IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/bindes/v45y2009i2p201-230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The political economy of local governance: findings from an Indonesian field study

Author

Listed:
  • Christian von Luebke

Abstract

Why do some local governments perform well, while others perform badly? The rapid shift from centralised-authoritarian to decentralised-democratic rule in Indonesia has been accompanied by a large variation in sub-national government policies across districts. Based on eight district case studies comprising 1,000 business surveys and 120 in-depth interviews, this paper argues that demand-side pressures from local firms, associations and district councils are less significant than supply-side pressures from local government leaders in explaining variations in taxation, licensing and corruption practices. In Indonesia's early transition to democratic decentralisation, societal pressures have been constrained by collective action problems and perverse political incentives. Local government leaders, on the other hand, have strong powers and new incentives for policy reform. In response to the good governance debate, this study's findings suggest that government leadership is an important, often under-estimated, policy determinant that can compensate for (or aggravate) weak societal checks in transitioning economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian von Luebke, 2009. "The political economy of local governance: findings from an Indonesian field study," Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(2), pages 201-230.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:bindes:v:45:y:2009:i:2:p:201-230
    DOI: 10.1080/00074910903040310
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00074910903040310
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00074910903040310?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moricz, Sara & Sjöholm, Fredrik, 2014. "The Effect of Elections on Economic Growth: Results from a Natural Experiment in Indonesia," Working Papers 2014:15, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Caterina Gennaioli & Stefania Lovo, 2019. "Public Goods and Ethnic Diversity: Evidence from Deforestation in Indonesia," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 86(341), pages 32-66, January.
    3. McCarthy, John F. & Gillespie, Piers & Zen, Zahari, 2012. "Swimming Upstream: Local Indonesian Production Networks in “Globalized” Palm Oil Production," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 555-569.
    4. Paul Pelzl & Steven Poelhekke, 2023. "Democratization, leader education and growth: firm-level evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 571-600, December.
    5. Wang, Huanming & Ran, Bing, 2022. "How business-related governance strategies impact paths towards the formation of global cities? An institutional embeddedness perspective," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    6. Ricks, Jacob I., 2016. "Building Participatory Organizations for Common Pool Resource Management: Water User Group Promotion in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 34-47.
    7. Paul Smoke, 2013. "Why Theory and Practice are Different: The Gap Between Principles and Reality in Subnational Revenue Systems," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1313, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    8. Rothenberg, Alexander D. & Gaduh, Arya & Burger, Nicholas E. & Chazali, Charina & Tjandraningsih, Indrasari & Radikun, Rini & Sutera, Cole & Weilant, Sarah, 2016. "Rethinking Indonesia’s Informal Sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 96-113.
    9. Vásquez, William F., 2011. "Household preferences and governance of water services: A hedonic analysis from rural Guatemala," IFPRI discussion papers 1152, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Winters, Matthew S. & Karim, Abdul Gaffar & Martawardaya, Berly, 2014. "Public Service Provision under Conditions of Insufficient Citizen Demand: Insights from the Urban Sanitation Sector in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 31-42.
    11. Korte, Nina, 2011. "It's Not Only Rents: Explaining the Persistence and Change of Neopatrimonialism in Indonesia," GIGA Working Papers 167, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    12. Barli Suryanta & Arianto A. Patunru, 2023. "Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Indonesia," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 15(1), pages 109-131, January.
    13. Julien Hanoteau & Gandhi Pawitan & Virginie Vial, 2021. "Does social capital reduce entrepreneurs' petty corruption? Evidence across Indonesian regions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(3), pages 651-670, June.
    14. Sacks, Audrey & Rahman, Erman & Turkewitz, Joel & Buehler, Michael & Saleh, Imad, 2014. "The dynamics of centralized procurement reform in a decentralized state : evidence and lessons from Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6977, The World Bank.
    15. Lipsey, Robert E. & Sjöholm, Fredrik, 2010. "FDI and Growth in East Asia: Lessons for Indonesia," Working Paper Series 852, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    16. Anh Ngoc Nguyen & Nguyen Thi Tuong Anh & Nguyen Ngoc Minh & Nguyen Thi Phuong Mai, 2018. "SOUTH KOREAN MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES AND VIETNAM SMEs’ PARTICIPATION IN GLOBAL PRODUCTION NETWORKS IN THE CONTEXT OF INCREASED ASEAN AND EAST ASIAN REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION," Working Papers 03, Development and Policies Research Center (DEPOCEN), Vietnam.
    17. Berenschot, Ward & Mulder, Peter, 2019. "Explaining regional variation in local governance: Clientelism and state-dependency in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 233-244.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:bindes:v:45:y:2009:i:2:p:201-230. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CBIE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.