Ian Douglas Wilson

Since the implementation of decentralisation in Indonesia in 2001, district governments—which under the country’s decentralisation laws are assigned primary responsibility for health and education policy—have varied considerably in their response to the issue of user fees for basic education and health services. Many have done little to support the provision of free public services in their districts while a small number have adopted well-funded programs to support free basic education and health. The purpose of this report is to explain this cross-district variation and assess the policy implications for donors and other development actors interested in improving citizens’ access to basic education and health services. We argue that a key determinant of district governments’ varying responses to the issue of user fees has been the nature of district heads’ strategies for maintaining and advancing their political careers. Where district heads have pursued strategies of ‘political entrepreneurship’—that is, where they have sought to develop a popular base among the poor—and become dependent upon their electoral support to remain in power, district governments have been more likely to promote free public services than where political leaders have focused on consolidating patronage networks. At the same time, we suggest that these strategies have in turn reflected the incentives created by district head’s respective personal networks, alliances, and constituencies. In policy terms, we conclude that donors and other development actors need to find ways of enhancing the scope for political entrepreneurship at the local level, that they can make a contribution in this respect by supporting and collaborating with anticorruption institutions and promoting awareness of successful instances of political entrepreneurship, and that they should draw on political analysis in determining whether to engage in particular countries or, within countries, in particular regions.

Since the introduction of democratic decentralisation in 1999, Indonesia’s national government has introduced a number of policy reforms aimed at addressing the minimal levels of community and public participation in determining government planning priorities. One particular initiative has been Musyawarah Perencanaan Pembangunan or musrenbang. In principle musrenbang operates as a multistakeholder forum in which government and non-government stakeholders can identify, deliberate, and reach consensus on a district’s development agenda and the allocation of its budgetary resources. However, examining the districts of Bau-Bau City (South-east Sulawesi), Tabanan District (Bali) and Bandung District (West Java), our research team discovered widespread irregularities in development planning and budget allocation. Musrenbang has often been translated locally in ways which undermine the principle of participation, and used to consolidate informal patron-client networks with subsequent impacts on budget outcomes. The apparent ease with which entrenched interests have been able to manipulate this participatory forum raises more fundamental questions regarding the nature of public participation. More broadly, our research proposes that in crafting institutional reform strategies—the main approach in democratic decentralisation—the potential impact of local power relations needs to be taken into consideration if desired outcomes are to be achieved.

In a recent survey conducted by the respected Indonesian Journal, Tempo, Indonesian respondents cited uncertainties regarding security in everyday life as their major concern, ahead of worries about terrorism. An important part of this concern is the growing influence of infoecurity groups (ISGs) and various forms of militia operating at the margins of rule of law. While such organisations had been an important part of the former Soeharto regime, one key question is how they have survived and flourished despite the ending of authoritarian rule and the rise of democracy. This policy brief will examine the various policy and governance programmes introduced to deal with the issue and assess their relative effectiveness. It will provide recommendations for future policy design.

This study has involved targeted field work in Indonesia during 2007 but also draws on the work of several larger and ongoing research projects dealing with informal security groups and militia in Indonesia (Ian Wilson), policing and police reform in Indonesia (Adrianus Meliala) and governance, politics and markets (Richard Robison). Two workshops were held in Jakarta in November 2007 where preliminary findings were presented. The first, held at the University of Indonesia attracted a largely academic audience and involved discussion of broader aspects of political and governance issues. The second, held at the College of Police Science (PTIK) drew an audience that included junior and senior police officers and representatives of private security companies and was largely focused on the more policy-oriented aspects of the problem. The study has received widespread attention in the Jakarta media where several reports and interviews have been published in leading newspapers such as Kompas, Republika, Koran Tempo and Media Indonesia. An executive summary of the project was presented at the AIGRP Forum in Jakarta on 3 December 2007.