Re-budgeting local government budgets to handle the COVID-19 pandemic: Indonesia’s experience

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines the budgetary response to the COVID-19 pandemic by Indonesia’s local governments. It specifically looks at the role of key local government players in executing the Covid-related budgeting instructions from central government, a perspective that has not been adequately addressed by previous studies. A qualitative case study approach was employed, drawing on practice theory. The qualitative data were collected through interviews via video conferences, WhatsApp chats, and documentary analysis. Using practice theory as the framework, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of how budgeting practitioners responded to the pandemic budget policy, conditioned by the rules, practical understanding, and teleoaffective structure that oriented them, and shedding new light on budgetary responses to COVID-19. The findings show that the budget instructions from central government to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic (what was intended) did not match the responses of the key budgeting actors at the local government level (what actually happened). Instead, the budgeting actors tended to prioritise doing their normal everyday bureaucratic activities, rather than implementing central government’s instructions to combat the pandemic.