Indonesia’s New Order regime. In a review in Social Forces,the book’s main contribution is described as a critique of “technical”understandings of decentralisation that overlook entrenched power relations and the persistence of pre-reform political forces after 1998. [4] A review in Bijdragen tot de Taal-,Land- en Volkenkunde discusses the book’s argument that local political competition and institutional change can reproduce older elite configurations rather than necessarily displacing them.[5]
Hadiz is also known for work on oligarchy and political economy in Indonesia,including co-authored research on the reorganisation of elite power after the fall of Suharto. A review of Reorganising Power in Indonesia:The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets (2004,with Richard Robison) in International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (Oxford Academic) treats the book as a major intervention in debates about Indonesia’s post-authoritarian political economy.[6]
A later strand of his scholarship compares trajectories of Islamic politics and populism across regions. In a review,Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East (2015) is described as a comparative study of Islamist mobilisation across Indonesia and selected Middle Eastern cases,emphasising political-economic and historical explanations over ideological accounts.[7]
Political economy and oligarchy
Reorganising Power in Indonesia has been viewed as an intervention in discussions on post-authoritarian political economy in reviews and subsequent scholarly discourse,emphasising how entrenched politico-business interests can shape political and market institutions rather than displacing them.[6] The book was also reviewed in a Foreign Affairs capsule after it was published.[8]
In Indonesian studies,the Hadiz and Robison "oligarchy" approach has been the subject of much discussion. In a symposium titled "Beyond Oligarchy?" published in the journal Indonesia,competing conceptualisations of oligarchy and material inequality in Indonesian politics and society were discussed.[9] More recent scholarly commentary has examined the "oligarchy framework" as a significant point of reference in discussions concerning the relationship between political power and economic resources (the "wealth-rulership nexus") in various Indonesian institutions.[10]
Decentralisation,state reform,and local power
Another strand in Hadiz’s work concerns the political sociology of state reform,especially decentralisation. Reviews have highlighted Localising Power in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia as a critique of donor- and policy-driven understandings of decentralisation and as an account emphasising the persistence and reconfiguration of entrenched political forces in local politics after 1998.[4][5]
Political Islam and “new Islamic populism”
Hadiz has also written on political Islam through the lens of political economy and historical sociology. In Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East (2016),he compares Indonesia,Egypt,and Turkey and develops the concept of “new Islamic populism”to explain different trajectories of Islamist politics across contexts. A review in the Philippine Journal of Public Policy summarises this “new Islamic populism”as a cross-class mobilisation framed around the ummah and argues that the book foregrounds political-economic and historical-sociological explanations where other approaches emphasise doctrine or culture.[11] Reviews in other journals have discussed the book in connection with wider debates on populism and political Islam.[12][13]
Selected works
Books
Hadiz, Vedi R. (1997). Workers and the State in New Order Indonesia. Routledge.
Robison, Richard; Hadiz, Vedi R. (2004). Reorganising Power in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets. RoutledgeCurzon.
Chalmers, Ian; Hadiz, Vedi R. (1997). The Politics of Economic Development in Indonesia: Contending Perspectives. Routledge.
Bourchier, David; Hadiz, Vedi R. (2003). Indonesian Politics and Society: A Reader. RoutledgeCurzon.
Hadiz, Vedi R.; Dhakidae, Daniel (2005). Social Science and Power in Indonesia. ISEAS/Equinox.
Hadiz, Vedi R. (2006). Empire and Neoliberalism in Asia. Routledge.
Khoo, Boo Teik; Hadiz, Vedi R.; Nakanishi, Yoshihiro (2014). Between Dissent and Power: The Transformation of Islamic Politics in the Middle East and Asia. Palgrave Macmillan.
References
123"Prof Vedi Hadiz". Find an Expert – The University of Melbourne. University of Melbourne. Retrieved 2026-01-17.
12"Professor Vedi Hadiz". The University of Melbourne. University of Melbourne. Retrieved 2026-01-17.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
