Pathology of Social Accountability in Local

Development Participatory Budgeting

(Case Study Village Development Funds in
Surakarta, Indonesia)
Rutiana Dwi Wahyunengseh
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Sebelas Maret University
rutianadwi@staff.uns.ac.id

The 3rd Sebelas Maret International Conference on Business,

Economics and Social Sciences
August 3rd and 4th, 2016
 INTRODUCTION

budgeting is about politics; most

politics is budgeting; and budgeting
must therefore be understood as part
of political game.

Social accountability of public

budgeting is institutionalized currently
in Indonesia, from either supply
driven or demand driven aspect, as
the attempt of improving the quality
of local budgeting democratization
product.
. Rutiana D Wahyunengseh (Sebelas Maret University) - 2
Background:The management of Kelurahan
Development Fund/ Kelurahan Grant (DPK)-1
1. The history of DPK policy release is the part of civil society
activists pressure to develop a democratic budgeting planning.
2. This attempt is initiated by IPGI (Indonesian Partnership on Local
Governance Initiative) in 2001 for fiscal devolution trial in the
form of blockgrant for kelurahan.
3. DPK is a miniature of social accountability for government
budget democratization in the attempt of answering the publics
questions: What can we manage directly in our territory?
4. The committee of Kelurahan Development (PPK), acting as
accountor should be accountable socially to citizen and formally
to city government.

3
 Problem Statement

Local Development Participatory Budgeting

(PB): a democratic budgeting process that
ensure the accountability of the Local
Government in allocating the public budget.
The Problem: the occurance of the patholigies,
which produce biases in the accountability of
the budgeting process, e.i DPK (Village
Development Funds).
The Pathology of Social Accountability:
means a variety of phenomena resulting in
dysfunction of social accountability
substantively which is counterproductive in
nature for democratic values, such as budget
allocation injustice, majority groups domination,
patronage, clienteles, and corruption
Rutiana D Wahyunengseh (Sebelas Maret University) - 4
 Novelty:
1. This articles novelty:
in certain context of participative public budgeting
process, civil society is in pathological trap
weakening the social accountability substance.
2. The novelty revealed in this article is that a product
of democratic process does not always contribute to
the reinforcement of democratic value element due
to pathological trap.

5
RESEARCH METHOD
focusing on the practices in the process
Research Type: of participatory public budget planning,
CASE STUDY in Kelurahan Grant Surakara City

Data Collection: to identify the biases in the practice

- INTERVIEW of participatory budgeting process
- OBSERVATION which were contraproductive to the
- DOCUMENT democratic values it should uphold
Data Analysis:
Constructivism using the representative of
participation and public
paradigm in contol frameworks, in order
interpretive perspective to explain the causes of the
USING 2 FRAME-WORKS paradox
Rutiana D Wahyunengseh (Sebelas Maret University) - 6
FINDING: (1) traps of pathology
community side
Kelurahan Development Fund or 1. elite-biased
Kelurahan Grant (DPK) implementation of DPK,
indicated with more than
The committee of Kelurahan 45% allocation for LMK
Development (PPK) (Kelurahan Society
having aproximate relation-ship to Institution)s operation
government structure, i.e: RT, RW 2. PPK policy to modify the
self-help contribution value
capital power, i.e: business association
of society is intended to
massive power of adherents, i.e.: relieve the societys
community figure, religi-ous figure, NGO burden of paying self-help
activist, etc. money due buck passing
for corruption trap

Traps: elites domination, buck

passing, embrio of corruption,
commodification for power
negotiation
Rutiana D Wahyunengseh (Sebelas Maret University) - 7
FINDING: (1) traps of pathology
government side
Kelurahan Development Fund or Traps: Cooptation, control by Gov
Kelurahan Grant (DPK)
DPK is given to citizen to accommodate It indirectly, the forum
reduce the citizens disappointment, in is coopted by
order tomake them support the government becomes a
government. routine executor of
1. The hierarchy of PPK : society leaders close
budget ration
to government.
2. Mayors regulation contains technical
instruction of DPK use to be PPK controller
as the government activity executive agency.
3. The procedure of applying for grant proposal
and report to government provides the
government an administrative control space.

Rutiana D Wahyunengseh (Sebelas Maret University) - 8

CONCLUSIONS
1. Pathology occurs due to the interaction between
accountability social elements running in environment where
is bureaucratic sphere having formality culture-oriented and
civil society behaved comodification-oriented
2. Supply-driven formality of social accountability institution
creates forum cooptation thereby resulting in a pseudo-social
accountability
3. Contestation of civil society group interest triggers forum
comodification thereby they cantt perform substantively
accountee role
4. The intensity of social accountability mechanism in a
democratic value-based budgeting planning process not
automatically impacts on the improved accountable
budgeting quality when its pathology is not reduced.

Rutiana D Wahyunengseh (Sebelas Maret University) - 9

CONCLUSIONS (2)
5. The orientation toward formality-procedural and
commodification culture trigger the practice of social
accountability pathologies in the public budgeting; therefore it
may prevent the social accountability mechanism in the
democratic process to produce better budget democratization
values.
6. On the contrary, it tends to produce a pseudo social
accountability, which preserve the power of the elites and have
potential in weakening the democratic values.
7. In the technical level, the social accountability pathologies have
a potential to produce budget misallocations and inefficiencies;
jealousy, conflicts, intergroup disintegration, apathy, declining
of public trust, money politics, and inequality between groups
or regions.

Rutiana D Wahyunengseh (Sebelas Maret University) - 10

Suggestion:

1. Social accountability pathology can be reduced when

the quality of democratic system and bureaucratic
environment is improved, from formal procedural-
orientation to substantive orientation
2. Needed further research on the issues of increasing
the quality of democracy and bureaucracy to
encourage the paradigm shift from accountability as
responsiveness to the patron/client/constituent,
toward the paradigm of accountability as
answerability to the public.

Rutiana D Wahyunengseh (Sebelas Maret University) - 11

 THANK YOU
FOR YOUR ATTENTION
Rutiana Dwi Wahyunengseh
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences
Sebelas Maret University
Jl. Ir. Sutami 36A, Surakarta 57126, INDONESIA
rutianadwi@staff.uns.ac.id