Indonesia's Environmental Diplomacy under Yudhoyono: A Critical–Institutionalist–Constructivist Analysis.

Indonesia's environmental diplomacy during Yudhoyono's administration gained positive international recognition, yet Indonesia's high-profile diplomatic initiatives took place amid a continued path of environmental decline. Broadly defining environmental diplomacy as a mediating institution between universalism and particularism through the co-constitutive processes of environmental regimes, this article employs a critical-institutionalist-constructivist framework to explain the gap between Indonesia's commitments to universal norms of environmental preservation and the corresponding local practices. Using both primary and secondary data, the research offers a boundary analysis of diplomacy as the hub between universal norms and local values concerning human-nature relations. Findings suggest that however assertive Indonesia may be in its external diplomatic initiatives, the benefits that it expects to gain from a 'green reputation' will only go as far as its efforts to strengthen the foundational local institutions that are required to adapt and localize its global environmental diplomacy strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]