Decentralisation and Politics That Are No Longer Local

In recent times, the public has been presented with a variety of dynamics in the regions that quickly transform into national concerns. From the controversy over official vehicle procurement in East Kalimantan, open conflicts between regents and deputy regents such as in Lebak and Sidoarjo, to a series of arrests of several regional heads in corruption cases at the beginning of President Prabowo’s administration.

This phenomenon is not merely about the acceleration of information flow. There is a more fundamental change in the way we view social-political dynamics at the regional level. If previously local issues were understood in their own context, now they quickly become the attention of a wider public, making the boundary between local and national increasingly thin.

The Changing Landscape

Since the reform era, decentralisation has been understood as a way to bring power closer to the people. With its two main mantras, namely local democracy and good governance, the granting of authority to the regions is expected to make policies more responsive to local community needs. In this framework, differences between regions are not a problem, but rather a natural consequence of Indonesia’s social and political diversity.

However, the context in which decentralisation operates has now changed significantly. Recent research by Nicholas Kuipers (2026) from Princeton University shows that in an increasingly open and interconnected digital information landscape, local dynamics no longer stop within their own territory, but quickly become cross-regional public consumption. The public is no longer just an observer, but becomes an ‘active spectator’ in what Kuipers calls political voyeurism, namely emotional involvement in political dynamics elsewhere even though not directly affected.

This dynamic is also evident in various recent cases. Legal cases affecting creative economy actor Amsal Sitepu, the virality of content related to MBG programme management, to the wave of mass actions in August 2025 demonstrate how issues that start from a local context quickly expand into national attention and trigger cross-regional public responses.

On the other hand, this change is increasingly evident from the way regional heads build their political communication. Daily activities, leadership styles, to policies taken are often displayed intensively on social media and quickly reach a national audience. For example, the Governor of West Java who is active on social media discussing various social dynamics, or the Governor of North Maluku who also receives widespread attention in the digital space, shows that regional head figures are now no longer only seen at the local level, but also nationally.

The important role in this process is further driven by high internet and social media penetration. The latest data shows that around 62.9 percent of Indonesia’s total population are social media users, with internet user penetration reaching 80.5 percent (DataReportal, 2026). These figures indicate that the digital space has become an integral part of daily life. Public interactions, responses to policies, to emotional expressions now largely occur through digital platforms, which accelerate and expand the reach of local political dynamics to the national level.

Maintaining the Direction of Decentralisation

This changing landscape does not stand alone, but is intertwined with the national political configuration. Under President Prabowo’s leadership, the broad scope of the government coalition appears not only to control formal state institutions, but also to extend to informal power networks. In such a situation, the checks and balances mechanisms between state institutions are not just potentially weakened, but can also lose their critical sharpness, because the supervisory function is no longer carried out effectively. The tendency towards recentralisation through various strategic national policies, accompanied by discourse on rearranging regional head elections, ultimately reinforces the strengthening of central political control over regional dynamics.

On one side, social media can serve as a counterbalance to mainstream media which in some cases faces limitations in independence due to the closeness between political power and business interests, which by Damanik et al. (2025) is called politico-capitalists.

However, on the other side, the digital space also presents serious challenges, from the spread of hoaxes to information polarisation. Unlike conventional media that goes through an editorial process, information on social media circulates without adequate filtering. In such a situation, the public tends to get trapped in echo chambers of information that shape narrow viewpoints and tend to view issues from one side only.

As shown by Merlyna Lim (2013), social media does not automatically strengthen democracy. It does provide space for public expression and participation as a learning space for civil engagement, but this space tends to be fast, shallow, and not in-depth.

As a result, although public participation appears to widen, the quality of deliberation does not always strengthen accordingly. Virality often overrides substance. In such conditions, public participation becomes dependent on what is visible and triggers reactions, rather than on what is most important to monitor, such as decision-making at the regional level and public policies that directly impact society.

Public participation needs to move beyond the logic of virality towards more consistent engagement based on clear institutional mechanisms. However, in practice, the available space is often overwhelmed by unbalanced power relations. In this context, the tendency towards minimalist democracy, as noted by Mietzner (2025), is increasingly evident at the local level.

Regional governments need to re-strengthen their role by improving the quality of public services, the