Village Elites Research Articles

Analysis of patron-client political communication in building a network of political power in the village community

This study aimed to explore political communication in the building of political power networks in Jenggrik Village, Kedunggalar District, Ngawi Regency during the village head elections (village head election) from 1998 to 2019 from patron-client relations perspective. Political communication occurs through village elites and village community leaders. Political communication happens between the village head and his community members. This study was a descriptive study using a qualitative research method. This study sought to understand the processes and facts about political communication that shapes community loyalty and the leaders in Jenggrik Village, Kedunggalar District who have economic and non-economic power. The findings and conclusions of this study supported Max Weber's notion on Charismatic Leadership as well as Sartono Kartodirjo’s research which stated that the loyalty of village communities (clients) is formed because of village heads (patrons) for material (economic) and non-material (non-economic) reasons, such as authority and charisma of the leader; distribution of benefits from individuals or groups in exchange for political support; the loyalty of village communities, according to Jonathan Hopkins; also material factors such as financial aid, village physical infrastructure development assistance, or other economic assistance, according to James C. Scott and Ahimsa.

Village development program: The view of “askesiros” in social construction, a development reality of Local Papuan Residents in Manokwari Regency

This research purpose was to explore the knowledge and experience of local Papuan towards the village programs. Data was collected from three villages. This research gained the data by using the questionnaires, the focused group discussions (FGD), the observations, and the interviews. The view of life “askesiros” (progress) was an approach to village development that was subjective. Subsequently, it considered the development program as the domain and obligation of the government. Contradictory, the village elite felt that they had the right to enjoy the “askesiros” to accelerate program implementation. The development program needed to start from the village that was the idea from the government (Monuh). Its reason was in the past ten years when the programs destroyed vary profit, minimal participation, and assistance. They had shown a decline in the welfare of the needy population. Therefore, in the appreciating of the cultural value and the meaning of “Askesiros” as “Ororoisa” development (flowing down) needed the willingness and sincerity of the village elite, all program managers, and stakeholders.

Analysis of the Village Fund Utilization for Poverty Alleviation

This study aims to describe and analyze the use of village funds in poverty alleviation and the factors that influence the use of village funds sourced from the State Budget for poverty alleviation. The research used the case study method. The results showed that the utilization of village fund had been implemented in accordance with the Regent Regulation No. 6 of 2019 concerning technical instructions and procedures for the distribution and determination of details of village fund given to 142 villages in 13 sub-districts, allocated equally and fairly based on the basic allocation, affirmation allocation, and formula allocation calculated by taking into account the number of villagers, the village poverty rate, the area of the village and the level of geographical difficulty. In terms of utilization of village fund through a mechanism agreed upon in the village deliberations as the highest village forum involving village government officials, the Village Consultative Body, and elements of the village community, the use, and utilization of village fund which increase every year are more prioritized in Physical Village development (95.28%) of the total village fund, compared to the use of village fund for community development and empowerment activities (4.72%) for poverty reduction, and the use of village fund has not significantly reduced poverty rates in rural areas. Factors that influence the use of village funds are (1) conflicting regulations on the use of village funds, (2) weak supervision from both government officials and the community, (3) the low commitment of village elites in utilizing village funds to reduce poverty rates in rural areas.

Education and Local Elite Authority: The Study of Traditional Local Elite Strategies in Maintaining Authority of Muslim Communities in Rural Java

The studies at village communities generally relate to poverty issues, circulation of village elites, formal village leadership and village community participation. Other studies discuss the determination of cultural values ​​on agrarian differentiation, farmer resistance, and state interference in rural economy. This study relates with rural local elites, especially socio-religious field. The study focus is how the religious elites in villages maintain their authority. This study uses a qualitative approach. The study results show that although the village religious elite and their group members are no longer dominate the rural economy and control the formal village leadership, but this group still occupies a high level in society. One element dominated by group members from religious elite is education, especially religious knowledge. Keywords: Education, Authority, Village Local Elites. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-2-09 Publication date: January 31 st 2021

Village Elites and Social Structures in the Late Medieval Campine Region by Eline Van Onacker, and: Village Community and Conflict in Late Medieval Drenthe by Peter Hoppenbrouwers

Reviewed by: Village Elites and Social Structures in the Late Medieval Campine Region by Eline Van Onacker, and: Village Community and Conflict in Late Medieval Drenthe by Peter Hoppenbrouwers Patrick Ball Van Onacker, Eline, Village Elites and Social Structures in the Late Medieval Campine Region (The Medieval Countryside, 17), Turnhout, Brepols, 2017; hardback; pp. xli, 320; 7 b/w illustrations, 3 maps, 57 graphs, 68 b/w tables; R.R.P. €100.00; ISBN 9782503554594. Hoppenbrouwers, Peter, Village Community and Conflict in Late Medieval Drenthe (The Medieval Countryside, 20), Turnhout, Brepols, 2018; hardback; pp. xvii, 384; 14 b/w illustrations, 4 maps, 9 b/w tables; R.R.P. €100.00; ISBN 9782503575391. These monographs concern two of the Low Countries' three notable sandy inland districts: Eline Van Onacker examines Belgium's Campine region; Peter Hoppenbrouwers considers Drenthe, in the Netherlands. These regions shared characteristic features and differed from other rural areas, so the volumes complement each other. This research is welcome. As Hoppenbrouwers, a graduate of the 1970s, remarks, with the decline of neo-Marxist history 'peasant societies and village communities are out of favour as objects of historical research' (p. 1). Van Onacker, of a more recent generation, adopts a revisionist perspective, arguing that researchers have privileged rural regions that suit their interests and prejudices, favouring those where medieval communities transformed swiftly into modern, industrialized ones, neglecting those that behaved otherwise. Both works make regular comparison with the situation in Flanders, France, Germany, or England. Whereas Hoppenbrouwers cites copious instances from everyday life, Van Onacker's volume abounds in graphs, tables, and diagrams. Both authors allude to the limitations of their sources. The records of rural communities can be erratically preserved, while, notwithstanding comparable natural environments, these regions' social structures varied. Consequently, the differential creation and survival of source material has permitted different things [End Page 290] to be investigated. While Hoppenbrouwers makes good use of the judgements of the Etstoel (Drenthe's highest judicial and political body), the conflicts he examines occurred in villages whose local records have not survived. For the different aspects of her study, Van Onacker draws on information from different Campine villages, since none has the full set of records to suit her purposes—something that renders extrapolation risky, considering she notes significant variability between villages in some respects. Similar variation between regions means Drenthe and the Campine are not directly analogous: the absence of a regional council such as Drenthe's Etstoel brought about the Campine social structure that Van Onacker describes. Nevertheless, the two regions evidently have strong resemblances, including the persistence of a substantial common wasteland, which by the later Middle Ages had vanished elsewhere in the Netherlands. The works are thus productively read together. Hoppenbrouwers's is the first English-language study of Drenthe. Two introductory chapters precede three devoted to specific categories of community conflict. Chapter 2 describes the legal system within which disputes played out; Chapter 1 is a compendious, eighty-four-page survey of everything else of an introductory nature: the study of medieval villages; Drenthe's history and historiography; the source materials consulted; the region's landscape, demography, and territorial divisions; its rural society and peasants; the landholdings of lordships, ecclesiastical or secular; and, finally, a comparison with property relations in 1630. For readers previously unacquainted with Drenthe this is a great deal to assimilate. The chapter is accordingly heavy-going, although, for the same reason, potentially an invaluable resource. Succeeding chapters are comparably detailed but become progressively easier as the contents of earlier ones are internalized. With the last three the work comes into its own. Chapter 3 concerns disputes regarding village boundaries, the use of a village's commons, or the maintenance of bridges, ditches, and the like, either between neighbouring villages or between the village community and one of its members. Hoppenbrouwers concludes that these were sparked less by population growth than by burgeoning state formation, which demanded greater systematization, for purposes such as taxation. Chapter 4 concerns feuding. Although murder and other felonies went to trial automatically, other offences, including accidental killing, were 'cases of vengeance': the victim's kinsfolk might demand the right of blood feud; they might apprehend culprits...

Smaller-scale land grabs and accumulation from below: Violence, coercion and consent in spatially uneven agrarian change in Shan State, Myanmar

Abstract This article presents field research data on a smallholder maize crop boom in Shan State, northern Myanmar, and its spatially uneven dispossessory effects. Local research teams studied eight villages, four in the north and an equal number in the south of Shan State, using focus group discussions and randomized household interviews, supplemented with key informant interviews. This study deepens the global land grab debate by highlighting the role of smallholder cash crop booms in “smaller-scale” land grabs that have been shown to be significant drivers of agrarian transformation, especially in Southeast Asia. The article builds on the conceptualization of “accumulation from below” by accounting for the geographically differentiated processes of dispossession from smallholder contract farming arrangements, its variant forms of coercion and consent, and the political contingencies that give rise to and help explain uneven agrarian change. The study’s findings demonstrate how political contingency shapes spatial patterns of accumulation and dispossession through regional and local variations in the politics of ethnic identity, migration, insurgency and an illicit drugs economy. These political dynamics inform the hierarchy of power and cultural familiarity between smallholders and local state-supported “silent strongmen”, in this case town moneylenders and village elites, which—together with several other identified factors, especially the poppy economy—influence the spatial distribution of dispossession. Neither extra-economic coercion within orbits of state power nor simply accumulation from below by market opportunities adequately explains uneven agrarian transformation. Instead, the analytical frame on forms of violence in capital accumulation should be expanded and deepened in order to better capture the complex coming together of violence, coercion and consent that is geographically specific, and taken together is more than the sum of their parts.

The Dynamics of Sasi Laut Practices amidst Local Economic and Political Transformations

This study aims to explain the impact of socio-economic transformation, local political dynamics, and external pressures on the practice of sasi laut in Noloth Village. Data obtained using in-depth interview techniques, literature studies, and observations. The analysis and discussion is done descriptively. The results showed that there were three main things that influenced the practice of sasi laut, namely: the integration of valuable fishery products such as lola, sea cucumbers, and lobsters into the market system had changed the institution of sasi laut from the traditional system to the auction mechanism to the capital owners. While the sustainability of valuable coastal resources is threatened under transfer rights to capital owners who have unlimited resource use motives. On the other hand, sasi laut is under local political pressure between the village elite to take economic benefits. In the end, the practice of sasi laut in Noloth Village has experienced a shift in values from cultural contexts to economic reasoning through the integration of fisheries commodities into the market system. The impact of the transformation of sasi laut practices into its own discourse is related to two fundamental questions of indigenous community-based resource management, namely strengthening traditions and conservation of coastal resources.

Exporting democratic practices: Evidence from a village governance intervention in Eastern Congo

We study a randomized Community Driven Reconstruction (CDR) intervention that provided two years of exposure to democratic practices in 1250 villages in eastern Congo. To assess its impact, we examine behavior in a village-level unconditional cash transfer project that distributed $1000 to 457 treatment and control villages. The unconditonal cash transfer provides opportunities to assess whetherpublic funds get captured, what governance practices are employed by villagers and village elites and whether prior exposure to the CDR intervention alters these behaviors. We find no evidence for such effects. The results cast doubt on current attempts to export democratic practices to local communities.

Gerasimchuki - Nikityuki, who are they? Kiverchuk and Boratints are patriots of Ukraine

There are many methods that can be used to study certain areas, areas and aspects of their lives, each method has its pros and cons. Rural areas are available in almost every region, if we consider the region in its classical form, so to study rural areas and their competitiveness, it is advisable to use a synthesis of different views, methods and points of view. This will allow us to move from one type of scientific analysis to another and maneuver between some radically opposite approaches in order to make the most complete and comprehensive use of methods of empirical and theoretical scientific knowledge. The historical method is especially important for Ukraine, because over the last century the understanding of the village and everything connected with it has completely changed several times, which was due to changes in the forms of government One of the characteristic features of modern society is the appeal to their roots, interest in studying the history of the native land. It is known that the study of the history of each nation begins with the study of the history of a family, house, street, village or city. Each of us has such corners on earth, where both in the days of joy and in the days of sorrow you reach for a drop of healing water from your native spring, for strength from your father's home. There are many interesting Volyn families, such as the Gerasymchuks, with whom the former village of Kivertsi (now Pryluky) in the Kiverechchyna, the village of Boratyn in the Luchchyna, the way of economic life in antiquity and other events of our region are connected. It is claimed that Gerasimchuk-Nikityuki are representatives of the village elite, around which the community rallied. This study is one example of the study of labor dynasties, which today are not relevant in historical science.

Village Context and the National Solidarity Program in Afghanistan

This paper explores the relation between the design of Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Program and implementation outcomes. It draws on a study of village contexts to understand the variability in the relations of responsibility and accountability that exist between customary village leadership, village elites, and village households. Findings on diverse processes of “bricolage” between the NSP intervention and customary practices highlight the politics of village life, which the technical assumptions of the NSP do not address.

IMAJINASI DESA IMPIAN: Konstruksi Media dalam Pengembangan Desa Wisata di Desa Ranuklindungan Kabupaten Pasuruan

The visualization of Rural development today is largely the result of mass media construction, as evidenced by the proliferation of village tourism as a pilot village for other regions. Indirectly the media will represent the ideal Village so that the development that is formed today can not be separated from the interference of mass media.Urgensi of this research is to see the ideal Village development which is sometimes considered to be opposite with the opinions and expectations of the community. The main purpose of this research is to describe how the Village Elite, PKK group and Local heroes who play a role in mobilizing the community to build and improve the area of origin independently. They are the subject of research studies in envisioning their own version of the ideal Village in the middle of the tourism tour, the construction of toll roads, theconstruction of the framming of mass media and further describing the role of media in theideal Village in the wider community. The research uses qualitative descriptive method when it is considered important to be done considering the majority of development today based on the interests but the face of equity welfare. The result of this research is the inclusion of the Tourism Village to be the reason to change the face of the careless suburban village with the environment into environmentally conscious tourism village as well as eliminating the 'Village' entity itself, further mass media becomes an instrument to construct and build people's critical reason

Multiple Social Networks in Grassroots Governance in Rural China

Existing research on grassroots rural governance in China adopts a network perspective to explore the role of traditional social vehicles including clans, clan clusters and popular beliefs in improving village governance. However, most of this research has concentrated on analyzing the way in which horizontal network relationships lead to effective village governance. It has thus to some extent neglected the basic reality of the overlapping interconnections between the “top-down” administrative system and the informal structure of village governance. In fact, an analysis that proceeds from the features of the government’s own organizational network, the social structure of the village itself and the position of its elites in order to focus on modes of interaction within the village under the intermixture of (formal) system design and (informal) social relations, shows that differences in the composition of the government’s promotional networks resulting from the traits of key officials affect the speed of policy dissemination as well as the government’s mode of interaction with the village elites. Moreover, differences in these modes of interaction further influence the subsequent operation of self-organization based on social traditions (“filial piety” or “morality”). At the same time, structural elements, including the economic and social relations of the village itself, determine whether self-organization will improve the quality of governance in the long term. This finding can serve as a reflection on and critique of the theories of “strong government” and “tradition” current in academia.

Community Participation in the Village Fund Program in Kemang Manis Village, Tebing Tinggi District, Empat Lawang Regency, South Sumatra

This study aimed to find out how community participation in the Village Fund program in Kemang Manis Village in the Four Lawang District in 2016 and the factors that supported and blocked community participation in the village fund program in Kemang Manis Village. The method used was qualitative so that the data obtained through interviews, observation and study of documentation and qualitative descriptive analysis techniques. The results showed that at the decision making stage, the participation of the Kemang Manis village community in the Village Fund Program in 2016 was still low because the data synchronization activities were not carried out, only the village elite community and workers as well as grant providers, were invited, attended, gave opinions, and approve the results of the meeting's decision. At the implementation stage (community participation) was quite good, it appeared in the crowded community who registered themselves as candidates for village infrastructure activities, following the work briefing and direction from the village government. At the time of implementation the community brought their own carpentry equipment, donated food and drinks, and received wages or daily work incentives, and participants of community empowerment activities received transport money. The stages of the utilization of benefits (benefits) the community felt the benefits of the results of village development. Roads could be passed by 4-wheeled vehicles, making it easier to transport agricultural produce, residents began to build houses because roads were available and land values ​​had also increased. The community had not yet been involved in the monitoring, supervision and evaluation stages, because in the planning stages of the Village RPJM and Village RKP documents the community involvement is still low. At the stage of implementation of village development the community was involved as an implementer, but the procurement and financial management and administration activities were carried out by the village government. There were no complaints from the public and information disclosure regarding the new Village Fund in the form of a Village Infrastructure development project board.

Does community-based forest management in Indonesia devolve social justice or social costs?

The Indonesian government is committed to allocating 12.7 million hectares of forest land to local communities through community-based forest management (CBFM) schemes. We analysed CBFM case studies from three provinces throughout the archipelago. In all cases, actions focused on nominal redistribution of land but ignored local participation and aspirations. CBFM was used as a tool to solve problems of forest tenure, legalization of forest communities and forest rehabilitation, rather than to empower communities and therefore address issues of social justice. Communities remained subject to land-use restrictions, limiting their opportunities. Their participation was often weak and limited to the village elites. Technical support to communities was almost inexistent, leaving them without the financial and technical skills required to run the schemes efficiently. The analysis indicates that redistribution of rights only serves social justice when the process recognises local aspirations and cultural values of participants.

Eline Van Onacker, Village Elites and Social Structures in the Late Medieval Campine Region

Eline Van Onacker, Village Elites and Social Structures in the Late Medieval Campine Region

Promises and perils of collective land tenure in promoting urban resilience: Learning from China's urban villages

New frameworks for “urban resilience” frequently overlook the role of property rights and tenure security in shaping vulnerability, as well as how different property rights regimes shape societal capacity to adapt to environmental and developmental disruptions. We contribute to these discussions by examining how collective urban land tenure affects community-scale resilience, defined as environmental wellbeing, productive livelihoods, and empowered governance. We use urban villages in Shenzhen to study how this widespread phenomenon of collective land ownership in Chinese cities allowed rural villagers to adapt as cities spread around them over time. Drawing on a literature review, interviews, and a field visit to Shenzhen, we find that collective tenure in Shenzhen’s urban villages has helped them avoid some of the limitations seen in household-level tenure formalization efforts elsewhere. Collective tenure enabled rural villages to create self-governance mechanisms that allowed them to transform individual and collective assets into vibrant, well-serviced, and mixed-use neighborhoods. Urban villages house most of Shenzhen’s residents and have helped underwrite the region’s industrialization process. However, collective tenure also has hindered integration with Shenzhen’s urban infrastructure, governance, and taxation systems, resulted in astronomical profits for village elites, and repeated historic patterns of unequal land ownership in China. The promises and perils of collective urban property rights seen in Shenzhen call for research on other such models around the world to further inform whether and how such property rights regimes can support equitable and holistic notions of urban resilience.

The MicroSDs of Solomon Islands An Offline Remittance Economy of Digital Multi-Media

Abstract Based on twelve months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, this article investigates the offline circulation of digital media files in Solomon Islands. It explores how circular temporary labour migration drives the acquisition, movement and consumption of digital media, and how these media files contribute to moral controversies. Before the rapid proliferation of mobile phones in 2010, people living in rural environments had limited access to electronic media and the male village elite controlled access to this media, especially foreign movies. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are individually owned and encourage private consumption of media files. At the same time, migrants living in urban areas can easily obtain digital media files and have started integrating them into remittance networks. Access to electronic media in rural areas has exploded. Because foreign visual media are associated with urban, morally ambivalent lifestyles, this proliferation has also fuelled moral uncertainties among rural residents. This article suggests that to understand these moral controversies, and their significance in contemporary Solomon Islands, it is crucial to account for the mobility of digital media files offline and alongside the movements of temporary labourers.

Village head elections in Java: Money politics and brokerage in the remaking of Indonesia's rural elite

To explore how democratisation is transforming Indonesia's rural elite, we examine two village head elections in Central Java. Despite the competitiveness of these elections, the campaigning modes employed by candidates, especially vote buying, points to elite continuity, because only wealthy villagers can compete for office. Moreover, links with higher state officials remain important for village elites, allowing them to win political support by obtaining projects from local government. However, rather than being incorporated as subordinates in a bureaucratic hierarchy as during authoritarian rule, village elites are now true rural brokers, exercising considerable leverage in their relations with the state.

The Practices of Political Patronage and Clientelism of the Democrat Party in the 2014 Legislative Election in Ponorogo Regency

The Democrat Party in Ponorogo Regency still exists despite cases of corruption that ensnared some national political actors. The Ponorogo Regency attracted the attention of many parties and candidates, including that of the Democratic Party, during the legislative elections in 2014. This concern included candidate efforts to transform the party through the provision of patronage material in diverse forms such as a unique distribution process, and a variety of patronage models. This research was conducted to determine the practice of patronage politics of the Democrat Party in the Ponorogo Regency in 2014. The theory used for this research on the practice of patronage is the theory of patronage and clientelism according to the variables offered by James Scott. The qualitative research methods are data collection interviews, and documentation and re- ports related to the elections in Ponorogo. The results of this study suggest that the practice of patronage in Ponorogo conducted by the Democrat’s candidate is very diverse, ranging from the use of money given to voters, the provision of public goods targeting social groups such as farmers and youth organizations on the assumption that they were impressionable on an emotional level, and giving pork barrels in the form of road construction and irrigation disbursed through the BKAD (Inter-agency Cooperation Board). Patronage is certainly dis- tributed through clientelism networks such as successful teams that have been prepared since before the election, a network of social groups that utilize a warok , considered a person who has a wise and exalted nature and takes advantage of the village elite. This is a political machine that runs a network to help distribute patronage so that it becomes clientelistic. The interest of this study is the associa- tion between patronage and clientelism that is fused with the local culture of the Ponorogo community and was mobilized in the legislative election in 2014.

Legitimasi Kekuasaan Juraytuwe Di Desa Talang Sejemput Kecamatan Pulau Pinang Kabupaten Lahat

This study aims to understand Juray tuwe legitimacy his power in Talang Sejemput Village. Specifically this study detailing the sources of power, mechanisms of using and maintaining sources of power, to explain social relations and political Juray Tuwe with rural communities, and explain the implications of power Juray Tuwe on politics and government, social and economic, as well as security and order in the village. This study used a qualitative design with intrinsic case study strategy. This research paradigm critism and approach is poststructuralism Michael Focault. Collecting data using the technique of participant observation, in-depth interviews, and documentation of literature. The results showed the legitimacy of power is very closely related to the sources of power, which is used as a reference in the mechanism of arranging the order of village and as a guide in making decisions on the behavior of the rural communities that are considered contrary to customary law. Maintenance of power sources is realized through a variety of actions, activities, and special ritual, so that its implementation can be accepted, recognized, and implemented in rural communities. The pattern of the relationship between Juray Tuwe by the village elite shows the mutual support ang complement, although the implementation of customs rules more dominant. Juray Tuwe’s power implications in the lives of rural communities capable of promoting the values of social cohesion and sustainable use of natural resources based on the needs of life.