Community Driven Development and Structural Disadvantage: Interrogating the Social Turn in Development Programming in Indonesia

Abstract

Community-driven development (CDD) programmes have emerged on a large scale in the Global South following research and policy work regarding social capital, capabilities and empowerment. This paper analyses one of the largest international examples of the ‘social’ turn, examining the effects of the CDD approach in governmental, structural and relational terms. While the CDD approach successfully generated new political rationalities and governmental technologies, the ability of development programming driven by social capital concepts to empower marginalised sections of society remains in question. The ambiguities associated with CDD outcomes indicate the contradictions at the heart of social capital debate.

Acknowledgement

This research was conducted under an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on ‘Social Capital, Natural Resources and Local Governance in Indonesia’ (DP0880961). The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions to the data used in this study by Jodie Goodman and Johan Weintre.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Table 1 and see note under Figure 3 explaining why the percentage indicated in Figure 3 is 52.2 per cent.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP0880961].