Serving Two Masters: Neighbourhood Leaders and Urban Governance in Indonesia

• In Event: Understanding Local Dynamics in Democracies and Autocracies

Abstract

Current scholarship on urban governance is split across two empirical universes. One, represented by Tariq Thachil and Adam Auerbach's recent work on democratic India, examines the role of locally elected political brokers in urban representation and responsiveness. The other is scholarship on neighborhood governance in China by Benjamin Read, Daniel Mattingly and Lynette Ong, which explores how embedded bureaucrats can facilitate state administration and repression in authoritarian settings.
This paper puts the scholarship on grassroots representation and street-level bureaucrats in conversation by drawing on the case of Indonesia, where over one million elected neighborhood leaders perform both of these roles at once. Our research sheds light on how civic structures built by corporatist authoritarian regimes adapt to democratic change and how the state struggles to reassert control over them. It also offers useful insights about the role of constituent proximity and social shame in shaping local governance.
Leaders of neighborhood associations in Indonesia have a long history of extending the state’s reach into society and rendering dense urban areas legible. Set up by the Japanese occupying force during World War II, the original purpose of these micro-bodies was to mobilize resources for the war effort and suppress dissent in the colony. In independent Indonesia, neighborhood governance was repurposed by successive authoritarian regimes for their own ends. Neighborhood leaders, vetted for loyalty by regime officials, were tasked with performing a multitude of functions for the state, including mass surveillance, enforcement of social policies; and disaster relief.
Following Indonesia's democratic transition in 1998, centralized governance of neighborhood associations ended, but they remained an indispensable part of daily statecraft and continued to perform many of their old monitoring and enforcement functions. But now, the capacity of neighborhood leaders for performing these tasks is highly contingent on their standing within their residents, who freely elect them and expect them to represent their needs to municipal authorities. As such, legitimacy is a highly prized asset for neighborhood leaders, which depends on their ability to generate community goodwill or at the very least, avoid ill will.
This paper examines how these elected bureaucrats in Indonesia traverse a dual role by enforcing state directives from above and responding to residents’ wishes from below. It asks: how do socially embedded leaders perceive their authority? When are they likely to act as representatives of the people who select them; and when do they transform into street-level bureaucrats?
The paper draws on an original opinion survey of a representative sample of 600 neighborhood leaders from Indonesia’s capital region, the Jakarta Metropolitan Area. Home to more than 30 million people, this urban region is organized into an extensive network of 86,000 neighborhood leaders across three provincial administrations and 12 municipalities. These leaders are selected through different, locally determined mechanisms; receive varying amounts of official stipends; and serve residents from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds.
Our data reveals three key findings. First, the extent to which neighborhood leaders prioritize representation over enforcement is most significantly affected by the amount of state resources they receive. Those who receive a higher stipend are significantly more likely to perceive ensuring their residents' compliance with government policies as their main job, while those who are paid less prioritize lobbying municipal governments to solve their residents problems. Second, the extent to which neighborhood leaders are willing to enforce state directives is affected by the mechanism through which they are selected. Those elected through transparent, public elections are most likely to think they have a wider range of authority even to enforce unpopular measures compared to those appointed by municipal governments or those selected informally by a coterie of elders. Third, concerns about legitimacy and fear of slander from neighbors compel neighborhood leaders to be selective about how they enforce state directives. They use their discretion to enforce community-wide policies and avoid implementing policies that require singling out individual neighbors.

Authors

• Sana Jaffrey, Australian National University

• Ihsan Fauzi