Government Cannot Rely Solely on 'Beauty'

Every year, the Miss Universe pageant reminds the public that the champion’s crown never falls solely because of a beautiful face. The judges weigh three elements simultaneously: beauty, brain, and behaviour. A contestant with a stunning appearance who stumbles during the question-and-answer session and lacks command of the issues rarely takes home the title. This analogy is relevant for reading a country’s position in today’s global power competition. A nation cannot rely only on a beautiful face in the form of growth projections, demographic dividends, natural resource wealth, or the size of its domestic market. Without brain, reflected in institutional capacity, and without behaviour, tested through bureaucratic agility in facing crises, that beauty is merely stage capital that quickly fades once the spotlight shifts to the next issue. Indonesia has long been sold on a narrative of structural beauty: a population of over 280 million, the world’s second-longest coastline, the largest nickel reserves, and an ever-expanding digital market. Yet that beautiful face has not automatically translated into real strength. The Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index 2024 placed Indonesia ninth out of 27 Asian countries for comprehensive power, one rank behind Singapore, which has a population of less than six million and a land area of only about 700 square kilometres, even though Indonesia’s economy is four times larger than Singapore’s. Analyst Michael Beckley explained this paradox through a simple formula: comprehensive national power is calculated by multiplying GDP by GDP per capita, so a large population not balanced by productivity becomes a burden on resources rather than entirely a capital of strength. Indonesia’s competitive score according to the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking reinforces this picture. After climbing to 27th place in 2024, Indonesia’s position plummeted to 40th out of 69 countries in 2025, then fell further to 48th in 2026, leaving Indonesia behind Malaysia, which jumped eleven places. Arturo Bris, Director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center, asserted that economic competitiveness is no longer determined by the size of a budget or economies of scale, but by the credibility of a country’s institutions. This data proves that a beautiful face in the form of market potential and resources, without the support of credible governance, does not automatically reach the podium. The concept of smart power popularised by Joseph Nye is an important reference here. Smart power is not merely the sum of hard power and soft power, but the capacity to intelligently combine both according to context and momentum. A government with brain will be able to read changes in the geopolitical landscape, formulate data-based policies, and not be trapped by the romanticism of potential alone. IMD noted that Indonesia excels in price competitiveness, ranked tenth in the world, and tax competitiveness, ranked twelfth, but lags far behind in government efficiency and business efficiency, with most indicators ranked below 50th globally. This means the capital of fiscal beauty is not matched by equivalent governance intelligence. Compare this with South Korea, which ranked seventh in the Asia Power Index 2024 with a comprehensive power score of 31.5, supported not only by economic capacity but also by cultural exports from K-pop to cinema that strengthen its soft power as well as its diplomatic position. Japan, although its score once fell below the major power threshold, remains consistent in maintaining a strong middle class thanks to mature research institutions and technocratic bureaucracy. Australia is ranked sixth with a score of around 31.8, supported by alliance networks and think tanks that actively produce foreign policy knowledge, although the same report noted that Canberra experienced a decline in resource resilience indicators due to a worsening energy trade balance. This shows that even developed countries need to continuously nurture their brain and cannot be complacent with the beauty of alliances alone. The third element, behaviour, is most often overlooked even though it most determines a government’s image in the eyes of the domestic public and global audience. Behaviour encompasses the agility of the bureaucracy in responding to crises, the resilience of institutions in facing shocks, and the ability to communicate policy clearly. The IMD 2025 report emphasised that government efficiency is now the main differentiator in suppressing socio-economic polarisation, because efficiency includes agility, inclusiveness, and future-oriented policy frameworks. The Philippines is an interesting example. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is recorded as having conducted more bilateral diplomatic dialogues than his predecessor, and his firmer approach strategy towards territorial disputes is highly rated by experts, reflected in invitations to speak at the Australian parliament and a keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. This is an example of agile diplomatic behaviour that builds a narrative even though the Philippines’ comprehensive power is classified as middle power. Vietnam also recorded an increase in its comprehensive power score in the same year, partly due to the consistency of its diplomatic behaviour called the bamboo policy, flexible yet firmly rooted in national interests, which refers to integrating Vietnam’s national industry into the global industrial supply chain. Conversely, without mature behaviour, government policy communication is easily read by the public as reactive and inconsistent, especially in the post-truth era when domestic and international audiences alike judge a government by the speed and clarity of its response, no longer by official documents alone. In fact, Indonesia’s policies are often reversed and issued without planning.