The Berkeley Mafia was the term given to a group of University of California-trained[1] economists in Indonesia who were given technocratic positions under the Suharto dictatorship during the late 1960s.
[1] Sharing significant similarities with the Chicago Boys in Chile (1970s–80s), such as staunch anti-communism, the Berkeley Mafia was not considered to be neoliberal unlike the former.
[5] The Ford Foundation then began a process by which students from the FEUI were chosen to undertake overseas studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
By the early 1960s, all of the students who had been sent abroad had returned from Berkeley and had begun taking up positions as lecturers at the Army Staff and Command College (SESKOAD).
The growth rate was high, averaging around 6.5% per year between the late 1960s and 1997, when South East Asia was hit by the severe Asian financial crisis.
[10] Some other groups, like the Indonesian branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, considered the Berkeley Mafia to be traitors, a view stemming particularly from its willingness to privatise the nation's industries.
During Indonesia's economic collapse from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, people blamed the Berkeley Mafia and considered it to be part of the New Order regime.
Out of the Berkeley Mafia group, only Widjojo Nitisastro and Emil Salim continued to have significant influence within government during the post-Suharto Reform era.
Emil Salim later served as the leader of the Presidential Advisory Council during Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration and also continued to be active on environmental issues, both in Indonesia and in international circles.