Pseudo Governance: A Lesson Learned From Banten

Abstract

Governance has become a mainstream since the 1990s, which is widely accepted as rapid as the unstoppable democratization and globalization all around the world, including Indonesia. Although it has been formally adopted since the 1998’s national reforms, new values in the governance paradigm are still not effectively internalized in the practice of governance in Indonesia, especially in Banten Province. A number of pathological symptoms in the praxis of local governance indicates not only the ineffective government but also the poor governance. Based on the background above, this study aims to explore qualitatively about the praxis of local governance in Banten Province, which is analyzed within the framework of Rondinelli and Cheema (2007), which focused on the interaction between local governance actors namely: regional government elites, private sector, and civil society. This research has exploratively succeeded in uncovering the pseudo-governance praxis, which is characterized by the lack of transparency, accountability, participation, public trust, and respect for democratic processes; the local leadership malfuction, the dominant role of the private sector in politics and government; and interactions among governance actors which appear to work normally, but are actually corrupted by various forms of structured and systematic penetration. Recruitment of democratic and accountable politics, the presence of an effective control system, and effective and nondiscriminatory law enforcement are essential preconditions to realize authentic democratic governance, not a pseudogovernance which is so manipulative that distort the effectiveness of local government and development as well as