In fact, today there seem to be few arenas in which citizens can discuss and deliberate on political issues that face them.[1]
Studying Citizen Forums: An Optimistic Beginning
“Citizen Forums” (Forum Warga) are seen by their supporters[2] as one of the key forces that can help foster democratic values and practices in Indonesian local politics. These institutions have become well known in Indonesia for their emphasis on participatory orientation and relatively inclusive character. Indirectly inspired by de Tocqueville’s thinking, they were expected to be not only a source of democratic learning for ordinary citizens and provide the means to develop a robust associational life, but also serve as a promoter of alternative forms of governance. This study explored the contribution of Citizen Forums to the process of democratization in the formerly authoritarian Indonesia. Based on a ten-month field study during 2002-2004, it examined the experience of two types of Citizen Forums in Indonesia. Although in general the Citizen Forums have shown great promise, the study found that their development and actual experiences so far have not been as encouraging as had been originally expected.
When this study began in 2002, the initial question being asked was: to what extent would Citizen Forums promote local democracy? At that time, the idea of citizen participation and local democracy dominated people’s attention and some NGOs, universities and donors were impressed by Citizen Forums’ commitment to incorporate citizen participation into local governance. People recognised their democratic potential but many naively took their transformative capacity for granted. However, this study found that even in the Reformasi and decentralization era following the resignation of President Suharto, implementing “effective” citizen participation seemed almost unachievable.[3]
This study selected two distinct Citizen Forums that by then had been operating for more than a year and had achieved some success in increasing citizens’ involvement in the governmental process. Although these two case studies cannot be claimed to represent the whole range of Citizen Forums in Indonesia, they have led to the unearthing of key issues that the study seeks to explore.
This paper is divided into four parts. The first part explains the phenomenon of Citizen Forums in Indonesia: their formation (in particular the context in which this occurred), their organization and their actions. The second part discusses the Citizen Forums’ transformative capacity, in particular, what effects have the Citizen Forums had so far on civic culture, associational life and local governance? The third part specifies the difficulties and barriers to effective citizen participation and democratic associational life in Indonesia. The final part discusses the future of the Citizen Forums in Indonesian local democracy.
Explaining the Phenomenon of Citizen Forums in Indonesia
Formation of Citizen Forums: the Influence of Context
What factors have influenced the formation of Citizen Forums in Indonesia? This study examined the origin of Citizen Forums by exploring conditions in the broader social and political environments and the characteristics of the initiators, their feelings and their motivations. Patrick Sills et al. suggested three factors that lead to the formation of community groups: “provocative factors”; “promotional factors”; and “facilitative factors”. This division will be used to explain several themes in the emergence of Citizen Forums.[4]
In terms of the Citizen Forums’ initial provocative factors, this study has shown that the high level of “strain” within the community had generated a perceived need to form the Citizen Forums. The physical, economic and social situation in both localities had deteriorated substantially especially after the Asian crisis. This situation was a result of a combination of factors including a lack of capability and commitment of local institutions (in government as well as in the community) to resolve these local problems effectively. This situation, combined with the high hopes in Reformasi era politics, which did not deliver substantial grass roots change, formed the basis of common interest. Prior to the formation of Citizen Forums, some incidents of social unrest took place in both localities and these further encouraged the feeling that action should be taken.
In terms of the promotional factors, several members of the local community took leadership roles; reform-minded local government officials, young idealistic planners and academics from local universities, activists of NGOs and leaders of marginalized groups. They took the initiative in discussing the possibility of making a collective effort leading to the establishment of a Citizen Forum.
Finally, the facilitative factors found in both cases was the existence of catalytic and back-up support from external institutions, in particular in providing meeting venues, information, group-development skills and financial support (especially for initial costs).
Therefore, this study confirms that a combination of these three factors was sufficient to promote the formation of Citizen Forums. More questions entailed why Citizen Forums started to flourish after the Reformasi. Why did they emerge in some localities and not in others? Why did the characteristics of Citizen Forums differ from one locality to another? To provide answers to these questions, this study assumed that “context” plays a crucial role in stimulating and shaping Citizen Forums’ formation, characteristics and behaviour.
Context can be defined as “an arena in which a change agent operates”.[5] However, there is no general agreement about the set of conditions or elements in which contexts differ. Studies of social movements have provided a number of key concepts and initial understandings about the complexity of factors contributing to the formation of citizens’ collective actions. Some emphasized changes in the state as the most obvious determinant. Others emphasise the locality’s structural conditions, defined by Giddens as interlinked collections of rules and resources[6], as forming the important influence.[7] This study found that expectations and feelings of optimism of many local people were encouraged by change at the national political level. The formation of Citizen Forums in many ways was also influenced by another key context – the international political situation.
Nevertheless, without denying the importance of national and international contexts, this study put more emphasis on local systems with their day-to-day actual politics in the community. Both the two local contexts presented in this study have varied considerably in their urban problems and governance structures, as well as their civic culture. The first locality, Majalaya, is an administrative Sub-district (Kecamatan) in West Java consisting of 11 villages (Desa or Kelurahan) with a total population of 200,000, mostly Sundanese. Majalaya has had a unique economic history. It was known as the textile centre of Indonesia. Having experienced a relatively high degree of prosperity during the 1950s-70s it acquired the nick-name “Dollar Town” but in more recent decades its economic condition has declined, and currently it is in the midst of an economic depression. A first impression on first arriving at the town would be that it was chaotic and dusty with traffic congestion, especially in the town square, disorderly, and noisy.
The Majalayans proudly see themselves as a very religious society that practices Islam. Community associational life is dominated by religion-based and neighbourhood-based activities, business associations and the New Order Government/Military–supported associations[8]. Politically, Majalaya has experienced some interesting historical events. Into the 1920s it used to be the base of the Sarekat Islam movement in West Java and it was a centre of the Darul Islam[9] rebellion at the end of the 1940s. In 1998, the process of a non-transparent ‘ruislag’[10] of the sub-district land for a shopping mall led to simmering tensions between local government and people living in the town. This case triggered the formation of a locality-based Citizen Forum in Majalaya, FM2S (Forum Masyarakat Majalaya Sejahtera, the Community Forum for Prosperous Majalaya).
Solo provides another interesting context. It is an administrative urban Municipality (Kodamadya) in Central Java with 5 urban Sub-districts and 51 urban ‘Villages’ (kelurahan) with a total population of 550,000, mostly Javanese. It is widely known as a ‘batik’ and ‘cultural’ city. Solo is the seat of the Kasunanan and Mangkunegaran royal houses. In contrast to Majalaya, the first impression is that Solo is a clean and neat place, peaceful, intimate and affordable. The most pressing social issues are a high level of migrants and commuters and intense social disintegration.
Solo’s associational life is exceptionally visible. Social life is relatively well organized and takes many forms. Social interaction takes place everywhere: in private homes, houses of worship (eg. mosque, church) and in ‘hiks’ or food stalls. Solo has a long history of radical popular movements, it is where Sarekat Islam was born in 1912. During the revolution (1945-1949) Solo youth formed various local defence organizations (laskar-laskar rakyat) and were extremely active participating in guerrilla fighting.[11] Solo later supported the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) and the ‘Anti-Swapraja’ movement. [12] More recently, a number of recent riots have occurred, including the May 1998 incident.[13] The City Hall was burned down in 1999.[14] The economic basis of the city is service industries, small businesses, street-based workers and other informal sectors. When people working in these sectors became increasingly marginalized, this formed the basis of the development of a sectoral-based Citizen Forum in Solo, SOMPIS (Solidaritas Masyarakat Pinggiran Surakarta, The Surakarta Marginalized Community for Solidarity).
Majalaya and Solo have different social and political contexts with different local cultures, patterns of behaviour, demographic characteristics, and associational life. Nevertheless, both Majalaya and Solo provide examples of structural conduciveness, which is defined by Austin as “the existence of conditions in the general community that are favourable to the initiation of a particular type of social activity and to the achievement of at least some of its goals”.[15] The experience of their respective Citizen Forums, FM2S and SOMPIS, demonstrates that an explanation about structural conduciveness to popular participation can be traced back to their local contexts which are a function of local history, political factors, economic conditions, social composition and associational life.
Citizen Forums’ Organization: the Nature and the Typology
What are the characteristics of the Citizen Forums that have made these associations interesting? In what ways do Citizen Forums differ from other civil society associations? Why was Majalaya more conducive to the existence of a locality-based Citizen Forum, while Solo was more conducive to the existence of a sectoral-based Citizen Forum? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type of Citizen Forum? These are some of the questions that will be discussed in this section.
(a) The Nature of Citizen Forums
The nature of Citizen Forums is quite unusual, with several labels used in the literature to describe them: Citizen-based Social Action Groups, Non-partisan Popular Councils, Deliberative Citizen Assemblies and Inclusive Stakeholders Forums. They are policy advocacy-oriented, dedicated to promoting ‘citizen participation”, are strongly locality-oriented and have broad-based memberships and representation. Interestingly, the advocacy that was and is carried out is concerned not only to find solutions but also as a means to encourage and facilitate the involvement of marginalized people in decision-making processes on public issues.
However, this study shows that Citizen Forums may have conflicting aims. Advocacy and participation goals might conflict with the functions other aims such as gaining state and public recognition or conducting national and international networking.
In positioning the Citizen Forums among Indonesia’s existing civil society associations, this study found that the Citizen Forums were characteristically between those of the formally organized NGOs and the neighbourhood associations, both of which are considered to be important players in Indonesian civil society.[16]
Obviously, the Citizen Forums are not NGOs or neighborhood associations. They are collective movements of people dedicated to changing the character and ways of making decisions about public matters and at the same time improving people’s capacity to resolve their own problems. Not many community groups in Indonesia have such a long-term objective, to develop competent citizens and participatory governance.
Unlike Indonesian NGOs in general, Citizen Forums have a spirit of volunteerism, and clearly attempt to mobilize people to act. The Forums are organized and have concerns in certain localities (a neighborhood, village, town or city) and attempt to reveal their local character in their names. They attempt to represent all the people and act on behalf of the residents (or certain class or occupational groups in the named locality).
Compared with most of the existing neighborhood associations (Rukun Tetangga/Rukun Warga) or women’s organisations (PKK), which are used by the state to organize or mobilize sectors of the community to participate in state programs, Citizen Forums have a more developed political consciousness, stronger demands for citizen participation and a drive to change public policy. In terms of organizational capacity, they have more formal structures and rules than neighbourhood associations but are still less formal than most Indonesian NGOs, which more often become legal entities recognized by the state (berbadan hukum).
To enrich our understandings about the Citizen Forums’ nature, it is also interesting to compare the Citizen Forums with the formal political representative institutions such as Local People’s Representative Councils (DPRD) and Village Representative Councils (BPD). They exhibit some similarities in certain basic values such as their interest in the achievement of direct control over the power apparatus in the society. Both play a role to mediate people’s aspirations in democratic political life. The basic difference is that members of DPRD and BPD are elected through a formal representative and electoral process which gives the members a basis for legitimacy to act on behalf of their constituency. The Citizen Forums consist of a set of individuals who may or may not represent certain groups in the larger community. Representation in the Citizen Forums is limited because to some extent they are self-appointed.
Another basic difference relates to the image of a DPRD as a career path for politicians which offers extraordinary material incentives. For many, positions as DPRD members mean both “power” and “status”. The position of a DPRD in the formal government structure also creates advantages in term of privilege, including access to funds and other resources. Therefore, many DPRD members want to make money from their legislative positions. Activism in the Citizen Forums is basically self-conscious and voluntaristic in motivation and orientation. Nevertheless, this study demonstrates that these Citizen Forums also had some access to external funding and becoming active in Citizen Forums could offer some social mobility, a career as well as material benefits.
The study’s evidence from two localities suggests that DPRD were not really interested in local and marginalized groups’ problems and issues. There are some possible reasons, one of them because these issues are not a money making area for DPRD members. Therefore, it was expected that the Citizen Forums would complement this weakness.
This study supports the fact that many of the recently formed BPD have already showed their potential as an agent of change at the village level. They scrutinized corrupt practices and demand for transparency at village administration. However, they appeared to have limited capacity to respond to inter-village issues such as environmental pollution, roads destruction or water problems. A comparison of Citizen Forums’, NGOs, Neighborhood Associations, DPRD and BPD is presented in Table 1.
Citizen Forums developed a distinctive character by taking from NGOs some positive aspects that increased their competence, motivation and ability to network with external bodies. They acquired from neighbourhood associations the solidarity, commitment to local problems, and voluntary ethos, and they have taken on some functions that were not performed by the legislature and the Village Representative Councils.
However, the Citizen Forums are still looking for identity and position in society. The local governments, local legislatures, BPDs and parties have a diversity of opinions about the Citizen Forums, from explicitly supporting to implicitly opposing them. The Citizen Forums’ style of operation has not been established yet. Whether they need to formalize their organization or not will become a painful decision for each Citizen Forum. Becoming formal organizations creates a dilemma, it will increase their feeling of ‘security’ but may turn them into exclusive associations.
It is not surprising to find that borrowing institutional components or roles from differing institutions leads to some contestation between them in the development of organizational processes. For example, a Citizen Forum’s structure and operation may evolve into a NGO-type organization or a neighborhood association-type. It became apparent in this study that Citizen Forum-type organizations are complex, unstable and difficult to maintain. The evidence shows they are more likely to develop along the lines of NGOs when it comes to allocating resources and prioritizing actions, which may not be accepted by their members. However, judging by the example of SOMPIS, the organizations tend to evolve into recipient organizations of government and politicians information, services and programs, which is what typically happens to neighborhood associations.
Many expected Citizen Forums to play the role of an extra-parliamentary institution of representation in local democracy. They were often seen to be an alternative to the DPRD in ensuring that voices of the community are heard in public decision-making processes. This study suggests that Citizen Forums have a lower social distance from the community as compared with the DPRD. But how accurately their actions represented their claimed constituency’s views depends on contestation between various conflicting perspectives in the Citizen Forums themselves.
(b) Two Types of Citizen Forums
Although Citizen Forums share some common features, each one is unique in many ways. Based on the evidence found about the Majalaya and Solo City Citizen Forums, two discrete types of Citizen Forums exist: “Locality-Based Citizen Forums” and “Sectoral-Based Citizen Forums”. Table 2 below outlines key characteristics of these types.
Majalaya’s FM2S is a locality-based type of Citizen Forum. Its main purpose is to improve the quality of both the neighbourhoods and governance in the locality. Although run by a number of “concerned” citizens, its constituency is assumed to be all residents. It is involved in a variety of local issues and pressures local government agencies to become more responsive to the residents. The nature of the Locality-Based Citizen Forum is closer to the Neighbourhood-representing Organizations.[1] Unlike other organizations operating within a neighbourhood which focus mainly on single issues within the community, such as economic groups (koperasi), religious groups (pengajian), youth groups (karang taruna) or women’s groups (PKK), FM2S is concerned with many local issues and claims to advocate on behalf of the whole of the population of Majalaya.
The second type of Citizen Forums is the Sectoral-Based Citizen Forums. These comprise a number of sectoral groups. In the case of Solo’s SOMPIS, the sectoral groups consist of disadvantaged segments of the population. The nature of Sectoral-Based Citizen Forums is very akin to the Urban Poor Federation.[2] Unlike many other marginalized group associations and different kinds of street-based workers’ associations, which focus on their individual group, SOMPIS tried to persuade the local government and legislature to revise local laws regarding the situation of all the marginalized groups, and asked for marginalized groups to become involved in the revision process.
FM2S, unlike SOMPIS, has a tendency to become status-quo oriented, means it prefers not to confront or challenge the system. The leaders of FM2S already hold important positions and have a high standing in the community. FM2S has succeeded in promoting participation of the business community but has largely ignored the working class and informal sectors. In contrast, the example of SOMPIS highlights the use of Citizen Forums to extend the scope of participation. SOMPIS illustrates an interesting case of how ordinary, even marginalised, groups attempt to form an alliance and put pressure on the local authorities for greater involvement in local law-making processes. However, SOMPIS, more than FM2S, reveals the difficulties of Citizen Forums in combining a commitment to their original goals with maintaining accountability and acting effectively.
Citizen Forums’ Transformative Capacity
Indicators of Citizen Forums’ Progress and Success
If Citizen Forums aimed to bring about local democracy, what indicators can be utilized to assess their contributions to local democracy? Mark E. Warren’s classification of the democratic effects of association offers a systematic framework to analyse the kinds of change that Citizen Forums potentially could bring about. He categorized three dimensions of change produced by associations: “developmental effects on individuals”; “public sphere effects”; and “institutional effects”.[3]
Applying Warren’s framework, with regard to their developmental effect on individuals, the Citizen Forums have a potential to form, enhance and support the confidence and capacities of citizens to collectively transform local politics. Warren further differentiated the individual progress that may be improved by association into five dimensions: a sense of efficacy; information; political skills; civic virtues; and critical skills. With regard to their public sphere effects, the associations could play key roles in public communication and deliberation, representations of differences and representations of commonality. Finally, with regard to their institutional effects, the associations have the potential to equalize representation in local political systems, increase citizens’ capacity for resistance, implement the principle of subsidiarity[4] in local governance, improve coordination and cooperation among potentially competing interests and, finally, to increase democratic legitimacy.
The question remains, however: did the Citizen Forums truly have a democratic impact? This is considered in the next two sections, the first focussing on Warren’s ‘individual’ dimension, the second on his ‘public sphere’ and ‘institutional’ dimensions.
Individual Development Effects of Citizen Forums: Cultivating New Civic Culture ?
Citizen Forums have the capability of playing the role of what democratic theorists have termed “schools of democracy”. The associations’ role for democratic learning becomes more important when taking into consideration that in Indonesia this kind of learning rarely takes place in formal education and work places.[5] Participation in Citizen Forums offers a variety of informal learnings that can advance “civic culture”. The desired new civic culture incorporates Warren’s first dimension of individual development.
How have the Citizen Forums in Majalaya and Solo cultivated the new civic culture? This study identified at least three positive influences of the Citizen Forums in building a new civic culture. Firstly, they increased the participants’ critical understanding about their problems. Secondly, they provided an infrastructure in which citizens have the opportunity to gain access to information. Both conditions in turn increased the participants’ interest in and consciousness of public affairs and political issues. Thirdly, they offered venues through which the participants could put aside their self-interest, reinforce responsibility, exercise tolerance, solidarity, creativity and various other attitudes needed to make a contribution to the neighbourhood and broader society.
As an example, in the first year of FM2S’ life, its actions focused on creating regular (weekly) public dialogues in which citizens from a variety of backgrounds discussed the issues of the day. In these meetings, FM2S brought Majalaya’s concerned citizens in contact with local authorities. From observing the meetings directly, the plurality of participants and the issues discussed, it was apparent that these open meetings offered ways and means for the citizens to educate themselves on local problems and deliberative skills: how to speak, how to listen, how to debate, how to reach an agreement. Here the participants recognized that they have developed their cognitive and participatory skills.
According to some active members of FM2S, the forum’s educational opportunities made them interested in joining. For example, one member said: “I feel fortunate to join in FM2S because it widened my perspective. Previously, I was stupid” (Saya besyukur masuk FM2S, bisa nambah wawasan. Kemaren-kemaren saya bodoh). He declared that he joined FM2S because he wanted to learn many things. In the first two months, he attended all meetings but “only to listen”. After that, he felt brave enough to speak.[6]
Unfortunately, the educational potential of FM2S could not be fully developed. Some previous forms of civic cultures remained, such as subordination and inequality: “Majalaya people are not familiar with this kind of forum. The forum that involves everyone – a colourful one, has never existed here”.[7] Being part of a patrimonial and hierarchical society, it was difficult for FM2S to create a real egalitarian forum, especially when it was led by an extremely charismatic and economically powerful leader. While this situation is gradually changing, the hierarchical style in FM2S could not be entirely removed. This problem has been addressed in theoretical terms by Putnam who emphasized the important of intense horizontal interactions of organizational participation, which in turn would influence positively the attitudes and behaviour of those who participate. Putnam argued that the patron-client relation, clientelism, feudalism and other kinds of vertical bonds seem to weaken the beneficial effects of civic networks.[8]
The case of SOMPIS in Solo, however, illustrates a different story. Unlike FM2S which gives more room for elite individuals, the Citizen Forums in Solo had an incredible impact on marginalized groups’ emotions and confidence. A feeling of powerlessness, which had previously been their major experience, was replaced by a feeling of civic pride. Active participants of SOMPIS reported that the Citizen Forum has encouraged them to gain competence and confidence to participate in governance processes.
I felt so enthusiastic! I felt so proud! Gosh, I realize that I have many friends. If we are strong like this, we will have more bargaining power.[9]
A member of the disabled group who felt discriminated against all the time stated that developing a coalition in SOMPIS provided them with the ability to develop a sense of trust and reciprocity towards other marginalized groups:
My spirit was so high. Apparently, not only the disabled (difable[10]) are discriminated against![11]
In their interactions with others, however, the participants confronted the reality that their institution was being compromised by abuse of power, opportunism, free-riding, jealousy and other behaviours which were unavoidable and needed to be acted upon. This study found that SOMPIS’ members were not able to be constantly vigilant, leading to a situation where the leaders abused their position. Several times, SOMPIS had to handle the situation of succession in leadership, having to overcome problems of mistrust and lack of integrity that led to fragmentation and loss of confidence. As shown in the case study, when there was conflict, SOMPIS always tried to resolve it by deliberative means. Unfortunately, as seen from the case study, internal conflicts in SOMPIS often were ended by one party leaving the organization.
The Citizen Forum in Solo could not realize full individual development due to the weight of cultural inheritances and practices such as ewuh pekewuh. This culture reduced the participants’ commitment to implement binding decisions and to effectively respond to practices that were unaccountable. All these depressing experiences, on the other hand, had some positive effects. These organizational processes were ways that the participants could gradually learn different dimensions of associational life, such as how to exercise more democratic and accountable leadership and decision-making. Although SOMPIS failed to maintain organizational unity, it was still able to encourage individual development.
There remains another crucial aspect that needs to be discussed further. The educational purpose of the Citizen Forums to build a new civic culture is inseparable from their role in influencing local governance systems. What kind of culture was nurtured in the Citizen Forums depended on the type of experience they provided. Unless the social and political environments can give participants in the Citizen Forums some hope, equality in their partnership relations with other institutions, confidence that resources will be made accessible to them, a feeling of being respected and other positive experiences, the optimistically intended educational value of participation may lead to a culture of mistrust and suspicion, apathy or extremism.
Public Sphere and Institutional Effects of the Citizen Forums: Promoting Participatory Governance?
This study found that local governance reforms have been introduced in Solo City and Bandung Municipality[12]. New mechanisms in the development planning process have been implemented which favoured more active citizen involvement.[13] While more attempts were put forward to encourage citizen participation in development planning processes, the available spaces for citizen to engage in other governance processes such as spatial planning, budgeting, and law-making were not sufficient. Traditional authoritarian models in these decision-making arenas have not substantially changed.
The cases reveal the Citizen Forums’ growing interest in participating in different processes of governance. Looking at the outcomes of their actions, however, the Citizen Forums appear not yet to be the expected effective means of changing the existing public policy making procedures. However, it must be considered that in both localities, participation in areas other than the development planning process [14] have not yet developed.
In what ways can Citizen Forums promote the transformation of local governance to produce participatory process? This study identified four ways in which Citizen Forums could transform local governance practices: firstly, in forming public policy agendas; secondly, in making local authorities accountable and responsive to the citizens; thirdly, in mediating better communication between the authorities and the citizens; and fourthly, in assuring more pluralistic representation and marginalized groups’ participation.
The concept of participatory governance stated that civic associations are required to form opinions and create agendas outside of the state. Observing the Citizen Forums actions, both have challenged the way the agendas developed. Public discourse initiated by the Citizen Forums generally had more validity and authenticity than those developed by the state (many times formulated by a consulting company). The case studies – for instance FM2S’ contribution to changing the spatial plan or SOMPIS’ contribution to changing the local law on street vendors – suggested that the Citizen Forums have produced some public sphere improvements, although these did not necessarily result in policy changes.
What role did the Citizen Forums play in making the state accountable and responsive? The problem of corruption in bureaucracy and the local legislature was and is a burning topic in both localities. This issue is significant but difficult for the Citizen Forums to work through. In both cases, the Citizen Forums are very ambivalent about their relationship with the state. The great challenge is to obtain recognition from the state and develop a productive partnership with it, when at the same time the Citizen Forums have to be critical of corruption in the state.
The case of FM2S highlighted the drawback of involving local bureaucracies (including the Head of the Sub-district and Village Heads) within the forums. FM2S lost some influence recently when the current Head of the Sub-district himself is charged of engage in corruption while at the same time he was an active member of FM2S. The maximum FM2S could do was limited to initiating public dialogues to formulate new criteria for their future leader (the incoming Sub-district Head) as FM2S could not openly criticize or socially punish the illegitimate behaviour.[15] This involved some cultural obstacles to public criticism similar to the ewuh pekewuh culture found in Solo.
Warren argued that associations can provide a stimulus to the state to become responsive and transparent through their capacity to resist what they do not like.[16] This capacity to resist has been exercised by SOMPIS in its relationship with local authorities over the street vendors program. Its demonstration of a strong resistance capacity has increased the marginalized groups’ ability to influence policies and programs concerning street vendors although SOMPIS’ goal of changing the local law has not yet succeeded.
This study was also interested in examining the Citizen Forums’ role in mediating communication. This means that citizens, by participating in the Citizen Forums, could communicate matters of concern to the broader public and to the authorities, as well as to international communities, and vice versa. The case studies demonstrate that the Citizen Forums have attempted to communicate the citizens’ agendas to the local authorities and wider society in different ways. Sometimes they used political lobbying, at other times they used demonstrations, hearings or utilized the mass media.[17]
Finally, one way of measuring the impact of Citizen Forums in local governance is to evaluate the quality and the quantity of their members’ participation. While FM2S is pluralistic, it is still heavily biased towards the local political and business elite. In contrast, SOMPIS continues to serve the marginalized groups but it is facing great difficulties in broadening and diversifying its membership. There are a variety of reasons for this including conflicting interests existing between community groups. The Citizen Forums to some extent have attracted women’s participation but their efforts to include more women have not achieved as much as was originally hoped, at least by NGOs and donors supporting them. The Citizen Forums are facing a dilemma. Will they be more pro-poor or better connected, more capable organizations?
Barriers to Citizen Participation and Associational Life: Experience of FM2S and SOMPIS
In response to the question of how effective the Citizen Forums have been in transforming the existing civic culture and local governance, this study has argued that to become radically effective Citizen Forums still have to confront many issues. Although the Citizen Forums began with much optimism and a relatively democratic organizational structure, within three years FM2S and SOMPIS developed difficulties in trying to remain truly democratic arenas of participation. This study also found that the Citizen Forums have to a certain extent become accepted and attracted the interest of formal political power holders. Nevertheless, they still have difficulty in taking part in local governance and particularly in trying to change formal laws and regulations and, more importantly, change the attitude of those in authority.
There are four sets of barriers against effective Citizen Forums’ organization and action: (1) barriers to enduring Citizen Forums such as conflicting interests and rivalries; (2) socio-cultural barriers to associational life: trust, opportunism, and patron-client relations; (3) barriers to inclusive membership participation, meaning larger numbers and more categories of people involved; and (4) barriers in local governance structure and limited political space. This section will elaborate on each separately.
Barriers to Enduring Citizen Forums : Conflicting Interests, Goal Displacement, and Rivalry
The Citizen Forums are not fully autonomous entities. They have to cope with different and competing interests. A range of expectations about them exists and they have to contend with multiple interests, and the fact that so much hope is invested in Citizen Forums. These organizations have contributed to people’s ways of thinking and acting in and with the Citizen Forums, which in turn shaped the way the Citizen Forums act. This situation is common in every organization but often counterproductive for the organizations’ commitment to achieving their initial goals.
External supporting institutions[18], who have paid much attention to Citizen Forums, emphasized the Citizen Forums’ potential for local democracy. An example of a Citizen Forum was treated as an “experiment” among a number of other reform initiatives implemented by these institutions. People argued that by supporting the Citizen Forums, these supporting institutions could attracted more donor funding.
From the perspective of the participants, the value of the Citizen Forums lies in their potentials to provide instruments for problem solving. Citizen Forums’ meetings are seen as venues to communicate, share, and develop local or collective issues. The Citizen Forums open up opportunities for members to be trained. They can be used to collect various information about government policies and regulations. More importantly, in the case of Solo, the Citizen Forum represented marginalized voices, increasing their resistance and self-defence capacity, and empowering them so that their voices could be heard. For those in leadership positions, Citizen Forums offer some benefits including personal contacts with important outsiders, a development that may further individual activists’ political careers.
From the authorities’ point of view, the Citizen Forums’ appearance was initially seen as a serious challenge. The case studies demonstrate that the Citizen Forums were increasingly seen as alternatives to social protests and social unrest. Moreover, the case studies indicate that public service bureaucrats concerned themselves with the potential of Citizen Forums to support and implement different kinds of “participatory” projects and services, including planning. Citizen Forums have been seen as potential vote-winners by political parties and politicians rather than as an effective vehicle for making themselves closer to the people. The Citizen Forums, again, face a dilemma – whether to be a pacifier or agent, to cooperate or critique.
FM2S and SOMPIS illustrate citizen groups’ struggle to maintain their initial orientation and commitment, and at the same time deal with different internal and external expectations. The differences in perspective and the complexity of individuals’ and groups’ motivations existing among stakeholders of these Citizen Forums were critical because people’s different goals and interests put constraints on the Forums. In the FM2S experience, the domination of business groups and local leaders prevented FM2S from applying a radical approach and thus limited its potential as a deliberative forum.
The experience of SOMPIS highlights the attitude of powerful NGOs and their networks which have prevented the Citizen Forums from achieving truly democratic possibilities. This confirms the conclusion of Cooke and Kothary who have suggested that the power dynamics in any participatory approaches of development may affect the outcomes.[19] In the situation where the Citizen Forums were tempted to pursue more diverse targets, and individuals in the organizations were also tempted to pursue their individual interests, the primary activity of the organization and the direction taken by the Citizen Forums depended on the dominant forces and the way the decision was made internally.
Rivalry between individuals and groups has been found in this research to be a potential cause of internal divisions and a threat to Citizen Forums’ survival. As a coalition of different groups, especially when a Citizen Forum had a federated structure, rivalry problems became common. The source of rivalries was diverse, often triggered by competition for leadership positions, benefit distribution and influence. This situation hampered the organizations’ broader unity. For example, some influential members in FM2S and SOMPIS left and not long afterwards formed new associations. These were similar to FM2S and SOMPIS, and rivalled the existing Citizen Forums. This might have actually encouraged more local democracy, but it was a setback for FM2S and SOMPIS.
Socio-cultural Barriers in Associational Life: Lack of Trust, Opportunism, and Patronage Relationships
This study supports the theory of social capital, which stated that trust is an important element in organizational life. According to Robert Putnam, “trust enables participants to act more effectively to pursue shared objectives”.[20] The data shows how a culture of distrust and opportunism seriously affected the work of the Citizen Forums in both Majalaya and Solo. A low level of trust in the two localities affected the Forums’ capacity to significantly influence public life. How to build and maintain social capital and trust therefore become a major challenge for the Citizen Forums because the experience of both FM2S and SOMPIS shows that building trust was not automatically built into their processes.
What were the sources of distrust and opportunism existing in the Citizen Forums? What strategies did they use to deal with the problem of trust and keeping it? Inevitably, people inside the Citizen Forums and the people with whom the Forums interacted do not always behave as other people would expect. The ways the Citizen Forums deal with this issue could promote trust, or may lead to further distrust. The better the ability of the Citizen Forums to deal with trust and opportunism, the more likely that such organizations will survive. Why did the interaction between and within these Citizen Forums not foster trust?
One reason is because not only did the organizations not explicitly state their targets, but accountability was either not considered or the procedures were very limited to a formal mechanism such as an Accountability Report (Laporan Pertanggung-jawaban) once in several years. Another reason is that the ability of the Citizen Forums to deal with trust issues was affected by the more general social and cultural attitudes local people have towards any of their leaders. Both cases reflected the reality in Indonesian society about the high level of tolerance of leaders’ corrupt behaviour. All these situations increased the risk of opportunism within the Forums.
This does not mean that participants in the Citizen Forums accepted corrupt behaviour, but they could easily forgive those who were involved in such activities. Social norms and traditional ways of resolving the problem of corruption, especially when done by those in high social, economic or political positions did not help the organizations to improve their level of social capital. There were opportunities for participants in the Citizen Forums to change their attitudes from tolerating corruption to demanding better discipline and accountability, but on many occasions these opportunities were not taken.
The third reason relates to the incentive system built into the Citizen Forums. The amount of money involved (millions of rupiah), in a situation in which various short-term material and individual-oriented type of incentives were offered, had created conflict and promoted corruption. Indirectly, major donors and international development organizations played influential roles in the adoption of the incentive system applied by the Citizen Forums.
The traditional patron-client relationship also explains why it was not so easy to promote wider participation in Citizen Forums. The relationships in FM2S, for example, were basically asymmetrical, involving hierarchy and dependency. Although the formal organizational structures of the Citizen Forums were horizontally structured, meaning not hierarchical, the informal social hierarchies remained vertical. Some social groups who were subordinated in the local social hierarchy (such as women and the younger generation in Majalaya) found it difficult to participate fully in the Citizen Forums.
Barriers to Inclusive Participation
The advantage of participation in the Citizen Forums depended on how actively their members interacted with each other. The more intensely the members participated, and the larger the number of participants, the stronger the impact of the Citizen Forums on participants’ skills and habits of participation. In reality, the Forums found it difficult to promote participation. Although they are still functioning, this study found that the number of active members in both Citizen Forums was very limited and was declining. Both Citizen Forums are facing the problem of valued members withdrawing as a result of rivalries and serious unresolved conflicts over many issues. Some influential members fled the organization because they were suspected of being corrupt and non-transparent. This study found that the internal effects of participation were strong, but limited to small numbers of participants. A low level of participation can be a manifestation of another crisis in the Citizen Forums. It is interesting to consider why those who supposed or who were expected to be actively involved in the Citizen Forums decided not to participate or no longer participated.
This decline in members’ participation is to a large extent explained by the problem of the incentive system. The theory of collective action helps to explain the difficulties of the Citizen Forums regarding active participation. Mancur Olson in The Logic of Collective Action [21] identified the phenomenon of free-rider behaviour[22] as a problem of collective action. There is evidence that some Citizen Forum members joined for short-term material benefits. FM2S was able to mobilize people in the spatial planning process, and SOMPIS mobilized people to join in popular demonstrations. However, it proved difficult to organize many members to make themselves available on a regular basis. Poverty is one of the factors that make regular volunteering difficult in SOMPIS.
Some groups found it difficult to join in Citizen Forums. Women in FM2S have found it culturally difficult to attend regular FM2S meetings (which are usually conducted late at night, from 8 pm until midnight). Labour groups, street vendors, pedicab drivers and migrants, for example, were identified by FM2S as causes of problems rather than members of the citizenry so their participation was ignored and even avoided. The role of the younger generation in FM2S also seemed constrained by the older leaders. Citizens from different religions other than Islamic, and those from certain ethnic groups (e.g. Chinese, Batak) were not encouraged to join FM2S. A similar situation existed in SOMPIS. Sex workers and groups of former members of Communist Party, for instance, found it difficult to join SOMPIS.
Barriers in Local Governance Structures: Not Enough Decentralization and Limited Political Space
As mentioned earlier, reformasi and decentralization have to some extent changed the local governance system in Majalaya and Solo. These initial steps promoted participatory governance. An in-depth examination of urban governance in Majalaya and Solo, however, shows that existing situations in local governance did not significantly support or encourage effective popular participation in the Citizen Forums.
Both FM2S and SOMPIS received local government and local parliamentary recognition and have been able to promote two-way communication with them. Both organizations have had some success in persuading the state to pursue or suspend certain programs and actions. A detailed examination of FM2S and SOMPIS actions, however, demonstrates a huge range of difficulties the Citizen Forums faced in order to safeguard their advocacy outcome. The Citizen Forums’ legal position in local governance is basically weak. Both Forums’ involvement with policy-making processes strongly suggests that their position in public policy and law-making circles is very much dependent on individual reformists inside the state bureaucratic apparatus, the style of which basically remains patrimonial and personal.
Although local development planning in Bandung Municipality has devolved some funding to all villages, kecamatan governments’ financial position and authority remains weak. This situation reflects that decentralization is not enough for the Majalaya Kecamatan, as many decisions about the town are still be made by the higher levels of government.
Future Perspectives
Citizen Forums have offered opportunities for a new participatory culture to develop. They opened positions for new leaders, encouraged new social groups to become active and engaged in solving political problems together. They also provided forums where members gathered in public dialogues and educated themselves in many ways. There are indications that Citizen Forums have prepared their active participants to become more competent in public decision-making, have increased civic pride and, to some extent, have created democratic citizens.
Citizen Forums are a complex phenomenon. Their ability to transform Indonesian local politics and associational life is affected by a number of factors. Both the Citizen Forums studied have, in many ways, succeeded in changing some aspects of civic culture and associational life but, so far, have not been able to completely replace the entrenched system of corrupt governance by bureaucrats, elected members of parliament and local leaders. Even worse, the Citizen Forums themselves were undermined by opportunists within[23].
Both Citizen Forums are facing a crisis of trust and leadership. However, they were continuing their activism, organizing themselves to solve their own community problems democratically, undertaking some routine activities to keep the organization alive, setting up civic dialogues and training schemes to educate themselves about current political issues and conducting protests in the name of the community they represent. These Citizen Forums have not come to an end; they are still alive. Yet to become influential in local governance they are facing great challenges.
From the experience of FM2S and SOMPIS, the most important lesson appears to be that the future roles of the Citizen Forums depends crucially on their larger political setting. As Kaufman and Alfonso note, “they are part of the creative flux of change”.[24] There are many things that Citizen Forums can do, and there are many ways that their social and political environments can affect them. Citizen Forums can define their official goals, they can create their own structures as they see fit and can establish certain rules and standards. But they still need to create trust, avoid opportunism, resolve conflicts, redistribute rewards, elect leaders democratically and recruit more members – all the necessary preconditions for a democratic institution. How they cooperate and conflict with government officials, politicians and NGO activists will continue to be major challenges for the Citizen Forums trying to promote justice, equity and widen participation in their respective communities in Indonesia.
Note : The article title came from Conclusion Chapter of the PhD Thesis at Flinders University titled “New Voices of the Community?: Citizen Forums in Reformasi Era Indonesia.
[1] For an explanation of Neighborhood-representing Organizations see Cnaan, Ram A, “Neighborhood-representing Organizations: How Democratic Are They?”, Social Service Review, vol. 65, no. 4, December 1991, pp. 614-634.
[2] Urban Poor Federation is an alliance of community-based organisations of the urban poor so that they can better articulate their demands to the authorities or other political power.
[3] Warren, Mark E, Democracy and Association, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2001, pp. 60-93.
[4] The “subsidiarity” principle suggests that the “unit of collective action should be matched to the scale and nature of the problem”. See Warren, ibid, p.87. This principle has a consequence that specific social functions might be better devolved to citizen associations rather than undertaken by the state.
[5] The school curriculum basically focuses on academic matters but neglects personal and social qualities including attributes of being a good citizen. Although the education curriculum is changing towards performance-based learning, the teaching of democracy has not been included. Moral education is included in religious teaching (for example, how to be a good Muslim or Christian).
[6] Interview with Asep Supriatna, a teacher who became an active participant in FM2S, Majalaya, July 2003.
[7] Interview with Deden Suwega, an active participant in FM2S, Majalaya, July 2003.
[8] Putnam, Robert D, Making Democracy Work: Civic Tradition in Modern Italy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993, pp. 174-75.
[9] Interview with Wied Sukamto, a participant in SOMPIS from the street vendors’ group, Solo, August 2003.
[10] As mentioned previously, people with disabilities in Solo prefer to call themselves “difable” (different abilities) rather “disabled”.
[11] Interview with Wisma Wijayanto, current executive of SOMPIS and a leader of the difable group, Solo, July 2004.
[12] The Municipality (District) of which Majalaya is a Sub-district.
[13] As explained in Chapter 1, an allegedly participatory planning mechanism has been widely implemented in Indonesia since the mid-1970s but after Reformasi this mechanism has been revised to promote more genuine and inclusive participation.
[14] For example, in spatial planning, budgeting and legislation-making.
[15] In an FM2S meeting in April 2005, an informal agreement was made. “Let us put his black page in the past since the Camat is about to retire” (“lembaran hitam pak Camat biarlah jadi masa lalu saja sebab pak Camatnya sebentar lagi pensiun”).
[16] Warren, Op.cit, p.85.
[17] The case studies demonstrate that media, especially in Solo City, play important roles in channelling people’s aspirations to the authorities and broader public.
[18] Mainly NGOs and universities.
[19] Cooke, Bill and Kothary, Uma (eds.), Participation The New Tyranny?, Zed Books, London, 2001.
[20] Robert Putnam, 1995b, p. 664.
[21] Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1965.
[22] ‘Free Riders’ refers to those who want to obtain the benefit of collective action without contributing to the cost.
[23] By ‘opportunist within’ I mean those who seek immediate personal advantage from their activism in the Citizen Forums.
[24] Kaufman, Community Power and Grassroots Democracy, 1997, Zed Books, London, p. 5.
[1] Mattson, Kevin, Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p.1.
[2] See Kaukus 17++ discussion report “Upaya Penguatan Forum Warga: Refleksi Pengalaman dan Strategi ke Depan” (Strengthening the Citizen Forums: Reflection and Future Strategy), 2003.
[3] By “effective”, this study means that implemented fully citizen participation has a significant effect on improving participants’ world view, ethos and civic habits, is politically influential and leads to social justice.
[4] Sills, Patrick, et al., “The Formation and Forms of Community Groups”, Journal of Voluntary Action Research, vol. 9, nos. 1-4, 1980, pp. 189-202.
[5] Kramer, Ralph M, and Specht, Harry (eds.), Readings in Community Organization Practice, Prentice Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, 1975, p. 17.
[6] Giddens, Anthony, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1984, p.377.
[7] See Goodwin and Jasper (eds.), The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2003, pp. 11-14.
[8] For example Angkatan Muda Siliwangi (Siliwangi Youth Force), Komite Nasional Pemuda Indonesia (National Committee of Indonesian Youth), and PKK (Pemberdayaan dan Kesejahteraan Keluarga, Family Welfare & Empowerment, previously Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga, Family Welfare Guidance). Many of these associations were established from the top or controlled and coopted by the New Order government.
[9] Darul Islam was the movement which strove to realize the ideal of an Islamic State of Indonesia.
[10] Ruislag means land swap. As explained in Chapter 6 it is a transaction made with a third party to exchange a state asset (eg. land) with a different asset in another location.
[11] For a more detailed history about Solo in the time of Revolution see Soejatno, “Revolution and Social Tensions in Surakarta 1945-1950”, Indonesia, No. 17, April 1974, pp.99-111.
[12] A movement which emerged after Indonesia declared independence in 1945 to oppose any attempt to restore the power of the Solo monarchy and to demand direct rule from the government of the new Republic of Indonesia. See Ibid.
[13] There was a large-scale riot which became known as “Solo the Sea of Fire” or “Grey May”, as explained in Chapter 8.
[14] This was during unrest that occurred when Megawati Sukarnoputri failed to be chosen as President by the national People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR).
[15] Austin, David M, “Influence of Community Setting on Neighborhood Action”, in John B. Turner (ed.), Neighborhood Organization for Community Action, The National Association of Social Workers, New York, 1968, p. 87.
[16] See Eldridge, Philip J, Non Government Organizations and Democratic Participation in Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1995 and Guinness, Patrick, Harmony and Hierarchy in Javanese Kampung, Singapore, Oxford University Press, 1986.