Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Local government Indonesia Medan'

This study is about public sector performance measurement in the context of developing economies; more specifically, the study focuses on local government performance measurement systems as applied in Indonesia. Although there have been numerous research studies examining performance measurement, most empirical work has been undertaken in the context of developed economies. Performance measurement research in the milieu of developing economies is still very much underdeveloped and the progress is considerably much slower than those in developed economies. This study adopts an interpretive approach and applied case study research method in order, to develop an understanding of a) what drives the new performance measurement b) how it is designed and c) how it is used? The findings show that performance measurement in the context of developing economies tends to be driven by different reasons than compared to those developed economies. The findings also indicated developing economies encounter various challenges in designing and implementing performance measurement which eventually affected the use and usefulness of performance measurement. This study thus contributes to improve our understanding of the design, implementation and use of performance measurement in the context of developing economies. More specifically, it improves our understanding regarding (i) internal and external driving forces for performance measurement initiatives in the developing economies, (ii) the effectiveness of design, implementation and use, (iii) technical, organisational and institutional factors influencing design, implementation and use and the complex interactive effects of these three categories of factors, (iv) the interdependence between design, implementation and use, and (v) the complex conflicts of interest among different stakeholders in this context.

This thesis is about the capacity of local government agencies in Makassar (Indonesia) to provide services to the public. Besides aiming to understand the institutional capacity of local government agencies, the research also examines the role internal and external factors play in determining the service delivery capacity of public organisations. Internal factors refer to the organisational structure, managerial practices and the management of human resources in public organisations. External factors refer to the degree of bureaucratic and political accountability as well as the level of competition experienced by government agencies. ¶ This research will enrich the existing development literature by strengthening our understanding of the ways in which internal and external factors strengthen or weaken the capacity of public sector institutions. ¶ Institutional capacity is measured by the quality of services provided by the local government agencies as assessed by their clients through both questionnaires and interviews, whereas the data regarding the role internal and external factors play in determining the institutional capacity of local government agencies were collected by in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with the management and staff in a number of agencies, with high-level bureaucrats, with non-government organisations and business associations, and members of the Makassar parliament. ¶ This study concludes that the institutional capacity of local government agencies in the case studies varies, although overall institutional capacity is relatively low or unsatisfactory. Of the four agencies in the case studies, only one agency was able to deliver quality services higher than the level expected by its clients. ¶ In general, this research reveals that the degree of accountability of the local government agencies in the case studies is relatively weak. The study infers that the degree of accountability does not have a significant impact on the agencies' performance. ¶ It was found that the competitive or monopolistic environment in which the local government agencies operate does affect the capacity of the agencies to serve their clients. This capacity is also affected by a number of aspects within the organisation and human resource dimensions of the agencies. ¶ This study shows that, in the case of Indonesia, attempts to improve the capacity of government agencies to deliver quality public services by improving the capacity of parliament to politically oversee the executive, as recommended by a number of international agencies and commentators, may not be the best and most effective alternative. Rather than focusing the resources to improve the degree of political accountability, the study suggests that a more effective strategy to develop the capacity of government agencies is to enhance the organisational structure, managerial practices and the management of human resources in the public organizations, and to introduce competition into the delivery of public services.

This thesis investigates public sector efficiency (PSE) of decentralized local governments in Indonesia. Based on the literature review improved efficiency is considered as the main outcome expected from a decentralized system of public service provision. Hence analysing public sector efficiency provides the de facto measure of the ability of decentralized local government in internalizing the benefits of fiscal and political decentralization. In order to identify the significance of the effect of 2004 electoral contest, the first democratic election in the decentralized Indonesia, efficiency in the public sector is investigated in a period from 2005 to 2008. The 2004 electoral contest is considered as an important phase of democratization and decentralization in Indonesia as it was the first election where voters directly chose leaders at every level of government. Political and institutional features which emerged as a result of the 2004 election were expected to have an impact on a decentralized system of public service provision.This thesis employs a two-stage method. In the first stage, non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to generate the efficiency scores of all local governments. Several outcome indicators in the education and health sectors, infrastructure, poverty mitigation as well as macroeconomic performance are taken as a measure of the flow of services that arise from public spending. Hence, public sector efficiency is defined as the flow of services per unit expenditure.The second stage of the method aims to investigate public sector efficiency against non-discretionary variables involving a measure of fiscal decentralization, political and institutional variables, as well as total factor productivity growth as a control variable. In order to do so, this thesis employs an econometric analysis using fixed effect vector decomposition (FEVD). The FEVD is adopted as the political and institutional variables are characterised as time-invariant variables.In the first stage of the method, the DEA estimate reveals that public sector efficiency scores vary across local governments, corroborating the general pattern of the regional disparity in Indonesia. That is, poorly developed regions have relatively inefficient governments. The DEA calculation locates local governments on Java Island at the frontier indicating that these local governments are benchmarking others. On the other hand, Papua and Papua Barat emerge with the lowest efficiency score over the observation period with a large divergence from the frontier. The results also show that the average and the median efficiency scores are drifting downwards, while the distance from the lowest score to the frontier is increasing. This indicates that the regional disparity in the public sector efficiency was increasing over the observation period.The second stage of the method reveals that the ability of a decentralized local government to generate local own-revenue is significant in improving public sector efficiency. The estimation results show that the degree of fiscal decentralization as measured by the ratio of local own-revenue to total public spending has a significant positive impact on the PSE. However, given that the growth of total factor productivity also has a significant and positive impact on the PSE, the result should be seen as a caution that improved PSE might result from overall total productivity in the economy. A local jurisdiction that has higher total factor productivity will present greater public sector efficiency regardless the degree of fiscal decentralization.The second stage estimate also reveals that the formation of the new government as an outcome of the first electoral democracy in the decentralized Indonesia has nothing to do with the PSE improvement. The lost hegemony of Golkar in the decentralized democratized Indonesia, measured as the ratio of seats held by Golkar to total seats in the local assembly, does not show any significant impact on the PSE. The first electoral democracy might have resulted in a new democratic government in Indonesia; however, the new democratic government might be merely a continuation of an old structure with new rules on the limits of democratization. Accordingly, the new democratic government did not impact on improved efficiency in the public sector.Another significant feature of the formation of the new government in the decentralized democratized Indonesia is the rebirth of politik aliran (political parties rooted to a particular socio-ideology). Politik aliran is represented by Islamic based political parties. These parties held a significant number of seats in the legislative councils. The estimation results reveal a negative association between political Islam and PSE, even when PKB (Nation Awakening Party) and PAN (National Mandatory Party) are included in the measure. Both parties do not set Islam as their platform, but affiliate to NU (Nahdlatul Ulama) and Muhammdiyah, the two largest socio-religious organizations in Indonesia. The result may also stand as a confirmation that patron-client affiliation in Indonesia’s electoral democracy fails to leverage accountability and hence fails to result in improved PSE.The second stage estimate finds evidence that democratic participation did not have an impact on the PSE. This contradicts the general representation claiming that greater democratic participation is associated with better economic performance. The estimates reveal a negative impact of democratic participation on the PSE. In the setting of politik aliran, the coefficient estimate is statistically significant. It implies that while political Islam may have increased electoral participation, the participation has nothing to do with improved PSE. This may not be surprising in the case of electoral democracy in Indonesia where electoral participation is characterised by money politics, patron-client political relationship and unbalanced electoral participation.Many parties flourish in the decentralized democratized Indonesia escalating political fragmentation. Using a Herfindahl-Hirschman index as a measure of the size-political fragmentation this study finds evidence that while citizens may have more options to select parties/politicians to best represent their preferences, higher political fragmentation shows ambiguous impact on PSE.The quality of institutional governance and its impact on PSE is represented by a corruption perception index and an infrastructure perception index. The estimation results reveal evidence that public sector efficiency is positively associated with the infrastructure perception index, but fail to find evidence of an effect for the corruption perception index. This indicates that the outcome of decentralization is not contingent with a perception about corruption as it is prevalent in the decentralized Indonesia. It occurs almost in all levels of government and institutions. Thus if decentralization results in improved efficiency, it is not due to a corruption lessening but rather due to variations in the level of infrastructure.

Utilising content analysis of external audit reports published between 2009 and 2014, this study identified systemic problems resulting from non-compliance in public financial management (PFM) operations of local governments in Indonesia. Further, a single case study was conducted to investigate factors for non-compliance and how they influence the PFM actors to be involved in non-compliance practices. Findings of this study suggested that employees’ motives and dysfunctional bureaucratic structures have contributed to the emergence of non-compliance.

How performance management influences the motivation of public-sector institutions in a decentralised system has received little attention by scholars. This study helps fill this gap by investigating how Minimum Service Standards (MSS) in Indonesia influences the motivation of local government in a decentralised country like Indonesia. This study considers the nature of MSS, how it works, what effect it has on the performance of local governments and why. The evidence is collected from extensive interviews with eighty-three respondents from central government, local governments (eight districts and cities) and non-governmental sector. The findings show the varying effects on the motivation of local government to improve service delivery. MSS does not motivate local governments that are already performing well, but more importantly, it also does not motivate those that are performing badly. However, a small positive effect is found on the motivation of those whose performance lies just below the minimum standard. As it has limited influence, the MSS system does not achieve its formal objectives. However, it survives because it brings central government other benefits. MSS provides a framework for central-local dialogue about public services and strengthens the role central government plays in delivering services at the local level.

This thesis is an ethnographic study of five women???s organisations in Malang, Indonesia. The contemporary significance of local women???s organisations in the lives of kampung women in Indonesia is revealed through an investigation of the relationship between the Indonesian state, local communities and women. This study sets contemporary women???s organisations in the context of their changing historical role and relationship with the state. Women???s organisations have been a part of the Indonesian political and social landscape since the early twentieth century. They played an important role in mobilising women during the struggle for independence. Under Sukarno???s policy of Guided Democracy, restrictions were placed on the political mobilising role of all organisations, including those for women. These restrictions were taken much further under Suharto???s New Order government when many were proscribed. Only state-approved and controlled organisations were accepted. The New Order era essentially undermined the credibility of women???s organisations as vehicles for promoting women???s interests, instead they were generally regarded as ???tools of the state???. Indonesianists and feminists have been especially critical of state-run women???s organisations arguing they have offered Indonesian women ???no path to female power???. This perception of state-sponsored women???s organisations has continued in the post-Suharto era even though their links to the state have changed radically. They now exist alongside a range of NGOs, religious and social women???s organisations. The crucial question that this thesis addresses is why these state-sponsored organisations continue to exist and what motivates women???s participation in these organisations? Through membership in local women???s organisations women enter into a complex relationship with the state, local society and the socio-religious and political institutions within the wider society. The membership status women enjoy provides them with opportunities to engage in a social bargain. Through this bargaining process, local women make social, religious, personal and romantic gains for themselves. The results of the social bargaining process depend largely on the particular organisation to which women belong but they remain strongly oriented towards their local kampung worlds. The thesis provides an alternative way of thinking about the complex role that women???s organisations play in Indonesian society and what function they may continue to have within Indonesia???s post-Suharto future.

This thesis focuses on subnational corruption law enforcement in a new democracy: Indonesia. It seeks to understand temporal and spatial variation in corruption prosecutions in the post-Suharto era, and answer three core research questions: Why has the number of corruption cases steadily increased over the past twenty years? Why is there significant subnational variation in the investigation and prosecution of corruption? And why are some cases of local corruption investigated and prosecuted while others are ignored? The argument developed in the thesis consists of three inter-linked components: that corruption generates complex collective action problems for law enforcement; that ostensibly public law enforcement regimes in Indonesia are informally privatised public law enforcement regimes; and that, in the context of these hybrid regimes, the availability of resources and the formation of coalitions is critical to understanding when individuals and groups mobilise corruption laws at the subnational level. The project uses a mixed methods research strategy—combining qualitative case studies, formal game theoretic modelling, and quantitative regression analysis—to develop and provide evidence for the argument. The research strategy required twelve months of fieldwork in Indonesia. In total over one hundred interviews in Jakarta and Central Java were conducted, and a unique dataset of local corruption cases was coded for two additional provinces. The thesis's argument and methodological approach has implications for literature that spans the field of law and politics: the political economy of prosecution, theories of legal mobilisation, socio-legal studies, and studies of politics and power in contemporary Indonesia.

Purpose - This research aimed to investigate the digital divide and its impact on egovernment system success in Indonesia. Design/methodology - This study applies two-stage sequential mixed method research approach. Findings - The results supported direct influences of digital divide on e-government system success, the mediating effects of trust in e-government and the moderating effects of demographic variables. Research implications/contributions - It contributes to the developments of literature on digital divide and e-government, and to the implementation of egovernment.

This dissertation fundamentally explores the nature of change, and the development interventions that aim to bring this change into a particular society. What emerges is the notion of a ‘spiral’: imagining the dynamic relationship between paradigms and discourses, the institutions and programmes operating in a place, and the way individual identities are constructed in intricate and contradictory ways. Within this spiral, discourse has power – ‘words matter’ – but equally significant is how these words interact dialogically with concrete social structures and institutions – ‘it takes more than changing words to change the world’. Furthermore, these changes are reacted to, and expressed in, the physical, sexed body. In essence, change is ideational, institutional, and embodied. To investigate the politics of change, this dissertation analyses the spiral relationships between gender discourses, institutions, and identities in contemporary Indonesia, focusing on their transmission across Java. It does so by exploring the Indonesian state’s gender policies in the context of globalisation, democratisation, and decentralisation. In this way, the lens of gender allows us to analyse the dynamic interactions between state and society, between ideas and institutions, which impact on everything from cultural structures to physical bodies. Research focuses on the gender policies of the Indonesian Ministry of Women’s Empowerment, substantiated with case study material from United Nations Population Fund reproductive health programmes in West Java. Employing a multi-level, multi-vocal theoretical framework, the thesis analyses gender discourses and relational structures (how discourses circulate to construct the Indonesian woman), gender institutions and social structures (how discourses are translated into programmes), and gender identities and embodied structures (how discourses enter the home and the body). Critically, studying gender requires analysing the human body as the site of both structural and symbolic power. This dissertation thus argues for renewed emphasis on a ‘politics of the body’, recognising that bodies are the material foundations from which gender discourses derive their naturalising power and hence ability to structure social relations. The danger of forgetting this politics of the body is that it allows for slippage between ‘gender’ and ‘women’; policy objectives cannot be disentangled from the reality of physical bodies and their social construction. This thesis therefore argues that there are distinct and even inverse impacts of gender policies in Indonesia. As the ‘liberal’ and ‘modern’ assumptions of gender equality are overlaid onto the patriarchal culture of a society undergoing transformation, women’s bodies and women’s sexuality are always and ever the focus of the social gaze. The gender policies and interventions affecting change on discursive and institutional levels may thus provoke reaction at the level of individual identities that are contrary to explicit intentions. In effect, projects that purport to work on ‘gender’ are often so deeply rooted in underlying gender normativity that their net effect is to reinscribe these gender hierarchies. By exposing the contradictions in these underlying paradigms we gain insight into the politics of a transforming society. Furthermore, engaging with the politics of the body allows us to analyse the spiral processes between discourse and practice, the question of power, and the way men and women embody social structures and experience social transformation.

In the context of Indonesia, fiscal decentralisation causes variation in local government financial condition. Some local governments experience financial problems, but some others are not. Such variation creates the need for local government stakeholders to have an effective instrument to monitor the soundness of local governments in managing finance (i.e planning, budgeting, executing, and monitoring). In addition, the stakeholders need to know what factors determine the variation in financial condition. Until now, in Indonesia, stakeholders have faced difficulties in knowing the soundness of local government financial conditions. The difficulties of knowing the financial condition of local government are due to lack of agreement about an effective assessment model and lack of uniformity in financial condition indicators (Chaney et al., 2002; Honadle, 2003; Kloha, et al., 2005b; Wang et al., 2007). Furthermore, there is little empirical evidence about the factors affecting the financial condition of local government (Dennis, 2004; Jones & Walker, 2007).Therefore, the objectives of this study are, firstly, to develop an instrument to measure the financial condition of local governments in Indonesia and, secondly, to determine factors affecting financial condition of local governments.

This thesis is about the capacity of local government agencies in Makassar (Indonesia) to provide services to the public. Besides aiming to understand the institutional capacity of local government agencies, the research also examines the role internal and external factors play in determining the service delivery capacity of public organisations. Internal factors refer to the organisational structure, managerial practices and the management of human resources in public organisations. External factors refer to the degree of bureaucratic and political accountability as well as the level of competition experienced by government agencies. ¶ ...¶ This study shows that, in the case of Indonesia, attempts to improve the capacity of government agencies to deliver quality public services by improving the capacity of parliament to politically oversee the executive, as recommended by a number of international agencies and commentators, may not be the best and most effective alternative. Rather than focusing the resources to improve the degree of political accountability, the study suggests that a more effective strategy to develop the capacity of government agencies is to enhance the organisational structure, managerial practices and the management of human resources in the public organizations, and to introduce competition into the delivery of public services.

Prior studies on government budget expenditure and its impact on government performance have demonstrated mixed results. Improper or inappropriate budget allocations can lead to opportunistic attempts to utilize these resources; this type of opportunism is known as rent-seeking behaviour. The objective of the study is to examine the determinants of rent-seeking, including such factors as grants from central government, local original revenue, natural resources revenue, population size, political factors and audit of government financial statement. While the majority of existing literature in this field surveys agency problems in the central government or at a national level, the current study contributes to the literature by investigating the agency problem in local government. In a decentralized government, where the authority is delegated to a local leader and local members of parliament, rent-seeking behaviour potentially arises as both of these parties have a conflict of interest. There is often a political motive when these parties run for election. Rent-seeking may potentially have an adverse impact on local government performance, and auditing has been shown to be an effective tool in reducing the agency problem and minimising rent-seeking. The current study addresses this issue by examining the role of auditing in minimising rent-seeking. This study employs the approach used by Park (2008), which is a revised model of the Katz and Rosenberg (1989) method, to measure potential rent-seeking. The data used in this study are the regional budget data (Anggaran Pendapatan dan Belanja Daerah/APBD) for the years 2007 to 2012 and also the reports of local financial audits for the years 2006 to 2011. The results of the study show there were some budget sectors that may have been regularly optimized for rent-seeking. In association with the determinants of the behaviour, there were some factors that influenced the potential rent-seeking significantly. The increase of local original revenue, natural resources and the election of legislative members are found to have a substantial impact on potential rent-seeking. However, the other result of this study shows that audit had an adverse effect on rent-seeking; this finding demonstrates the critical role of the audit to prevent the rent-seeking behaviour. From the perspective of agency theory, the results of the study provide an indication that rent-seeking behaviour does exist in local governments, since the leader of the government and the members of parliament have particular interests in utilizing the budget. In line with this theory, one of the ways to limit agency costs is by conducting an intensive audit. It is essential for local governments to strengthen their auditing activity in order to prevent high levels of dissipation of local budgets.

碩士
國立中興大學
科技管理研究所
104
At present, people are connected through social media. The development of social media sites should be an opportunity for local governments to effectively communicate with the citizens in many ways. The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the usage of social media by the local government to disseminate information, to improve public services, government communication, and to encourage citizen participation. Furthermore, this study could suggest other local government to adopt the idea of using social media to communicate with the citizens in order to obtain lots of advantages. This research investigated social media users notably in Indonesia using Likert Scale questionnaire online then analyzed to find the mean and using ANOVA test as well to find the significant differences between the users and the demographic factors. The results found that 50 % of the respondents positively perceived the social media use by the local government. However, 30 – 40% of the respondents were prone to choose the neutral option. Therefore, the local government just needs to create the right policy how to effectively and efficiently use the social media to reach out to public.

This study is about the impact of decentralisation on the business sector in the district of Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia. It presents three themes in exploring changes related to business people during the early implementation of the policy: (1) services and local regulations related to the business sector and the business people's responses; (2) corruption at the local level and its effect on business people; and (3) emerging patterns of local government-business relations. In theory, decentralisation can bring the government closer to the people. It will make better information available on the people's preferences for services provided by the government. It will also enhance accountability and reduce corruption in the government since people can more easily control local governments' actions than those of the central government's. Devolving power to the local government will change the relationship structure between government and business. However, in practice, the study found that decentralisation does not necessarily lead to positive impacts on the business sector. Ethnographic approaches were applied to gather and analyse data during the fieldwork. They included documentation investigation, surveys and in-depth interviews. Fieldwork in Sidoarjo was conducted from November 2001 to July 2002. Current issues related to the Sidoarjo government have been explored through Indonesian newspapers up to January 2005. The research found that, in terms of services provided by the local government, the results are mixed. The local government has espoused two contradictory policies. Business-related services have been restructured to encourage the existing business people and to invite new investors. Local taxes and levies have also been reformed to increase local government revenue, but they have at the same time hampered business activities. A certain group of business people can enjoy the facilitation of services, but others do not. Most medium-large businesses suffer a lot from the new local regulations associated with the increases in local taxes and levies, whereas small businesses have not been affected. Business people see corruption as a common phenomenon and regard it as having mushroomed during the early implementation of decentralisation. Actors involved are not only people in the bureaucracy but also those in the local assembly, in NGOs, and journalists. However, corruption is not always seen as a bad thing. The perception of business people towards corruption depends on whether it directly affects their business activities or not. Regarding the local government-business relations patterns, evidence in this study shows that they do not form a simple picture. It depends on what type of business is involved. For local contractors, their relations with the local government have changed. They are not subordinates of the local government any more and they can influence the local government policy openly and collectively through their business representation. Medium-large businesses hold a different model of relations with the local government. They are represented formally in the determination of the minimum standard of wages. Interestingly, the way the. business people respond to the decisions is not collectively through their business representation. Rather, they use individual connections and covert relations with local government officials. In contrast, small businesses are not greatly affected by the policy of decentralisation. The local government has paid little attention to them, and they also do not rely on the local government. In short, whether the decentralisation policy exists or not, their business activities go on as usual. In general, decentralisation has had different impacts on local government regulations related to business activities. However, positive changes in business-related services have been nullified by the increases in local taxes and levies. Corruption has not decreased, but tends to involve more actors at the local level. From the business people's perspective, both changes in local regulations and policies as well as in the extent of corruption have been perceived differently according to the different types of business. Decentralisation has also brought about new emerging models of relations between local government and the business sector. The findings of this research are important for the existing debates on decentralisation. Although decentralisation is believed to improve development at the local level, this is not necessary true in relation to business activities. Devolving power to local governments has produced distortive policies that make it difficult for business people to run their business. The problems of decentralisation come from an unbalanced structure, that is providing local governments with more employees but lacking financial capacity. Local power holders also tend to misuse their power.

In 1999 Indonesia embarked on a radical program of decentralisation intended to create a much stronger role for subnational governments, thus ensuring that power would be dispersed over three levels of government rather than concentrated at the centre. Once the key decisions had been made on the fiscal roles and authorities assigned to each level of government, and on the appropriate level of total fiscal transfers from central to subnational governments, it was necessary to design a set of rules for allocating this total among the latter. The laws on ‘fiscal balance’ do precisely this, but in a highly convoluted manner that leads to outcomes that appear to be at odds with economic rationality. Comparing transfers across jurisdictions reveals that the highest and lowest per capita amounts differ by a factor of the order of 100. No conceivable difference in the economic circumstances of individual jurisdictions could justify such pronounced departures from equal treatment of Indonesia’s citizens. It is recognised that the current transfer system needs modification, but its complexity is such that further revisions of the law on ‘balancing funds’ had been under consideration—without resolution—for about a decade at the time of writing. Previous attempts to improve the system focused on small, seemingly important matters of detail, whereas what is needed is a much more fundamental rethinking of the entire design. The unnecessary complexity of the current system is evident in its separation of total transfers into three components: a revenue sharing component, a general funds allocation and a special funds allocation. The first two components are untied, and so it is only their total amount that actually matters to recipient governments. Indeed, the existence of the revenue sharing component necessarily conflicts with the objectives of the general funds allocation component. The third component is tied to central government priorities, and has been expanding relative to the others as well as in sectoral scope—seemingly in conflict with the original intention to bring government closer to the people. An unfortunate consequence of the current system is that it has created a strong financial incentive for the splitting of jurisdictions, which has been a conspicuous feature of decentralisation; for the same reason, it has created a financial disincentive to amalgamation of jurisdictions. The transfer system should not distort important choices about the configuration of regional government boundaries in this manner. The extraordinarily wide variation in levels of per capita transfers is quite at odds with government policy in the fields of education and health, a key emphasis of which is equal access of all children and citizens. High per capita transfers are found to be associated with small populations, so small-population jurisdictions have the potential to provide much better access to education and health care—although by no means all small-population local governments use their relatively large funding entitlements to expand delivery of these services.

East Kalimantan is a province of paradox. It has considerable economic potential, measured in terms of abundant endowments of natural resources. And yet it lacks infrastructure and has poor human resources, factors which condemn much of the population to live in poverty. Regional autonomy, implemented since 2001, has provided more political power and fiscal capacity to the region, and therefore it has been expected to give more opportunity for regional governments to accelerate regional development and bring their people to greater prosperity. However, East Kalimantan still harbors high levels of poverty. This study examines the extent to which regional governments use their authority, greatly expanded under regional autonomy laws, to address poverty issues in the province.

Collecting and reporting performance has become common practice in public sector organisations worldwide. The effort to use performance information for reporting has potential benefits to improve performance and enhance accountability. Since 1999, the Indonesian government has adopted a new reporting framework, which requires public sector organisations to collect and report performance information. Despite the use of performance information for reporting performance being mandated, few studies have been conducted to investigate its actual use in public sector organisations in Indonesia. The aim of this study is to narrow the gap in the understanding of how and why managers in local governments, specifically in Indonesia as a developing country, use performance information to improve performance and enhance accountability. This study employed a case study approach with a purposive sample of three local government agencies in two local governments in Indonesia as cases. The data collection method utilized in this study was in-depth interviews with eight managers in the three agencies, three managers of the planning agencies in the two local government jurisdictions, and two consultants. Also, information contained in documents used in local government was also gathered to examine the performance information that was used. A variation of the well-known management cycle (planning, implementation, review, improvement, and accountability) was employed in analysing the results. The findings suggest that the use of performance information has been progressing since the issuance of the regulation concerning the guidelines for preparing and evaluating development planning. The improvement in planning documents, which demonstrate the use of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), laid a foundation for using performance for enhancing performance and accountability. The presence of the KPIs, along with performance targets, drove managers in the three cases examined in this study to improve their performance. Despite the progress of the use of performance information in planning, this study found that managers had limited use of performance information in monitoring and evaluating performance. The focus of monitoring and evaluation mostly targeted the completion of activities (outputs) rather than the results or outcomes of those activities. This study proposes a model for the effective use of performance information. To achieve the benefits of using performance information, nine influencing factors, which can act as barriers or enablers, should be considered: having a clear and comprehensive legal mandate, adequate leadership support, suitable technical capacity, supportive organisational culture, existence of performance measurement systems, availability of resources, adequate information and communication technology, involvement of citizens, and managerial authority to act. The presence of these factors, as enablers, provides groundwork for managers to use performance information in each stage of the management cycle to improve performance and accountability.

Decentralisation has become a global norm that has changed the face of education governance in many countries since the late 1970s. Indonesia was completely swept up by this movement in 2001 after the severe legitimacy crisis ended the three-decade-reigning centralist regime of the New Order. This thesis aims to analyse the way educational decentralisation helped to save the nation from the crisis, but was then faced with challenges from the local district governments because the central government endeavoured to restore its control. Using the analytical concepts of the new institutional theory and drawing upon data from documents and 38 interviews with strategic informants, the thesis investigates how the institutional legitimacy of educational decentralisation was garnered, manipulated, and then contested. Like other newly decentralised nations have experienced, the narrative of educational decentralisation in Indonesia was initially scripted by multilateral actors with the neoliberal spirit of market supremacy. However, against the arguments that suggest the weakening of the central state or the rise of market institutions, the findings show a rather contrasting reality. Decentralisation has facilitated the proliferation of states in the local district arenas, which equally claim institutional legitimacy for governing the local educational system in their respective ways. The presentation of the findings is organised into three main parts. In the first part, the thesis analyses the global and local processes of the delegitimation of the centralist regime, and the way decentralisation becomes a strategy for garnering compensatory legitimation for the central state. In this case, decentralisation was part of the loan condition imposed externally by multilateral institutions and also became the magic word to settle down the internal secessionist aspirations. In the second part, the thesis also discusses the institutional mechanism that enabled the central government to restore its power after decentralisation, while keeping itself legitimate. In this sense, the decentralised structure remained, but the central government employed the discourse of local incompetence to introduce other means of centralisation. Lastly, in the third part, from the comparative studies of two local district governments, the thesis shows how the legitimacy of the central government authority continues to be challenged in the localities. Despite the central government’s pressures for national standards and their enforcement measures, local educational governance survives with different models and practices. In conclusion, I argue that the different local governance types do reflect an ideal practice of decentralisation. However, in Indonesia this ideal is not the case because decentralisation has created different and illegitimate local practices. They are illegitimate because these practices are not based on the solid consensus of the regulatory structure and norms which exist between the central and the local states. Thus, rather than becoming a local basis for reinforcing the legitimating capacity of educational decentralisation as a global institution, the different practices might become the local source of delegitimation. Some national states would rethink their conformity to the international pressure of decentralisation if they were aware that the policy would potentially lead them to another crisis of legitimacy.

This thesis examines the transformation of vocational secondary education (hereon referred to as ‘VSE’) in Indonesia during the transitional stage of the implementation of regional autonomy, a radical political arrangement intended to prevent the disintegration of the nation, following political instability. It has involved the transfer of most formerly central government responsibilities directly, and without adequate preparation, to the lowest level of government in districts and cities, bypassing the provincial governments, the second level of the government hierarchy.

Mining industries are widely perceived as damaging the environment and local communities. The Indonesian government requires mining industries to undertake Corporate Social Responsibility including community development activities. This study investigated the implementation of community development by a mining company on Sumbawa Island, West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. It focussed on the participation of the local community in decision making processes for the implementation of the mining company’s community development programs. The study also examined how the mining company has involved other parties, including NGOs and local government in its community development program implementation.

Developing competitive agro-industries is essential to meet the growing demand for value-added agricultural products. The objective in this study is to analyse the effects of development policy at the local, provincial and regional levels to enhance the enabling environment for agribusiness supply chains in the region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. This study resulted the model for the government to create an effective program and policy intervention to enhance the enabling environment at the micro level.

The natural environment plays a major role in determining destination attractiveness, particularly in the case of small island destinations characterised by sparse natural resources and a limited environmental carrying capacity. When uncontrolled tourism development occurs in such settings, environmental degradation may occur, thereby reducing destination attractiveness. This pattern is particularly prevalent in small island destinations within developing countries, where the capability of the local government is often lacking, and where resident populations have limited environmental awareness and education. The recent literature on sustainable tourism has embraced a holistic view of tourism systems that acknowledges the need for joint management by stakeholders, including tourism business operators, local government, ecosystem ecologists, non-government organisations (NGOs) and local residents. This view considers that effective environmental conservation in small island tourism destinations within developing countries requires collaboration between relevant stakeholders. This should include the creation of networks and the development of a shared understanding about the collaborative actions governing environmental conservation. Some of small island destinations in developing countries have developed