CONSTRUCTING INDONESIA AS A GLOBAL ACTOR THROUGH TRANSITIVITY: A CLAUSE-LEVEL ANALYSIS OF PRABOWO SUBIANTO’S SPEECH AT THE 80th UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSAMBLY

Abstract

States’ positions in international affairs depend on both their material capabilities and how their agency, capacities, and responsibilities are represented in discourse. While prior research has established the significance of transitivity in distributing agency among political actors and has explored Indonesia’s international roles from foreign-policy and role-conception perspectives, limited attention has been given to the construction of Indonesia’s global agency at the clause level through the configuration of processes and participant roles. This study examines configurations of process types and participant roles across successive clause-level representations of Indonesia’s redistribution of agency and construction of its role as a global actor in Prabowo Subianto’s speech at the 80th UNGA. Utilizing a qualitative discourse analytic approach, the study analyses 30 selected clauses in which Indonesia is explicitly or contextually represented. The findings reveal a cumulative shift from historical affectedness and recipient status toward epistemic, moral, and material agency. Material configurations initially represent Indonesia as an affected or assisted participant, whereas the mental process positions it as a knowing and volitional agent capable of interpreting experience and articulating commitments. The relational process further attributes progress, preparedness, responsibility, and capability to Indonesia, while the subsequent material process increasingly positions the country as an actor that provides assistance, contributes to peace, and addresses global challenges. The reversal from recipient to provider, through which past experiences of receiving international solidarity are recontextualized as a basis for extending solidarity and assuming broader international responsibility, is particularly significant. The study concludes that Indonesia’s global agency is constructed not through a single grammatical choice but through the cumulative redistribution of participant roles and process configuration across the speech. This study demonstrates how clause-level grammatical configurations can collectively produce a diachronic discursive trajectory that transforms historical affectedness into epistemic authority, moral responsibility, and capacity for international action, thereby extending transitivity research from the representation of individual acts of agency to the construction of an evolving state actor in diplomatic discourse.