This doctoral thesis, written by Brian Keith Babington, utilizes a discourse analysis methodology to explore Indonesia’s policy change of the institutionalization of children – children who live in orphanages or other residential institutions. One goal of this research is to fill the knowledge gap of why deinstitutionalisation policy change occurs.

Babington’s research uncovers reasons, besides compliance with the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and pressure from the international community, for policy change. These reasons include political, economic, cultural, and religious discourses.

Besides contributing new understandings to literature on deinstitutionalisation, public policy, and policymaking in Indonesia, it is hoped that the research outcomes from this study will also improve understandings about factors that impede or advance progress on deinstitutionalisation policymaking in other countries of the Global South.