Abstract
Due to its extensive development in the private sector, the concept of innovation for the public sector has been attracting greater attention from policymakers, practitioners, and scholars. Nonetheless, the concept of public innovation remains under-theorised, with significant gaps evident in the literature. New Public Management (NPM) scholars encourage service, management, and technology aspects, but overlook the urgency of governance dimension in transforming production systems beyond organisational boundaries and dealing with resource scarcity, impartiality, societal changes, and legitimacy deficits. Moreover, many scholars also disregarded the importance of legitimacy to overcome the liability of newness and to secure the credibility and continuity of such new initiatives.This research was triggered by the ambiguous outcomes of decentralisation policy in Indonesia which commenced in 2001. Empirical studies identify that some local governments have engaged in public innovations to improve public management and service delivery, while many others still deliver deficient performance and bad governance. This paradox shows that public innovation is not developed in a vacuum; it must encounter multiple veto points and inherent antecedents, where power and politics operate alongside it.
This qualitative research selected Batang Regency (a rural municipality in Central Java Province) as the locus of study. This regency was not free from malfeasance and corruption cases in the past. In contrast, Regent Yoyok Riyo Sudibyo (2012–2017) has prioritised several governance innovations which have been acknowledged by various national institutions. As a non-partisan leader, Regent Yoyok had no loyal supporters within the local council in the midst of path dependency in budgeting and regulating processes. Taking an alternative path, he partnered with local NGO activists in developing new and popular approaches for governance to secure the co-creation of public value. This interpretive study examined how innovative governance ideas were generated, formulated, implemented. and institutionalised in Batang by highlighting three interesting cases (BBMan dialogue forum, UPKP2 local ombudsman and the Budget Festival) which have had different levels of risk, success and continuity.
This research adapted Suchman’s (1995) analytical framework to explore three strategies in dealing with socio-political environment: these are conforming, selecting, and manipulating. The findings show how Regent Yoyok and his supporters combined these three strategies to build legitimacy elements (pragmatic, moral and cognitive) in any combination, concurrently or sequentially as fits the situation. They developed popular policy narratives and new governance practices under the vision ‘Clean bureaucracy, Advanced economy’. This popular approach generated direct benefits for affected communities and enabled Regent Yoyok to secure common acceptance from citizens based on their self-interest judgement (pragmatic legitimacy) and normative justification (moral legitimacy). From his success in achieving external recognitions (e.g. Bung Hatta Anti-Corruption Award in 2015), he took the opportunity to expand the narrative of governance innovations through many media outlet publications. This popularisation improved the knowledge of citizens, who then supported governance innovations based on knowledge judgement (cognitive legitimacy). As an ultimate impact, new governance practices in Batang became firmly entrenched since their flaws became unthinkable by the public and challenges or delegitimation by opponents became unfeasible.
| Date of Award | 2020 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Lain DARE (Supervisor) |
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