In 1999, Indonesia embarked on a reform of regional governance that brings self-governance to rural districts and municipalities, i.e., the administrative and democratic capacity needed to apply basic services like healthcare, national legislation and environment policies. This edited volume is the first book, which not only deals with the 1999 legislation but also shows how the deficiencies and contradictions of this legislation reduced implementation between 2001 and 2004 to a try-out. The book also discusses the adaptations that were the focus of the debate on the revision of the 1999 legislation that resulted in the 2004 update legislation and the amendment of the 1945 Constitution. Anthropological case studies of five provinces complement and deepen the findings of the more general survey reports.

Since the collapse of Soeharto’s New Order regime in May 1998, Indonesia’s national, provincial, and district governments have engaged in an intense struggle over how authority and the power embedded in it, should be shared. How this ongoing struggle over authority in the forestry sector will ultimately play out is of considerable significance due to the important role that Indonesia’s forests play in supporting rural livelihoods, generating economic revenues, and providing environmental services. This book examines the process of forestry sector decentralization that has occurred in post-Soeharto Indonesia, and assesses the implications of more recent efforts by the national government to recentralize administrative authority over forest resources. It aims to describe the dynamics of decentralization in the forestry sector, to document major changes that occurred as district governments assumed a greater role in administering forest resources, and to assess what the ongoing struggle among Indonesia’s national, provincial, and district governments is likely to mean for forest sustainability, economic development at multiple levels, and rural livelihoods. Drawing from primary research conducted by numerous scientists both at CIFOR and its many Indonesian and international partner institutions since 2000, this book sketches the sectoral context for current governmental reforms by tracing forestry development and the changing structure of forest administration from Indonesia’s independence in 1945 to the fall of Soeharto’s New Order regime in 1998. The authors further examine the origins and scope of Indonesia’s decentralization laws in order to describe the legal-regulatory framework within which decentralization has been implemented both at the macro-level and specifically within the forestry sector. This book also analyses the decentralization of Indonesia’s fiscal system and describes the effects of the country’s new fiscal balancing arrangements on revenue flows from the forestry sector, and describes the dynamics of district-level timber regimes following the adoption of Indonesia’s decentralization laws. Finally, this book also examines the real and anticipated effects of decentralization on land tenure and livelihood security for communities living in and around forested areas, and summarizes major findings and options for possible interventions to strengthen the forestry reform efforts currently underway in Indonesia.

Indonesia is experiencing an historic and dramatic shift in political and economic power from the centre to the local level. The collapse of the highly centralised Soeharto regime allowed long-repressed local aspirations to come to the fore. The new Indonesian Government then began one of the world's most radical decentralisation programmes, under which extensive powers are being devolved to the district level. In every region and province, diverse popular movements and local claimants to state power are challenging the central authorities.This book is the first comprehensive coverage on decentralisation in Indonesia. It contains contributions from leading academics and policy-makers on a wide range of topics relating to democratisation, devolution and the blossoming of local-level politics.

“Decentralization is a major trend in Indonesia since the first decades of that nation under Sukarno and Suharto. Max Lane is justly treasured for illuminating those first decades, for example, through his translations of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and his excellent book, Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto. Anyone who seeks insights into the current trend of decentralization, whether in Indonesia or other parts of the world, will find this work cogent.” - James L. Peacock, Kenan Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill“This book opens up the discussion on the history and political economy of the new populist policies that seem to gain momentum in the face of the Indonesian elections. It also addresses questions pertaining to the problems and options related to popular aspirations within this context — all of which cannot be explained very well by any of the predominant theses on Indonesia, whether as an oligarchy or a democratically liberal but economically predatory country.” - Professor Olle Törnquist, University of Oslo.

This book examines issues connected with decentralization and regional autonomy in Indonesia, including particular autonomy movements, the attempts by forces at the centre to resist decentralization, and the impact of decentralization.

There is a major contradiction in contemporary politics: there has been a wave of democratization that has swept across much of the world, while at the same time globalization appears to have reduced the social forces that have built democracy historically. This book, by an international group of authors, analyzes the ways in which local politics in developing countries - often neglected in work on democratization - render democratic experiments more or less successful in realizing substantial democracy.

For decades almost the only social scientists who visited Indonesia’s provinces were anthropologists. Anybody interested in politics or economics spent most of their time in Jakarta, where the action was. Our view of the world’s fourth largest country threatened to become simplistic, lacking that essential graininess. Then, in 1998, Indonesia was plunged into a crisis that could not be understood with simplistic tools. After 32 years of enforced stability, the New Order was at an end. Things began to happen in the provinces that no one was prepared for. Democratization was one, decentralization another. Ethnic and religious identities emerged that had lain buried under the blanket of the New Order’s modernizing ideology. Unfamiliar, sometimes violent forms of political competition and of rentseeking came to light. Decentralization was often connected with the neo-liberal desire to reduce state powers and make room for free trade and democracy. To what extent were the goals of good governance and a stronger civil society achieved? How much of the process was ‘captured’ by regional elites to increase their own powers? Amidst the new identity politics, what has happened to citizenship? These are among the central questions addressed in this book. This volume is the result of a two-year research project at KITLV. It brings together an international group of 24 scholars – mainly from Indonesia and the Netherlands but also from the United States, Australia, Germany, Canada and Portugal.

Since the fall of long-reigning President Soeharto, in 1998, Indonesia has been in an era of transition, away from an authoritarian regime, and on a quest for democracy. This quest started with decentralization laws implemented in 2001, which gave greater autonomy to the regions, and continued with the direct elections for the national and local legislatures and the President in 2004. The latest development in this democratization process is the implementation of a system for the direct election of regional leaders, which began in 2005; the first round of elections across the nation for all governors, mayors and district heads was completed in 2008. Authors of the chapters in this volume, the result of a workshop in Singapore in 2006, present data from across the archipelago for these first direct elections for local leaders and give their assessment as to how far these elections have contributed to a deepening democracy.

'This book provides an excellent overview of more than a decade of transformation in a forest landscape where the interests of local people, extractive industries and globally important biodiversity are in conflict. The studies assembled here teach us that plans and strategies are fine but, in the real world of the forest frontier, conservation must be based upon negotiation, social learning and an ability to muddle through.' Jeffrey Sayer, senior scientific adviser, Forest Conservation Programme IUCN - International Union for of Nature The devolution of control over the world's forests from national or state and provincial level governments to local control is an ongoing global trend that deeply affects all aspects of forest management, conservation of biodiversity, control over resources, wealth distribution and livelihoods. This powerful new book from leading experts provides an in-depth account of how trends towards increased local governance are shifting control over natural resource management from the state to local societies, and the implications of this control for social justice and the environment. The book is based on ten years of work by a team of researchers in Malinau, Indonesian Borneo, one of the world's richest forest areas. The first part of the book sets the larger context of decentralization's impact on power struggles between the state and society. The authors then cover in detail how the devolution process has occurred in Malinau, the policy context, struggles and conflicts and how Malinau has organized itself. The third part of the book looks at the broader issues of property relations, conflict, local governance and political participation associated with decentralization in Malinau. Importantly, it draws out the salient points for other international contexts including the important determination that 'local political alliances', especially among ethnic minorities, are taking on greater prominence and creating new opportunities to influence forest policy in the world's richest forests from the ground up. This is top-level research for academics and professionals working on forestry, natural resource management, policy and resource economics worldwide. Published with CIFOR