Pathways Through Financial Crisis: Indonesia‪.‬

This article examines economic policymaking in Indonesia from the eve of the 1997 financial crisis to 2005 and asks whether engagement with the IMF widened or narrowed the choices available to Indonesian policymakers. It argues that engagement with the Fund expanded the menu of policy options available to the government when the IMF could count on a powerful internal champion that was ready to use its relationship with the Fund to strengthen its own position in the domestic political game. However, the Fund's actions had the effect of constraining policy space during periods when the power of its internal champion was in decline, when a champion failed to materialize at all, or when trust between the Fund and the country authorities deteriorated rapidly. KEYWORDS: Indonesia, IMF, financial crisis, politics, policy space, conditionality, economic policy, technocrats. **********