- Planning beyond the boundaries: Perspectives on the challenging intergovernmental collaboration towards a sustainable regional governance in Indonesia   click here to open paper content195 kb
by    Okitasari, Mahesti & Kidokoro, Tetsuo | mahesti_okitasari@yahoo.com   click here to send an email to the auther(s) of this paper
Short Outline
This paper discusses the collaborative activity to regional scale based on
Indonesian experiences. The study is to conceptualize, measure and compare
cases of intergovernmental collaboration using a dimensional approach and
comprehensive analysis of institutional structure transformation, fiscal
power diffusion and policy review. A proposal to achieve sustainable
governance is discussed.
Abstract
Cities and regions are rarely stagnant, especially during the fast-paced
development stage in the growing economy such as Indonesia. In recent
years, as urbanization spilled over the city administration boundary, urban
problems are getting more scaled up to the regional level. To cope with the
wider scale of urban issues as well as increasing demand in urban service
and the lack of sources available, intergovernmental collaboration has
become an important strategy. Collaboration forms, such as partnerships and
networks, are emerging in many urbanized cities in Indonesia.

Managing cities during the rapid urbanization is not the only challenging
issues for Indonesian governments and planners. Following the regional
autonomy and decentralization policy enacted in 1999, Indonesia experienced
a sudden transformation from centralized to decentralized system. 15 years
after this big-bang decentralization policy, not only the local and
regional planning system that undergone rapid and multiple changes but also
the intergovernmental collaboration system. In one side, the new
decentralization policy was deemed successful to make government closer to
the people by empowering the local governments, but it has also largely
contributed to the inward-looking behavioral orientation of these local
governments. Along with these deepening processes of decentralization, the
institutional structure of regional governance has also undergone
restructuring and making collaborative activities has become undeniably
more difficult.

Building on a debate about the challenging nature of the collaboration, the
paper argues that conceptualize, measure and compare cases of
intergovernmental collaboration will bring another step towards
understanding the different approaches for enabling regional governance to
cope with contemporary Indonesia. In order to explore this potential the
paper starts with an analysis of intergovernmental relations using a
dimensional approach to measure the vertical and horizontal structure of
Indonesian regional governance. Time series based analysis on institutional
transformation and policy changes as well as local fiscal power diffusion
index were also examined to bring the comprehensive overview.

This paper examines three highly fragmented metropolitan regions: Jakarta,
Surabaya and Yogyakarta. The three cases are found to have three different
types of regional governance; from hierarchical, hybrid to spontaneous
type. The paper identifies three different structures of intergovernmental
collaboration network, namely lead organization structure, network
administrative organization structure and voluntary structure. Through
tracing the transformation of institutions and investigating the local
fiscal capacity, the paper argues that the effectiveness of collaborating
is actually determined by governmental operations across organizations,
including administrative and structural considerations, along with economic
imperatives. Based on the positive and negative aspects found in the
analysis, the paper discusses strategies to achieve sustainable regional
governance through strengthening cross-sectoral network while maintaining
local autonomy as a viable policy option for creating a collaborative
culture in the growth of local egocentrism.
Keywords
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