Luna Tristofa
This study examines Indonesia’s humanitarian diplomacy in Southeast Asia through its strategic cooperation with the Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center (MDMC), focusing on the Rohingya crisis in 2017 - 2021. As a leading ASEAN member, Indonesia has consistently promoted peace and humanitarian values in its foreign policy, transitioning from a normative, value-driven approach under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to a more pragmatic humanitarian engagement under President Joko Widodo. The Rohingya crisis posed a complex challenge for ASEAN, constrained by its principle of non-interference. Indonesia responded by combining state-led diplomacy with civil society participation, particularly through MDMC's humanitarian operations. This case study demonstrates how Indonesia's hybrid model of diplomacy, integrating government institutions and faith-based civil society organizations, strengthened its regional leadership and contributed to shaping a more responsive humanitarian response within the ASEAN regional context. Rather than transforming ASEAN as a formal institution, this cooperation operated through the normative and diplomatic space that the regional framework provides, expanding Indonesia's diplomatic win-set while addressing both domestic pressures and international constraints. Using Putnam's Two-Level Game framework, this study finds that the Indonesia–MDMC partnership was operationally effective in facilitating humanitarian access and aid distribution. However, structural limitations, including Indonesia's non-signatory status to the 1951 Refugee Convention and ASEAN's non-interference norm, constrained the longer-term impact of these efforts. These findings contribute to the academic discussion on civil society's role in humanitarian diplomacy and on the application of two-level game theory in humanitarian negotiation.