The Narrative path of Indonesian public sector reforms 1998-2023

Abstract

In response to political, economic, and social dynamics, the Indonesian public sector has continuously embraced reform initiatives, especially after the financial crisis severely hit the country in 1997. This article sheds light on the path of the Indonesian reform journey by employing a narrative analysis of enacted legislation and published reports on public sector reform from the period after the Asian financial crisis of 1998 until 2023. The path of reform was set off with state-level reform to arrange decision-making authority as part of the democratization process, followed by intensive public financial management reforms that contributed to the sustainability of the reform. Market-type mechanisms are primarily adopted along with hierarchical mechanisms. This caused the initial effects of the reform to be heavily characterized by struggles for power and dominance among the units involved. Overly ambitious reform plans led to the scaling back of the initial trajectories.