An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus

The global energy transition is disrupting old industries needing to decarbonise. Meanwhile, resource-rich countries stand to benefit from the rush for 'energy-transition minerals'. Here, institutional investors and governments promote climate policies compatible with natural resource extraction. This begs the question: How have extractive conglomerates reorganised their interests to benefit from the energy transition? Focusing on the nickel extraction to lithium battery to EV industry in Indonesia, this article contends that the intersection of decarbonisation, developmentalism, and resource nationalism offer extractive capital an 'EV-fix' for declining legitimacy. This is more than an ideological shift, as new alliances of state capital, domestic conglomerates, politicians and international battery and EV manufacturers are forged under a 'green development-resource nationalist nexus'.