Many developing countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, India, and smaller states like Botswana, Chile, Mauritius, Malaysia, and Vietnam adopt a developmental approach because it reserves a crucial economic role to the state.^[1]Unlike classical developmentalism, the current emerging paradigm adopted by the majority of developing countries in the world is the new developmentalism. New developmentalism is an integration of economics, social, and political theory, which also comes as a result of a historical-deductive theory based on the successful experiences of fast growth, particularly the recent experience of East Asian countries such as China.^[2]However, in practice, the new developmentalism paradigm has influenced not only a country's development agenda and political economy but also its policies in handling other issues. Similar to other developing countries that have implemented the new developmentalism paradigm, Indonesia has been suggested to implement the new developmentalism paradigm. This later influenced the government of Indonesia (“Government”)’s policies in handling Covid-19 pandemic.

In general, developmentalism is motivated by the belief that the state's primary mission is to achieve rapid development to eradicate backwardness and reach out to advanced countries.^[3]State involvement in economic life is an essential element to accelerate national growth and achieve industrialisation.^[4]As a result, in a developmentalism state, other political goals are subordinated to the overall goal of achieving fast economic growth. The same view is adopted by the new developmentalism paradigm, in which economic development remains to be the essential element of progress or human development.^[5]It works with five macroeconomic prices: the profit rate, the exchange rate, the interest rate, the wage rate, and the inflation rate, and understands that they must be kept 'right'^[6].^[7]Further, quoting from Novo-Desenvolvimentismo, a book edited by João Sicsú, Luiz Fernando de Paula and Renaut Michel in 2005,new developmentalism is characterized by:^[8]

1. there is no strong market without a strong state; 
2. there will not be sustained growth [...] without strengthening [...] the state and the market and without the implementation of appropriate macroeconomic policies; 
3. a strong market and a strong state can only be built by a national development project that aligns growth [...] and social equity; and 
4. it is not possible to [reduce] inequality without economic growth at high and sustained rates.

As an integration of several theories, besides affecting the economic policies of a state,^[9]new developmentalism paradigm further influences other governmental actions, including but not limited to the laws and regulations. Concerning the relation between law and developmentalism, the law may serve three purposes concerning developmental state. First, regulations and legislation can be utilized to establish the developmental state's goals. It will include clarifying the underlying state-to-market relations norms, strategies, and policy objectives. Second, law may describe the instruments and mechanisms to achieve particular objectives, such as methods of enforcement to induce compliance. Third, law may lay down the institutional framework to structure the developmental state as well as new relationships between public and private actors. Thus, a developmental legal framework will guide and direct the implementation of development strategies by public and private institutions.^[10]

Given these connections, the word "Law and Development" appears, which generally refers to the theory and practice of fostering economic and social development through legal reform and institutional capacity building. Therefore, it can be regarded as the intersection of legal theory, economic growth theory, and international practice of development.^[11]The trend of Law and Development is significant for both fields of law and development due to many reasons. First, The orthodoxies of modern economic growth are seen to have influenced past laws and growth movements. Further, such models and their respective law reform programs may have been inadequately adapted to the current domestic circumstances. Lastly, new developmentalism is a way out of traditional orthodoxy growth, as it involves both learning and adaptation to local settings.^[12]

As one of the developing countries, many scholars believe that Indonesia has adopted the new developmentalism paradigm, especially since 2016 under Jokowi's presidency. 2016 has marked the notable shift away from Jokowi’s previous focus on pro-poor and populist policies, towards a development-focused agenda. It could be proven by his statement in his state-of-the-nation address in August 2016, where Jokowi proclaimed 2016 as the year of accelerated national development. Moreover,  his speech, which concentrated on the Government’s program for reducing inequality and poverty, has summed up into a three-word mantra—infrastructure, deregulation, and de-bureaucratisation.^[13]After almost four years, even though Indonesia has never displayed the kind of bureaucratic efficiency that is characteristic of the East Asian developmental model,^[14]it is arguably, Jokowi's new developmentalism has crystallized further and become a defining feature of Indonesia’s political economy.^[15]

Similar to the general new developmentalism characteristics, Jokowi's new developmentalism is characterized by a normative commitment to engineer rapid economic development, direct industrial upgrading, and ensure economic redistribution.^[16]It is also pragmatic and development-oriented in its policies.^[17]The new developmentalism bears the hallmarks of a statistical philosophy as the Government sees a strong and stable state as a critical component in the acceleration of national growth, with the state sector as a locomotive for economic development.^[18]In practice, Jokowi views the state’s principal task as a service delivery, which is reflected through his administration that focuses almost exclusively on a restricted set of practical services and tangible economic outcomes. For instance, after initially renowned for his free health and education initiatives for the needy, Jokowi has moved to pour most of his energy into supporting the Government's infrastructure boom agenda.^[19]After cutting fuel subsidies, Jokowi was able to allocate $23.9 billion to the Government’s infrastructure projects, which shows an increase of 86% on the previous Government’s budget allocation. Further, the modernisation of Indonesia’s infrastructure constitutes a more central component of Jokowi’s political agenda. In 2016, the administration spent relatively little attention on marketing education, health, or other social programs.^[20]The new developmentalism paradigm has influenced not only Jokowi's political economic but further his legal policies in other sectors, such as the health sector. 

The author suggests that due to his new developmentalism paradigm, Jokowi's initial responses towards the Covid-19 pandemic were mainly focused on saving the national economy rather than preventing the pandemic happened in Indonesia. On 11 February 2020, when most countries have started their war with Covid-19, the Government, through the Minister of Finance, declared the possibility to give incentives for tourism as impacted by Covid-19 pandemic rather than focusing on preventive measures.^[21]Further, on 17 February 2020, the Government prepared a 30% discount for international and domestic tourists to boost tourism in Indonesia^[22], and a day after, the Government planned on giving incentives to all affected tourism destination.^[23]As the peak of the tourism policy planning, on 26 February 2020, the Government has ready to give Rp 4.7 trillion as a tourism incentive to boost the tourism activities in Indonesia.^[24]However, just few days afterwards, on 2 March 2020, when the Government announced the first two confirmed Covid-19 cases in Indonesia, the Government decided to cancel its incentives.^[25]

In the health sector, before the first two confirmed Covid-19 cases was identified, the Government actions on health sectors mainly focused only on primary prevention, such as thermo-scanner procurement in the 135 state's gates.^[26]The Government has not prepared any further measures to handle Covid-19 if the pandemic happened in Indonesia. Rather than focus on preventing Covid-19’s entrance to Indonesia, the Government was not being strict on traveling policy, for instance by stating that there is no travel restriction to countries that have already infected by Covid-19 pandemic on 5 February 2020 when so many countries have been affected by Covid-19 pandemic such as Singapore.^[27]The Government has just started to focus on controlling Covid-19 pandemic on 7 March 2020, after four confirmed Covid-19 cases has declared in Indonesia.^[28]As the confirmed cases have been kept increasing since the first two confirmed cases on 2 March 2020, the Government, through the Minister of Health, then released several policies to handle the Covid-19 pandemic. However, as can be seen through the official Government's website on Covid-19 pandemic, https://www.covid19.go.id, the Covid-19 pandemic is getting worse until the date of this proposal was made.

As previously explained that one of the most common characteristics of new developmentalism paradigm is putting economic stability as the highest priority to maintain the national development. As a consequence, before there was any evidence proving the existence of Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia, the Government gave most of its attention to economic downfall prevention. It can be seen clearly from its first policy regarding Covid-19. Instead of  planning to enact any regulations or policies on the health sector to prevent the spread of Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia, the Government was planning to enact policies on the tourism incentives first. The real executed policies on the health sector were  just enacted after the first two confirmed cases on 2 March 2020. 

Many scholars and medical practitioners believe that the Government is less responsive in preventing the pandemic from being happened in Indonesia. As seen from the short timeline above, the Government focused on the economic stability, for instance, by maintaining the stability of the tourism sector as it was the most severe sector affected by the Covid-19 pandemic rather than focus on Covid-19 pandemic prevention itself. The author believes that one of the reason for the Government to behave in such manner is due to Jokowi's new developmentalism paradigm.

^[1]  Bresser-Pereira, Louis C., 2016, Reflecting on new developmentalism and classical developmentalism, Review of Keynesian Economics, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp.350

^[2]  Ibid, pp.332

^[3]  Feith, Herb, 1981, Repressive-Developmentalist Regimes in Asia, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 7(4), pp.502.

^[4]  Leftwich, Adrian, 1995, Bringing Politics Back In: Towards a Model of the Developmental State, Journal of Development Studies, 31 (3), pp. 400–427.

^[5]  Bresser-Pereira, Louis C., op.cit.,pp.341.

^[6]  ‘Right’ prices do not mean prices defined by full competition, but prices that make sense economically and politically: (a) the profit rate must be high enough to support investment by business; (b) the exchange rate must make business enterprises competitive; (c) the level of the interest rate should be as low as possible; (d) the wage rate should increase with productivity, and be consistent with a satisfactory profit rate; and (e) the inflation rate should be low.

^[7]  Bresser-Pereira, Louis C., loc.cit.

^[8]  Bresser-Pereira, Louis C., 2011, An account of new developmentalism and its structuralist macroeconomics, Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, 31(3), pp. 494.

^[9]  The term ‘developmental state’ was initially used to capture the East Asian model of economic growth. After the Second World War, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea adopted interventionist economic policies and established efficient bureaucracies, both of which drove fast-paced industrialisation. See: Woo-Cumings, Meredith, 1999, The Developmental State, Cornell University Press, Ithaca.

^[10]Sherman, F. Charles, 2009, Law and Development Today: The New Developmentalism, German Law Journal, 10(9), pp.1270.

^[11]Trubek, David M., 2008, Developmental States and the Legal Order: Towards a New Political Economy of Development and Law, University of Wisconsin Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1075, https://ssrn.com/abstract=1349163, accessed 30 March 2020.

^[12]Sherman, F. Charles, op.cit.,pp.1257.

^[13]Warburton, Eve, 2016, Jokowi and the New Developmentalism, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 52(3), pp.307-308, https://doi.org/10.1080/00074918.2016.1249262, accessed 30 March 2020.

^[14]Ibid, pp. 306-307.

^[15]Warburton, Eve, 2018, A New Developmentalism in Indonesia?, Journal of Southeast Asian Economies, 35(3), pp.356.

^[16]Ibid, pp.355.

^[17]Warburton, Eve, 2016, op.cit., pp.315.

^[18]Chalmers, Ian, 1997, (edited by Ian Chalmers and Vedi R. Hadiz) ‘Introduction’. In The Politics of Economic Development in Indonesia: Contending Perspectives, Routledge, London.

^[19]Warburton, Eve, 2016, op.cit., pp.307.

^[20]Ibid,pp.308-309.

^[21]  Rina, Ratu, 2020, “Corona Rusak Wisata RI, Sri Mulyani Kaji Subsidi Penerbangan”, https://www.cnbcindonesia.com/news/20200211162619-4-137042/corona-rusak-wisata-ri-sri-mulyani-kaji-subsidi-penerbangan, accessed 2 April 2020

^[22]Bayu, Dimas J., 2020, “Virus Corona Ancam Pariwisata, Jokowi Beri Turis Diskon 30 Persen”, https://katadata.co.id/berita/2020/02/17/virus-corona-ancam-pariwisata-jokowi-beri-turis-diskon-30-persen, accessed 2 April 2020

^[23]S., Lidya J., 2020, “Corona Kacau, Sri Mulyani Siap Keluarkan Kebijakan Konkret”, https://www.cnbcindonesia.com/news/20200218154249-4-138737/corona-kacau-sri-mulyani-siap-keluarkan-kebijakan-konkret, accessed 2 April 2020

^[24]Bayu, Dimas J., 2020, “Pemerintah Siapkan Rp 4,7 Triliun Selamatkan Pariwisata dari Corona”, https://katadata.co.id/berita/2020/02/25/pemerintah-siapkan-rp-47-triliun-selamatkan-pariwisata-dari-corona, accessed 2 April 2020

^[25]Kompas.com, 2020, “Virus Corona di Indonesia, Wishnutama Tunda Stimulus Pariwisata untuk Wisman”, https://travel.kompas.com/read/2020/03/02/221300627/virus-corona-di-indonesia-wishnutama-tunda-stimulus-pariwisata-untuk-wisman?page=all, accessed 2 April 2020

^[26]Kementrian Kesehatan Republik Indonesia, 2020, “Cegah nCov, Kemenkes Siagakan Termoscanner di 135 Pintu Negara”, https://www.kemkes.go.id/article/view/20012100002/cegah-ncov-kemenkes-siagakan-termoscanner-di-135-pintu-negara.html, accessed 2 April 2020

^[27]Kementrian Kesehatan Republik Indonesia, 2020, “Tidak Ada Pembatasan Perjalanan ke Negara Terdampak nCov”, https://www.kemkes.go.id/article/view/20020600003/tak-ada-pembatasan-perjalanan-ke-negara-terdampak-ncov.html, accessed 2 April 2020

^[28]Kementrian Kesehatan Republik Indonesia, 2020, “Pemerintah Fokus Pada Pengendalian Penyebaran Covid-19”, https://www.kemkes.go.id/article/view/20030800001/pemerintah-fokus-pada-pengendalian-penyebaran-covid-19.html, accessed 2 April 2020

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