The challenge of reforming big bureaucracy in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Under the authoritarian rule of President Suharto, Indonesia built one of the world’s largest bureaucracies. However, it suffered from a range of problems including rampant corruption, inefficiency, poor service delivery and process orientation. Following democratization in 1998, the country’s political leaders have experimented with various modes of public administration reform culminating in the system-wide bureaucracy reform of Presidents Yudhoyono and Jokowi that commenced in 2010. This article examines the nature of Indonesia’s public administration reform in the democratic era using ideal type constructions that facilitate identification of what the reforms are and what they are trying to achieve while simultaneously setting out the current bureaucratic structures and behaviours and the difficulties they pose for the reformers. The article concludes that while progress has been made, Indonesia will not achieve its declared goal of creating a “world class” public service by 2025 largely due to powerful forces resisting reform.

KEYWORDS:

• Bureaucracy reform
• public administration reform
• new public management
• Indonesia
• governance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Turner

Mark Turner is Honorary Professor in the School of Business at UNSW Canberra and Emeritus Professor at the University of Canberra. He has over 40 years of experience in research and consultancy in the Asia-Pacific and has published extensively on public sector management, governance and politics.

Eko Prasojo

Eko Prasojo is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Administrative Science at the University of Indonesia. He is an expert in public policy, collaborative governance and public administration reform. He has undertaken extensive consultancy work in Indonesia and has served as Deputy Minister for Administrative Reform.

Rudiarto Sumarwono

Rudiarto Sumarwono PhD has extensive academic and professional work experience in a wide range of areas of public administration at national, sub-national and international levels. He is the Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Governance Reform at the University of Indonesia.