The politics of learning from a small city: Solo as translocal model and political launch pad

Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi’), mayor of the small Indonesian city of Solo (also officially known as Surakarta) between 2005 and 2012, was subsequently elected as governor of Jakarta and then as president of the Republic of Indonesia. This paper examines aspects of Jokowi’s political journey that speak to urban/regional studies debates on the politics of inter-municipal learning. It shows how the emergence of Solo as a ‘best-practice city’ in translocal learning networks enabled small-city civic boosterism and provided a launch pad for Jokowi’s electability in Jakarta. Implications of translocal learning at the ‘sending’ end are thus shown to extend beyond matters of local political legitimacy.