cross culture management and public management

The Result of  Cross Culture Management and Public Management..

Check It Out!!!!

Village Politics, Culture and Community-Driven Development

Insight From Indonesia

1.      The cultural lacunae of community-driven development

Judging by the recent and passionate discovery at the World Bank of ‘community driven development’, decentralization fever (Tendler, 1997) is still in our midst  (Dongier et al., 2002;World Bank, 2003).Of course, there are good reasons for becoming infected with this fever, for the decentralization of governance functions and resource allocation decisions to both municipal authorities and communities may indeed offer the prospect of increased and broader popular participation at a local level. However, there is no a priori reason to believe that this will be so: local authorities are not necessarily responsive to village demands, just as village authorities need not be representative of the majority of villagers.

The 1990s saw several studies aiming to provide antidote to the excesses of decentralization fever. Comparative studies – within and across a range of country contexts – have shown quite clearly how the final effects of decentralization depend considerably on the power structures into which resources and roles are being devolved (Crook and Manor, 1994, 1998; Manor 1998; Harriss, 2001; also Fox,1995). These more cautionary studies are important. However, they have tended to emphasize the ways in which social structures and the material bases of power affect decentralization processes – with a focus, furthermore, on the municipal or provincial scales.

In this paper we do not take our analysis in this direction nor engage in deeply theorized discussions of cultural politics (though this is an important project in critical development studies). We do, however, draw on some insights of these discussions in order to explore ways in which practices loaded with meaning affect the dynamics of village politics and governance in ways that do not map easily onto the material bases of social power. The paper proceeds as follows. First we discuss the research underlying this argument. Secondly we present a framework for thinking about the relationships between culture and local governance. Thirdly we present three cases (two from Central Java and one from the province of Jambi in Sumatra) in which we illustrate the ways in which formal institutions of village governance have both reworked, and have been reworked by institutions linked to cultural practices. Fourthly and finally we close with a discussion of the implications of these observations for current discussions of community-driven development.

2.      Local-level institutions and village development in Indonesia

This paper is based on two studies addressing the relationships between local institutions, poverty and village governance in rural Indonesia.3 The first study, conducted between 1996 and 1997, aimed first to generate descriptive information on the role that village institutions played in villagers’ lives, secondly to trace the relationships between these institutions and household-level welfare (Grootaert, 1999) and thirdly to understand the interactions between state-sponsored and nonstate organizations and groups in patterns of village-level development.

3.      Culture and governance: practices, institutions and meanings

Some would argue that ‘there is no such thing as culture’ (Mitchell, 1995), but rather only power that manifests itself in a range of discourses and practices. Still, there is some utility (as authors such as Escobar, 1995, suggest) in retaining the notion that people defend, and mobilize around, practices and institutions that are particularly meaningful to them. Cultural practices are embedded in networks of social relationships. These networks make the practices both possible (you cannot gamble or fight cocks against yourself) and meaningful (as the practices become markers of belonging both within the network as well as within the broader translocal community within which the network exists). Such networks can also constitute the basis for other (related or not) forms of social action – such as actions, for instance, that seek to create an environment that will allow such cultural practices to continue to exist. Examples here could include using the network to gain access to the financial resources necessary to allow soccer leagues to continue to exist, or to manipulate the legal environment in instances where the practices involved would be deemed illegal by formal law.

For these different reasons, the networks that sustain cultural practices are likely to interact with the formal institutions of village government, be this because these cultural practices are regulated by village government or because the networks involved engage with village government institutions to seek their resources, to manipulate them (via corruption, vote-getting or some other mechanism), to seek their protection or for some other reason. To the extent that the practices sustained by these networks have particular significance in people’s lives, then this can mean that the networks (and organizations linked to them) become important collective actors within village politics, and one of the main determinants of postures taken by formal governance institutions in the village.

Equally, however, the formal institutions of village governance can distort and disable the networks that make possible certain cultural practices. Where groups controlling formal governance institutions view such practices as a threat that can be dealt with without running too much risk of generating unmanageable forms of resistance, then the likelihood that theywill deliberately aimto disable them is greater. The networks that sustain meaningful practices can thus become significant vehicles for political action. As a corollary, the institutions that sustain formal village governance procedures also convey meaning within the village.6 In rural Indonesia, one might reasonably argue that village government organizations convey meanings associated with modernization, authoritarianism, surveillance, integration, development and (outside Java) Javanization (Evers, 2000).

If it is the case that formal organizations and practices of village government are embedded in networks sustaining cultural practices as well as in contested ideas about how government should be practiced, then any development intervention that aims to reform or work through formal village institutions immediately becomes involved in these cultural tensions, privileging some meanings and social groups, excluding others – as the New Order regime understood perfectly. Having argued this point conceptually, we now do so empirically. In the following section, we review cases from three localities in Central Java and Jambi that illuminate just how far cultural tensions affect village governance.

4.      Cultural tensions and village governance in rural Indonesia: Central Java and Jambi

a.      Village governance in context: a brief history

Law 5/1979 was issued because older regulations, many derived from colonial laws, were deemed by the New Order government to be inadequate for the government’s plan to accelerate rural development. An explanatory text attached to the law commented, ‘those [old] laws and regulations did not create uniformity in village government and did not stimulate the community to develop. Therefore the present villages and village governments have various forms and structures; each area has its own characteristics which often hinder intensive upgrading and control to improve the community’s welfare’. In response to this, the New Order regime introduced a uniform structure for village governance for the whole of Indonesia. The centrepiece of this was the village (or desa) and the village leader (kepala desa). The desa was in turn subdivided into hamlets or subvillages, called dusun, each of which also had their leader who answered directly to the kepala desa.

True to the intent of making village institutions functional to national programmes of rural development and political surveillance, the Law stipulated that the kepala desa be accountable not to the community but to the district head (acting on behalf of the Governor of the province). The kepala desa only had to explain their administration to the LembagaMusayawarah Desa (the LMD or ‘village community consultative council’), which was anyway headed by the kepala desa. The village head also chaired another organization, the Lembaga Ketahanan Masyarakat Desa (the LKMD, or ‘village community resilience council’).

In sum, village regulations ‘allow’ the villagers a role, but give the village head the final word, and just to make sure, give the district head the right to “veto” everything’ (Evers, 2000: 14). Later the central government also created other ‘community’ groups (women’s and youth groups, in particular). These were supposed to be present in every village and played a mix of community, development and surveillance roles. In 998 there was a bad crisis and made President Soeharto to retreat from his function and the impact was the changing of Law 5/1979 to Law 22/1999 about Local Government. This new law, hastily prepared and unclear in parts, introduced more liberal conceptions of local governance and opened space for diversity in forms of government, giving the village community the chance of playing a larger role in their development. Inter alia, the community is free to return to its local customs (albeit in ways still regulated by the district government), and the village head is now accountable to the Badan Perwakilan Desa (BPD, or village representative body) instead of to the district head.

b.      Village governance and religious tensions in Central Java

There are two streams in Banyumas Muslim. His name abangan and orthodox Muslims. They have a conflict about Baritan quiet ceremony. Baritan is a traditional ceremony for peace, away from the disaster, etc.. Abangan believe in animism, while orthodox do not believe it. Then when there is a nomination of a village chief. Abangan ran and he won. In his campaign he promised to provide houses, repair roads. But when in making a decision because he was chosen by the orthodox, then the decision is heavily influenced by Islamic ideologies ortodks.

c.       Gambling and village politics in Central Java

The second example comes from Beral, a village in the most southern part of District Wonogiri, located by the sea and at the border between two provinces, Central Java and East Java. Trends in this area is the existence of a legal gambling activities if the activities such as parties, celebrations and so forth. Gambling is something that is required to do. The practice of gambling is not only done by people, but came to the village officials (village heads). Gambling activity is also used by a group of people who want to run for village officials. With their gambling can bet the party who wins and loses.

d.      Cultural tensions and traditional governance institutions in Jambi

The final short example comes from the village of Koto Depati in the province of Jambi. Located on one of the most fertile areas in the province, Koto Depati had been relatively isolated until 1996, when the existing dirt track was asphalted to connect the village and its neighbours to the district capital. Since 1997, indigenous villagers have attempted to revive its traditional (adat) governance system, known as Depati Gento Rajo (DGR), which is also the title of the leader. One consequence of the new road to Koto Depati has been the influx of landhungry migrants (pendatang) from the neighbouring district (Kerinci) and provinces (South Sumatra and Bengkulu), as well as from Java. Although the village has a long history of accommodating such pendatang, the rate of in-migration since 1997 has been unprecedented.

Prior to 1996, pendatang usually had to apply to become members of the adat community. By doing so they would gain similar benefits to those of the indigenous population, such as the rights to open forest for a dry field and a site to build a house, as well as to vote in local elections. To become a member of the adat community, a pendatang would have to have a foster father (tengganai) and undergo a set of adat-sponsored rituals hosted by his tengganai and him, symbolizing both his intention to become a good member of the community and the acceptance of him by the host community. For the adat community, a tengganai is responsible for teaching his foster child the adat rules and making sure that he accepts all the consequences of being a member of the community. Having undergone these rituals, the pendatang would gradually accrue all rights and responsibilities inherent in his new status.

The kepala desa, for instance, has acquired 30 ha of additional ladang in less than five years. Increasing control of land by the pendatang has in the last few years begun to worry the local ruling elites. In 2000 the adat council, the LKMD and the village head collectively issued a decree that land transactions with the pendatang were deemed illegal unless approved by the village head. This decree appears to reflect the revival of the adat governance system and constitutes an effort to maintain adat rule over the community. However, a closer investigation showed that the decree also benefited the indigenous elite, because it took pendatang out of the land market and so pushed land prices down

5.      Culture, governance and local development

From the cases make clear that governance and cultural politics are, at least at the local level, deeply entwined with each other. They demonstrate, for instance, how individual and collective actors seek to influence the people and organizations that have formal influence over local governance in ways that are motivated by practices and beliefs that are particularly meaningful to them. These cases also suggest that some of the most significant influences on who occupies positions of local authority, on how they govern and on how they are able to mobilize and allocate resources are not easily and immediately read off from differentials in the material bases of social power. Rather, local struggles – or, at times, local silences – may have as much to do with the exercise, protection and projection of certain cultural practices. While patterns of participation in these cultural practices may be related to general patterns of asset distribution, this is not necessarily or always the case. Indeed, cross-class networks linked to these practices can and do emerge, and can and do seek to influence formal governance processes to protect practices that are deemed especially meaningful within these networks.

The cases also raise important issues regarding the links between culture, power and scale. Reflecting our interest in speaking to discussions of decentralized development in which resources and formal powers are devolved to administratively defined scales, we have focused on a notion of ‘local’ that is linked to village and subdistrict scales. However, the cultural forms and meanings discussed in the cases are not simply village or subdistrict phenomena.

6.      The Result of Discussion (February, 16^th 2012)

From the discussions that have been done a lot of questions provided by the participants, one of which is from the Bayu Partners who provide input regarding Abangan and Orthodox groups contained in the Banyumas. Provided very useful input to increase my knowledge as those who make presentations more aware of the existence of Abangan and Orthodox. In addition, from my observations of friends of the participants have understood more about the presentation that I have given. then at the end of the presentation session moderator (Akbar Pandu) provide an opportunity for Mr Mardiyono to provide input and comments from the presentation I had done. And input from Mr. Mardiyono is that I added a case regarding the content of papper, specifically those in Indonesia and over the course related with Cross Culture Management and Public Management .