Local brokerage and international leverage: NGOs and land conflicts in Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract The rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia has generated a large and growing number of conflicts between rural communities and palm oil companies over, mainly, access to land. Employing a detailed documentation of 150 such conflicts in four Indonesian provinces, this paper assesses and evaluates how local, national and international NGOs help communities address their grievances. We find that rights‐based activism characterises only a small portion of NGOs working on land conflicts, as a more common strategy revolves around political brokerage. NGOs generally fail to achieve significant impact, with the partial exception of (those connected with) international NGOs.

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