Transforming the State-Society Relationship from the Village in Post-Suharto Indonesia

Abstract

It has been eight years since the fall of the Suharto's New Order regime. In parallel with the process of decentralization, the new legal framework for village government has been put in practice since 2001, which emphasizes the concepts of “diversity, participation, autonomy, democratization, and empowerment.” Much of the literature on political studies in post-Suharto Indonesia has focused on the theme of democratic decentralization, chiefly from the perspective of policymakers in Jakarta, and a disproportionate amount of attention has been paid to the technical aspects of the institutional design of democratic decentralization. Drawing on research carried out in a village of Bandung District, this paper examines to what extent the new legal framework has reorganized the old style of village government (in which power was centered on the village chief) by shedding light on the functions of some key village institutions.The policy changes with regard to village government codified in Law No. 22 1999 on Local Government marked a radical departure from “uniformity, demobilization, rationalization, monoloyalty, and depoliticization.” The most dramatic change in village government has been the establishment of the Village Representative Council (BPD), which replaced the defunct Village Consultative Assembly (LMD) under the New Order. Independent of the village chief, the BPD has prevented the concentration and overlap of power between the village chief and village officials. Moreover, the establishment of the BPD has diversified the backgrounds of the elected members, paving the way for the entry of new actors into village government.This paper also highlights two unexpected consequences of the institutional changes at the village level. First, despite its empowered position, the BPD is unable to function as a checks and balances system vis-à-vis the village chief. In response to the institutional changes, village elites have struck deals to protect their vested interests at the expense of the democratic functions of the new village-level institutions. As long as this consensus between the village executive and legislative branches is mutually respected, the two “democratic” institutions cannot achieve the stated objectives.Second, recruitment through examinations and elections has facilitated the emergence of a new type of village elites while creating hurdles for the traditional village elites in exercising influence in the formal political arena. During the New Order, village development subsides were dropped from the center to villages, which showed monoloyalty to Golkar during election time every five years. With the collapse of the New Order, which controlled villages through the vertical links between the state-bureaucracy-Golkar, villages must make proposals to obtain village development subsidies from the districts. With the changes in the political environment, villagers with practical knowledge and higher education are increasingly playing an important role in village government.Democracy in Indonesia has been discussed from various viewpoints. Seen against the state-society relationship, democracy in Indonesia must be built up from the village level, laying the foundation for democracy at the national level.