Chapter 3 The Contextual Background
3.3. The challenges in implementing regional autonomy
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67 and the utilization of resources at the local level. Sadly, sometimes among the central, provincial and regency/city government, they fought each other just to pursue the authority that covers the activity which its budget has been provided but avoid the authority which has no money.
3.3. The challenges in implementing regional autonomy
Studies in several countries indicate that decentralized systems vary greatly across different countries and there are two main reasons of decentralization in developing countries (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2006). First, from the political perspective, 1) the dominant motive was the challenge to the incumbent at the national level posed by competing political forces or regional interest. 2) it accompanied a transition in the national political system toward democracy (Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa) and toward non-democracy (Pakistan and Uganda). Moreover, they also note that the decentralization in developing countries was also less common to be strongly motivated by external crisis, pressure from multilateral institutions, or ideological considerations. Only in the case of Brazil and South Africa did these play some role. Additionally, Prasodjo et.al (2007) argued that the changes of the government system in Indonesia are not only caused by domestic pressure but also as the global impact of the changes in the structure of the government in the Developing country and also the pressure from the international donors. Meanwhile from an economic perspective, the motive for decentralization is a response to the failure of a central planning model which according to Rondinelly (1983) it will reduce the dominant role of central government in formulating national planning; give greater authority for development planning and management to officials who are working in the field; reduce the problems of a complicated bureaucracy and corruption; increase the skills and knowledge of the local officials which will lead to enhance their responsiveness over socio-economic problems; and allow local leaders to locate services and facilities more effectively within communities.
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Practically, the impact of decentralization will depend both on the context where it is implemented (particularly political traditions pertaining to the functioning of local democracy) and on the way it is designed and implemented. Some has proved to cause positive affects but some also has proved to cause negative effects (Prud'homme 1995). In Kenya for example, the local government is experienced local fiscal stress caused by their incapability to organize the collection of local revenue, the absence of records of existing sources revenue and low percentage of revenue collected from their estimated collections (Chapman, Gakuru and Klerk 2007). Adopting Lindaman &Thurmaier (2002) argument on the aspects of decentralization, Setiyono (2012) argues that there are two possible consequences can occur from the implementation of fiscal and administrative decentralization, a better governance (better education, healthier population and so on) and undesirable consequences such as regional inequality, macroeconomic instability and many more.
In Indonesia, not only the overlap financial distribution system has created inefficiency of budget expenditure, other factors also contribute to the failure of local government performance. This includes human factor, instrumental factor and organization and management factor (Kaho 2003, Prasojo, et.al. 2007) which is discussed in the following passages.
a. Lack of capable and ethical human resource
The human factors here include 1) the head of region, 2) the parliament member, 3) the bureaucracy apparatuses and 4) the civil society. A poor mentality and capacity of the human as the dynamic elements of an organization can cause a negative impact such as corruptions and ineffectiveness of public services.
1) The Kepala Daerah (the Regional head/KDH) not only acts as the instrument of the local government but also as the instrument of central government at the local level. Not less than ten complicated and heavy tasks are hold by the local
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69 leader. Therefore, the qualification required to become the candidate of the local leader should respond the duties required. Before it was ratified by Law No 22/1999, the requirements needed for the regional leader based on the Law 5/1974 were not enough to ensure the quality of the leader (Kaho 2003, Kaloh 1996). It was only represents small part of the personal capacity (skills and knowledge) compared to the mental quality. This argument supported by Kaloh (1996) identification that the most criteria required in this law was the personal background and only two criteria required for the quality matters.
The mental quality is also important actually since it may relate to corruption intention.
The new ratified Law No. 32/2004 has improved the requirements more applicable to the qualification needed for the regional‟s head candidate.
However, after six years of the new law has been implemented, problems involving the Regional head‟s quality are still concerned. In 2010 for example, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced that for about 155 Bupati/Mayor and 15 Governors were involved in legal issues during 2004 to 2010. Should the Law No 32/2004 responsible for this? Perhaps is this the nature of human characteristics that cannot easily change?
2) The member of Regional House of Representatives has big responsible as well as the regional head. Unfortunately the education and career experience owned by the member in average are still limited, thus it might affect the decentralization implementation to achieve good performance. However, we have not found study which focuses on the relationship between the educational level or career experiences and the organizational performance to illustrate the condition.
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3) Local bureaucrat apparatus has important role to achieve the effective performance of regional autonomy policy. However, as the history fact of the nation, the administrative system in Indonesia was the legacy of the colonial government that it also had the foundations of the law and the colonial interests. The structure of the bureaucracy, the standard, the value and the regulation in today‟s era are still oriented in the fulfillment of the interests of the ruler than the Right of the citizen (Thoha 2003). Moreover, the lack of competencies due to the inappropriateness between the requirement and competence that owned by bureaucracy apparatus had affected the low level of the quality of the public services. This began with the process of recruitment that has not based on the job analysis, professionalism and meritocracy, instead in friendship relations, the family and politics (Prasojo, et.al. 2007).
The conditions had caused the practice of corruptions, collusion and nepotism (KKN).
4) Finally, the last challenges of human factor is the participation of civil society which is divided into four levels of participation for the civil society to be involved: 1) to participate in the policy making process, 2) to participate in the implementation process, 3) to participate in receiving the results and 4) to participate in the evaluation process. In Indonesian context, the level of participation of the civil society toward the development of their region is still limited on the implementation process. It might be related to the political culture of Indonesia that according to Siti Juhro (2010) represents both the parochial and the participant attitudes7. Parochial referred to the citizens who have little or no awareness of the political system and concerned only with
7Siti Juhro presentation for Magister students of Communication studies program at Muhammadiyah University Jakarta, April-Mei 2010
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71 non-political events, meanwhile the participant referred to citizens who is develop an awareness of the input processes of the society and facilitate their own involvement in politics (Almond and Powell, 1978). In fact, the development process of the local government requires the participation of the local people to justify the direction and the outcome.
In essence, human factor is not only a significant role in the decentralization implementation but also become the dominant challenge for the effectiveness of local government performance. It is identified that the requirements needed for the candidate of the regional head which has been regulated still not enough to fulfill the qualification of the tasks obligated. Lack of experiences and inadequate education qualification might influence the performance of the member of the Regional House of Representative and the local apparatuses in executing the regional autonomy matters. Therefore, to improve the performance of the local government we would argue that it is necessary to improve the requirements needed and also the design of the recruitment system not only for the candidate of the regional leader but also for the member of the DPRD and the local apparatuses as well.
Moreover, the participation of civil society in the development of regional autonomy is also important. However, changing the mindset of the local people is not easy especially when the local characteristic or culture which is needed to help improving the regional autonomy performance is not there. In this point, we would argue that to be effective, a regional autonomy policy such as decentralization should be supported by qualified human resources. Although the leader has been equipped with the required capability of the regional leader, his or her performance will not be
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effective if the quality of the bureaucrats and apparatuses that support is poor. In consequence, the effective local government performance will be difficult to achieve.
b. Lack of financial resource and knowledge
Financial follow function is one of the principles used as the foundation to process the transfer authority from the central to local government. It means that decentralization is related to the transferring of the authority of the government organization and also financial matters from the central to local government including the human resources and its institutions. The main idea of decentralization is to make closer the government as the provider of public services to its consumer, the citizens.
The problem is that different region has different capability to provide the services.
A wealthy region must be able to provide the services with better qualities than the poor region. Study conducted by the Gajahmada University and Ministry of Home Affairs concluded that the local revenue (PAD) has not adequate enough to support the local financial, thus the subsidy from the central government is still needed. Moreover, Dibyo Prabowo (2001) in his study found that other than DKI Jakarta, local revenue as a source of income and means of expenditure is still limited (Tikson 2008).
Accordingly, there are at least three important implications of the local financial autonomy issues. First, not many regencies are capable or know how to increase local revenues, for example by increasing taxes and retributions and developing locally state-owned enterprises. Second, most regencies are still unable to optimize the implementation of the policies and programs of the local community empowerment; therefore the community‟s welfare is not improving immediately.
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73 Third, there is an imbalance of revenues among regions. The regions with abundant natural resources or in the position of trade and industrial centers have opportunities to obtain a greater amount of revenue. On the contrary, regions with fewer natural resources and which are less industrialized, or concentrate on an agriculture-based economy, obtain less revenue transfer from the central government. As consequence, it is likely that the dependency level toward the central government is still high especially for the regions with low revenue.
In the current study, all parliament members similarly argued that the local financial of the region is not enough to support the development of the region. On the other hand, to improve the local revenue, increasing taxes and retribution may not be the best solution. Therefore, the government involved the private sectors to participate in the so called Corporate Social Responsibility. In result, lack of financial to support the government programs can be overcome.
c. Lack of Equipment/technology development
To run the organization of the local government tasks properly, a supportive numbers and quality of equipment are needed. In reality, the number and the quality of equipment at the local level are not sufficient. For example, the establishment process of a new autonomous region (regional proliferation) of West Bandung Regency was dawdling due to the availability of the office buildings and equipment.
During the three years of transitional period, the new regency has not yet equipped with buildings or the regional work unit (SKPD). This situation had caused the process of development plan making and budgeting only proceeds in minimum capacity.
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The availability of information and communication technology equipment at the regional level also limited. In effect, the public services delivery to support the implementation of the more democratic government in the region is moving slowly.
In fact, the application of E-Government in Indonesia has begun before the reform era (Prasojo, et.al 2007). It was realized by the National Management Information System document in 1987 as well as the launched of the Indonesian Archipelago-21 (Nusantara-21) Project at the end of the 1990s. However, similar to the interuption of the preliminary process of decentralization socialization, the National Management Information System plan was discarded when the 1998 crisis hit Indonesia and the government was changed.
Moreover, a survey conducted by Global E-Government survey during 2002 placed Indonesia in the 94th position from 197 countries applied the system. Indonesia also indicated by the UN-DPEPA and ASPA as a country with a minimum capacity of E-Government. It was due to the government lack of strategy and direction in the development of E-Government including in the process of the production of the rule about the Information and Communication Technology and E-Government in the form of Law. Finally, the human resources at the local level with IT skills are limited as well. Hence, the application of the IT system to support the government activies is not effective.
d. Lack of proper organization and management system
There are six principles of organization: a clear objective, division of labor, delegation, coordination, controlling and an integrated command. Meanwhile the management concept in principle contains five functions: planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. Without a proper organization and management
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75 system in the implementation of regional autonomy, local government will face difficulties to run their tasks properly. In reality, the implementation of regional autonomy in Indonesia still haunted by the lack of proper organization and management system. A joint study conducted between The Gajah Mada University and the Ministry of Home Affairs found that an unclear job-description and a complex organization structures had became the problems in the organization and management execution at the local government in Indonesia.
The preceding discussions has indicated that the Indonesian decentralization still experience problems mainly due to the lack of local financial and capable human resources. Nevertheless, we believe that the effectiveness of decentralization plausible to achieve when the problems were solved. Moreover, the influence behaviors were considered as effective strategy for Indonesian leader to achieve their objectives.
However, the challenges face by the government leaders are increasing due to the changes of society. Leaders should not only focus on the influence behaviors solely, instead they have to adjust their action accordance to the challenges. Regarding the challenges discussed previously, we would like to know what behaviors were displayed or practiced by the leaders in order to face the challenges. There are some leadership behaviors could contribute the effectiveness of the organization performance proposed by leadership scholars, but in this current study we only focus on few of these. We believe that the leaders selected in this study must perform the behaviors in order to be success.
The effectiveness of leader to achieve the goal of poverty alleviation policy depends on the region‟s condition. In Indonesia, based on the preceding discussions we believe that the characteristics of community, people‟s mindset, local values and financial condition may affect the leader‟s effectiveness. We believe that leaders in
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Indonesia were success when they have the following conditions: first, the region has supportive community characteristics (mindset); the region has available resources to support the development and the regions has a strong leadership to lead the community. Second, the leaders were supported by strong patron-client relationship and third, they are success because leaders are competent in their field.
To recall the goal of this study, the current study is aimed to identify the leadership behaviors of the leaders to achieve their objectives. Further, this study also examine the relationship between the leaders‟ behaviors and the performance of the government by focusing on the healthcare services, education and economic growth as part of the poverty alleviation effort. The next chapter provides discussion on the research design which cover the conceptualization of the dependent and independent variables that is the leadership behaviors and the government performance.
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77 Chapter 4
Research Methods
4.1. Research Design
4.1.1. Mixed-methods
In this study, a combination of qualitative and quantitative method of analyses will be employed. This approach is chosen because a comprehensive result of a study of an abstract concept should not depend merely on quantitative method (Javidan and Waldman 2003) and in fact the combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses can be especially potent (Babbie 2010). In the Handbook of Mixed Methods in social
& behavioral research, Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003) argued that there are three areas in which mixed methods are superior to single approach design:
Mixed methods research can answer research questions that the other methodologies cannot. In the example, the GAIN evaluation (Riccio, 1997) described by Rallis and Rossman, it answered confirmatory and exploratory questions simultaneously to find out the effect of the GAIN program on the society (2003:495-498).
Mixed methods research provides better (stronger) inferences. In Erzberger &
Kelle (2003), Kruger‟s (2001) study about life course patterns of males who had worked during the era of economic miracle have inferences stronger resulted from both quantitative and qualitative data. The consistency between the experiences of respondents referred to their occupational life courses (quantitatively described through the standardized questionnaires) and their subjective interpretations of these experiences (qualitatively determined
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through their reactions to the open-ended questions) made the inferences from the study much more potent. Taking in both sources of data also made the reporting of the results much more interesting.
Mixed methods provide the opportunity for presenting a greater diversity of divergent views. In example, the evaluation of the federal housing subsidy program described by Maxwell and Loomis (2003:259-260) shows the combination of quantitative data to see the success of the program and the case studies to provide a picture of the program process. However, divergent views emerged when the conclusion from one observer in one site directly contradicted the result of the quantitative analysis of the program effect at that site. The quantitative data show an inaccurate (too positive) picture of the federal housing subsidy program, meanwhile the case study shows an inaccurate (too negative) picture of the program. When data were mixed, a more accurate picture developed. In this evaluation, mixed method first allowed the opportunity for divergent perspectives to be sounded and then
Mixed methods provide the opportunity for presenting a greater diversity of divergent views. In example, the evaluation of the federal housing subsidy program described by Maxwell and Loomis (2003:259-260) shows the combination of quantitative data to see the success of the program and the case studies to provide a picture of the program process. However, divergent views emerged when the conclusion from one observer in one site directly contradicted the result of the quantitative analysis of the program effect at that site. The quantitative data show an inaccurate (too positive) picture of the federal housing subsidy program, meanwhile the case study shows an inaccurate (too negative) picture of the program. When data were mixed, a more accurate picture developed. In this evaluation, mixed method first allowed the opportunity for divergent perspectives to be sounded and then