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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the evolution of Indonesia’s foreign aid practices, showing how emerging Southern states exercise agency by selectively adopting and hybridising Northern and Southern norms, reshaping global development architecture through interconnection rather than opposition.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how emerging donors from the South navigate the Northern dominance in global development architecture by analysing Indonesia’s adoption of a hybrid foreign aid model. While much scholarship frames the “Non-Traditional Southern Donors” as rivals of the Northern model, this paper argues that Southern agency often takes the form of selective adoption and norms hybridisation of Northern aid norms rather than challenging or replacing the existing international development architecture.

The paper analyses the establishment of the Indonesia Agency for International Development (Indonesia AID) and its evolving practices within the South-South and Triangular Cooperation mechanism. It shows how Indonesia selectively adopts the components of the Northern aid model—such as institutionalisation, types of aid, and governance—while simultaneously embedding them within the Southern aid principles of solidarity, non-interference, and mutual benefit. This hybridisation reflects Indonesia’s dual positioning as both an aid recipient and an emerging development partner.

The findings highlight three contributions to debates on the New South in global development. First, it demonstrates that Southern states exercise agency not by exiting Northern-led systems, but by reshaping them from within. Second, it reveals the contemporary evolution of the North-South relationship, where connections with Northern donors remain central even as Southern actors assert normative leadership. Third, the norms hybridisation theory contributes to the literature on the agency of Southern actors towards the dominance of Northern states.