In Indonesia’s Overseas Labour Migration Programme, 1969-2010, Wayne Palmer offers for the first time a detailed, critical analysis of the way in which Indonesia’s Overseas Labour Migration Programme is managed and how that fits with other developments within the Indonesian government. Commonly portrayed as a corrupt bunch of officials out to line their own pockets at the expense of migrant workers’ welfare, here we are shown that they also make exceptions to rules when the law and political climate are not on their side.

Wayne Palmer used interviews with over 120 officials in six Indonesian provinces and three diplomatic missions in the Asia-Pacific region to understand motivations for corrupt and other illegal behaviour.