The idea for this research began one morning in 2007 when I was reading an offer for a PhD scholarship in a local newspaper. I immediately informed my father, Dr Wendy Aritenang, the then General Secretary of the Indonesian Transportation Ministry. After an extensive discussion, later that night he encouraged me to study the impact of both decentralization and ASEAN FTA on Indonesian regions as a topic for my PhD research. Despite his civil engineering background, he has a wide and in-depth expertise on decentralization and free trade agreements as a result of more than thirty years of experience in the government. Consequently, the PhD thesis and this book benefit much from short and distance discussions with him in London, Jakarta, Batam, Bandung and Singapore. The thesis and this book are definitely an intellectual production of a father and a son.

This book derives from my PhD thesis at the University College London, United Kingdom. In writing the thesis, I would like to express my sincere and deep gratitude to my supervisor Dr Jung Won Sonn. I appreciate all his knowledgeable contribution, support and critiques at every stage of the writing. His guidance extensively helped me in understanding my thesis and integrate each part to form the thesis. I also owe my gratitude to my thesis co-supervisor Professor Nick Phelps whose ideas and knowledge helped deepen my research. I am fortunate to have Professor Andres Rodriguez-Pose of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) as my thesis external examiner. As a leading scholar in the research topic, his expertise and advice greatly helped with the intellectual amendments. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr Nikos Karadimitriou as the internal examiner who gave invaluable suggestions for the improvement of the thesis.

I would like to thank the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, Republic of Indonesia for their support in the form of a scholarship for funding this research. Additionally I would also like to thank the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) that has supported me to pursue this doctorate degree. The intellectual development of the PhD thesis is also a result of formal and informal discussions with friends at UCL Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Enterprise Society 2009, Indonesian Student Society in the United Kingdom and colleagues at the Indonesian Embassy.