Democratization of Local Government (Decentralization)

The Rise of Oligarchy in Contemporary Indonesia: Case Studies of Local Governor Elections in North Sumatra and East Java in 2008

Popular Historical Cultures in Indonesia: Current References to the Past in the Context of Democratisation and Decentralisation

Spaces, media and meanings of the popular production of knowledge are by no means identical across the globe in times of globalization, but rather shaped by local, cultural and political factors. This project is based on the example of Indonesia. There, democratization, decentralization and Islamization are presently linked to volatile new processes of negotiation of cultural identities. Thereby, reference to the past plays an important role in creating identification and legitimacy. This goes not just for academic historiography and official memory culture, but equally as much for popular stagings of “traditions” and references to the past. Popularly displayed historical culture in Indonesia is reflected in various expressive forms of portrayal, the spectrum of which ranges from religious rituals to miscellaneous art genres to festivals, parades and heritage maintenance in both an urban and rural context. These forms will be examined and connected to questions of how, from whom and with which effects they are produced, expressed, propagated, experienced and related to ideas of past and belonging and to images of local distinctiveness and subsequent processes of inclusion and exclusion. The focus is thereby on the interplay of popular stagings and subjective understandings of the past as well as its everyday relevance. Particular attention will be paid to Indonesian youths and, moreover, ethnic Chinese. The project is based on ethnological field research on Java and Sulawesi. 

Decentralization and Public Service Delivery in Indonesia

Indonesia’s size, diversity and decentralization experience provide a unique opportunity to test many theories on the effects of decentralization. In 2001, after being a highly centralized country for more than three decades, Indonesia’s central government devolved authority over functions and fiscal and human resources to the country’s then 336 local governments and thirty provinces Since then it has been evolving rapidly in to a more decentralized and democratic country with the introduction of direct presidential and head of local government election in 2004. The local governments vary significantly in terms of geographical and topographical condition, natural resource endowments, fiscal capacity, level of development, ethnic and religion composition, quantity and quality of infrastructure and human capital. This huge diversity and dynamic decentralization and democratic process, accompanied by a good national statistical system that includes, among others, regional and national accounts, and regular, detailed household surveys, make Indonesia a good country case study to analyze the effects of decentralization. 

This research project analyzes the impact of decentralization on the evolution economic and social development in Indonesia.  The development and distribution of public service delivery is a relevant policy issue in a developing country as big and as diverse as Indonesia.  Theoretically, decentralization can be beneficial for a country with heterogeneous preferences and sufficient resources mobility.  Decentralization brings decision-making power closer to the constituents and therefore can make public services more efficient if we assume that local governments are benevolent.  In a developing country such as Indonesia, however, resources are not fully mobile, a sufficient monitoring system is not yet in place and accountability mechanism is far from being effective.  These factors can hinder decentralization from being beneficial and make it prone to corruption and elite capture.  The impact of decentralization is evaluated by observing the quantity and quality of public services. This research attempts to provide theoretical and empirical evidence that would show how decentralization can affect the dynamic of public service delivery and socio-economic development.  Ultimately the study will try to answer whether Indonesia has benefitted from decentralization and what are the determinants of the success or the failure and how Indonesia can improve or benefit more from it.

Publications:

• Kis-Katos, Krisztina and Suharnoko Sjahrir, Bambang (2017): The Impact of Fiscal and Political Decentralization on Local Public Investments in Indonesia, Journal of Comparative Economics 45(2): 344-365.
• Schulze, Günther G. and Suharnoko Sjahrir, Bambang (2014): Decentralization, Governance, and Public Service Delivery, in: Hal Hill (Hrsg.) Regional Dynamics in a Decentralized Indonesia, Institute for Southeast Asian Studies Press: Singapore, 186-207.
• Suharnoko Sjahrir, Bambang,  Kis-Katos, Krisztina, and Schulze, Günther G. (2014): Administrative Overspending in Indonesian Districts: The Role of Local Politics, World Development 59: 166-183.
• Suharnoko Sjahrir, Bambang,  Kis-Katos, Krisztina, and Schulze, Günther G. (2013): Political Budget Cycles in Indonesia at the District Level, Economics Letters 120 (2): 342-345.

Making local governments more responsive to the poor: Developing tools and indicators to support sustainable livelihood under decentralization

This interdisciplinary project on the impact of decentralization reforms in Indonesia regarding the wellbeing of Dayak communities in Kutai Barat, East Kalimantan, was based in a comprehensive survey conducted jointly by the district government of Kutai Barat and the CIFOR–BMZ Poverty and Decentralization Project. Various poverty and wellbeing indicators were assessed covering more than ten thousand households in over two hundred villages of the district. In contrast to a single poverty figure, the project examined multiple dimensions of poverty and wellbeing spheres (health, wealth, knowledge; natural, economic, social and political environments; infrastructure-and-services).

The Reconfiguration of Indonesian Decentralization: An Historical Institutionalist  Study on Intergovernmental Power Relations and Resource Allocation

The Indonesian big bang decentralization of 1999, which was initiated by the collapse of the New Order regime in 1998, has changed the nature of the Indonesian government from centralized government to decentralized government. To date the process of decentralization reform is still continuing in order to overcome conflict of authority between levels of government, and the discontent of sub-national governments on the design of fiscal allocation. However, most of the policies and studies on decentralization show less concern on the political context and political interaction in the process of institutional change and formation of intergovernmental relations. By utilizing a Historical Institutional perspective, this research aims to explore how the political context, power relations, and actors’ maneuvers determine institutional change of intergovernmental power relations, and influence the policy of fiscal allocation. A causal tracing process approach is being used to analyze the causal mechanism in the process of decentralization reform along the path of change since 1999 up to 2009. Methodologically, the within-case study is applied to elucidate how institutional change and formation took place in each period of reform, whereas cross-case studies intend to explicate how and why power relations and actors’ maneuvers create a discrepancy of fiscal allocation among the regions. As a protocol of cross-case studies, this research selects two provincial governments i.e. the provinces of Riau and East Kalimantan as comparable cases.