A federal state for good governance?

By Aleksius Jemadu

BANDUNG (JP): There have been heated debates recently on whether a federal system of government could enhance Indonesian national unity. Such a proposal argues that Indonesia is too vast and pluralistic to be governed in a centralized manner.

More importantly, goes the argument, the central government can easily manipulate the unitary state to exploit resource-rich provinces like Aceh, Irian Jaya, East Kalimantan, and Riau, at the expense of the local people.

Those who favor a federal state tend to believe that Indonesian regions can only achieve economic progress if they have more freedom to deal with their development needs themselves.

However, a positive correlation between federalism and economic welfare at the regional level should be read as a theoretical statement rather than as empirical evidence.

There is no clear and credible evidence that the performance of federal states like Brazil, Nigeria, or India is better than Indonesia as far as economic equality is concerned. In other words, there is no automatic correlation between federalism and economic welfare at the local level.

There is no doubt that Indonesia does need a fundamental change in the relationship between the central government and the provincial administrations. However, considering the fact that the dissatisfaction of the regions has more to do with the leadership style and political behavior of the New Order government than with the formal organization of the state, merely changing from a unitary to a federal state might never lead to a permanent solution.

The regime of former president Soeharto used to rely on a centralistic approach when dealing with the problem of national unity. There seemed to be a clientilistic relationship between the central government and the provinces. Local government officials paid more attention to the problem of how to appease their superiors in Jakarta than to promote their citizens' interests.

As a result, local people tended to become alienated from the governing system. No wonder that such people never perceived themselves as being part of the governing system; they have been victimized by the collusive nature of the relationship between the central elite and the local government.

If the above observation is correct then our main agenda is not so much to speculate on the possibility of adopting a federal system but how to reform the relationship between the central government and the regions.

Many scholars have mentioned the importance of giving more territorial responsibility to the provinces. However, before such a step is taken, it is necessary to undertake a thorough study of the administrative capacity of the local governments upon which any decentralized system would be based.

Administrative capacity can be understood as the capability to manage public affairs so that people's interests can be met through the provision of government services.

The level of administrative capacity in the provinces is determined by several factors, including the size of the population and resources (human and financial), sufficient administrative opportunities (such as autonomy, efficiency, and competence), and transparent and democratic modes of organization and operation (R. Maes, 1996).

There is, however, an increasingly persuasive suggestion that decentralization should be planned and implemented with a certain degree of precaution and sensitivity to political and ideological configurations at the local level. Decentralization should be promoted within the context of establishing more constructive linkages between all levels of government.

Decentralization should not be made an end in itself. B.C. Smith (1985) argues that we should reject a romantic view of decentralization. It can be good for some development goals but damaging for others. Development goals of territorial justice and redistribution of wealth, for instance, may be better served by centralizing authority.

On top of that, we have to be very careful in giving more power to provincial governments because this could lead to centralization at the local level. Keith Griffin (1981) argues that democratization at the local level should precede national decentralization.

Greater decentralization will not necessarily empower the local people. Moreover, mechanisms of public control (through the legislature, mass media, public debates, etc.) over the governing process seem to be more active and progressive in central systems.

Considering the fact that the underdevelopment of some Indonesian regions has been due to the lack of good governance and misuse of power by certain political elite during Soeharto's rule and not because of the nature of the unitary state itself, improvements in government's decentralization policies might be more preferable and thoughtful than adopting a federal system.

However, it is still essential to increase the administrative capacity of local government and to democratize the policy-making process at the local level. Hopefully, by carefully designing more appropriate decentralization policies, the economic gap between Jakarta and some remote regions like Irian Jaya, Flores, Aceh, and other peripheral islands might become more bridgeable.

After all, there is no moral justification whatsoever in that Jakarta should always be more prosperous and developed than other areas.

The writer is the head of the school of international relations at the University of Parahyangan, Bandung. He is also a researcher at the Parahyangan Center for International Studies at the same university.