Pilkada Serentak, Eksklusi Partai Politik, dan Masa Depan Politik Representasi

Since the beginning of its implementation, direct local election has brought great expectation to perform radical changes in fulfilling the political rights of public to determine local political leader in their region. This expectation gained momentum from the contestation of national versus local political discourse, that created direct local election as new field of discursively to build local political power. Meanwhile, various researches on direct local election have found that the high expectation of political freedom actually had been 'hijacked' by political oligarchy that made direct local elections very expensive event, but could not be guaranteed to increase public welfare. The concurrent local elections, which will be held for the first time at the end of year 2015, become new field of discursively to overcome the public apathy. This paper positions concurrent local elections as discursive struggle that established figure-based politics as hegemonic discourse and at the same time, excluded political parties within the discourse, through the dislocations of meaning, that define simultaneity as instrumental arrangement. The exclusion of political parties is also dislocated because this involvement is understood only as 'political vehicle' or formalistic institution for candidacy. These dislocated meanings evoked a question, whether concurrent local elections could create new form of political representation, or in fact, establish figure-based politics hegemony that actually challenge democratization

PILKADA SERENTAK, EKSKLUSI PARTAI POLITIK, DAN MASA DEPAN POLITIK REPRESENTASI

Since the beginning of its implementation, direct local election has brought great expectation to perform radical changes in fulfilling the political rights of public to determine local political leader in their region. This expectation gained momentum from the contestation of national versus local political discourse, that created direct local election as new field of discursively to build local political power. Meanwhile, various researches on direct local election have found that the high expectation of political freedom actually had been 'hijacked' by political oligarchy that made direct local elections very expensive event, but could not be guaranteed to increase public welfare. The concurrent local elections, which will be held for the first time at the end of year 2015, become new field of discursively to overcome the public apathy. This paper positions concurrent local elections as discursive struggle that established figure-based politics as hegemonic discourse and at the same time, excluded political parties within the discourse, through the dislocations of meaning, that define simultaneity as instrumental arrangement. The exclusion of political parties is also dislocated because this involvement is understood only as 'political vehicle' or formalistic institution for candidacy. These dislocated meanings evoked a question, whether concurrent local elections could create new form of political representation, or in fact, establish figure-based politics hegemony that actually challenge democratization

KOMPETISI DAN PENUNDUKAN BIROKRASI PADA REZIM KNOWLEDGE-BASED DEVELOPMENT

Tulisan ini ingin mengungkapkan bagaimana pembangunan sebagai praktik kekuasaan berlangsung atas dasar klaim kebenaran tertentu yang menjadi instrumen untuk mempertahankan kemapanan. Dengan menggunakan konsep kekuasaan produktif dari Foucault (2002), yang dioperasionalisasikan dengan metode analisis diskursus, akan ditunjukkan bagaimana praktik pembangunan diarahkan untuk tunduk pada rezim knowledge management. Penguasaan akan pengetahuan dan kemampuan untuk mengelola berbagai informasi secara sistematis menjadi sangat strategis untuk menjamin keberlanjutan pembangunan. Masuknya rezim ini dalam pembangunan menjadi dasar argumen untuk mendorong perubahan cara kerja birokrasi. Birokrasi sebagai institusi yang berwenang mengalokasikan sumber-sumber daya didisiplinkan melalui penetapan berbagai standar agar mampu mengelola data dan informasi untuk pengambilan keputusan. Penundukan birokrasi pada rezim knowledge management untuk berinovasi mengubah praktik pembangunan menjadi lebih terukur, tapi di sisi lain, juga menjebak birokrasi pada rigiditas prosedur pengelolaan pengetahuan, sehingga mengabaikan makna utama pembangunan sebagai penciptaan kesejahteraan bukan sekedar pencapaian angka

Flawed Democracy: Beyond Agency and Structure (A Book Review)

This book analyses democratic failure at the local level which is indicated from the political issues that happened in Asahan, North Sumatera. The four political issues are: (1) the limitation of public access toward information; (2) the discrimination in social policy; (3) the ignorance of public aspiration; and (4) the land disputes that followed together with the criminalization towards public activists. In those four issues, public matters management becomes the arena that happens outside public control. Issues about the weakening of public control have become an analysis project that colours the development of democracy study

RUANG PUBLIK DALAM PEMILIHAN KEPALA DAERAH Studi Terhadap Pemilihan Walikota Bandung Tahun 2003

Desentralisasi dan demokratisasi dalam era reformasi telah mengubah proses pemilihan kepala daerah menjadi peristiwa politik yang menarik dan sulit untuk diprediksi. Dalam proses tersebut, terdapat berbagai kepentingan yang bertarung dengan menggunakan bermacam-macam strategi, termasuk melalui penggunaan bahasa dalam pertarungan wacana. Analisis terhadap pertarungan wacana dilakukan dengan menggunakan metode analisis wacana (discourse analysis). Indikator yang digunakan meliputi setting, agents atau participants, political actions, dan mutual knowledge (basis kognisi) yang membentuk pemaknaan dari wacana-wacana yang saling berkompetisi. Pemaknaan terhadap wacana yang muncul, baik wacana utama maupun wacana tandingan dianalisis dengan mengacu pada konteks sosial. Selanjutnya, ketersediaan ruang publik sebagai arena berlangsungnya kompetisi wacana dapat diukur dari penggunaan dimensi-dimensi kekuasaan, kapital, dan kebudayaan dalam proses produksi dan reproduksi makna dari suatu wacana. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa konstruksi makna masih didominasi oleh elit. Dominasi ini diindikasikan dari penggunaan argumen-argumen yang bersifat legal, normatif, dan prosedural sehingga mempersempit peluang munculnya wacana tandingan. Wacana figur alternatif sebagai wacana tandingan mengindikasikan ketidakpercayaan masyarakat terhadap elit penguasa yang dinilai tidak mampu membawa perubahan signifikan dalam praktik pemerintahan daerah. Dari ketiga dimensi yang diteliti, dimensi kapital berpotensi besar untuk memperluas ruang publik meskipun perannya dalam memunculkan wacana tandingan tidak terlepas dari kepentingan akumulasi modal sehingga perlu diimbangi dengan pengembangan kapasitas dua dimensi lainnya. Kata kunci: ruang publik, pertarungan wacana, pemilihan walikot

MENUNDUKKAN BIROKRASI: MELACAK PERTARUNGAN KUASA DIBALIK WACANA REFORMASI BIROKRASI

Tulisan ini menempatkan reformasi birokrasi sebagai pertarungan kekuasaan yang bersifat diskursif, dimana ada berbagai argumen yang berebut klaim kebenaran untuk membentuk sosok birokrasi yang profesional. Pendekatan diskursus dipakai untuk menunjukkan bahwa reformasi birokrasi tidak cukup dipahami sebagai praktik manajerial karena pilihan terhadap pendekatan reformasi merupakan pilihan politik yang mencerminkan persetujuan pada rasionalitas tertentu dibalik pendekatan tersebut. Analisis diskursus terhadap konsep-konsep yang menjadi arus besar dalam reformasi birokrasi menunjukkan bahwa reformasi birokrasi berupaya menundukkan birokrasi untuk patuh pada rezim pasar, yang kemudian melahirkan sosok birokrasi dengan cara kerja yang sejalan dengan kehendak rezim tersebut. Hal ini penting diungkapkan untuk menumbuhkan kesadaran bahwa konsep reformasi birokrasi tidak netral tapi senantiasa mengandung kepentingan untuk berkuasa. Di sisi lain, kesadaran ini membuka peluang bagi proses diskursif berkelanjutan untuk merumuskan sosok birokrasi alternatif yang disesuaikan dengan konteks politik yang ada dalam organisasi publi

WACANA NEGARA MARITIM DAN REIMAJINASI NASIONALISME INDONESIA

Although Indonesia is an archipelagic state, but the discourse on maritime state is not yet become the main discourse in the construction of nation and state of Indonesia. This discourse is reemerged when President Joko Widodo make it as one of the main strategic agenda of hisadministration. The re-emerging of this maritime nation discourse is interesting to be studied in terms of nationalism, as an attempt to reconstructing the Indonesian national identity imagination. By tracking the dynamics of the arguments that enliven the discourse in Indonesian politics, this paper wants to uncover why this discourse re-emerged and what is the political interests behind thereimagination of Indonesian nationalism

Volunteerism as an alternative early warning system in supporting election supervision

The quality of an election can be measured by the number of violations that can be solved to ensure the legitimisation of the election results. Violations in elections are still a problem since the amount tends to increase, which needs a long period of time to be solved. The enforcement of the regulations, such as the role of Bawaslu, is limited because it only serves as a ‘postman’ who forwards the violation cases to another law enforcement institution. The shifting of electoral supervision towards a more participatory approach has become an opportunity to develop an electoral supervision model that involves the community, especially in the prevention phase. This article describes the emergence of the idea of volunteerism in the context of the election, particularly in the election’s implementation monitoring and supporting the functions of Bawaslu. The article uses qualitative methods to analyse the various regulations in relation to monitoring and supervising the election, as well as various referral sources that contain voluntary practice information. The result of the study shows that an early detection system is an alternative method that can be developed, considering the voluntary spirit which is currently undergone an improvement. Therefore, it is necessary to build an early system in the prevention phase by conducting supervision on the implementation of the overall stages of the election and building public awareness to guard the integrity of the election results

Surviving Election: Corruption and Transformation of Clientelism

This article discusses clientelism practice as a political machine to mobilise supports for the candidates of district head who were trapped in a corruption case. This research especially intended to answer the question why the incumbent candidate of district head who had become the suspect of cases of corruption, still got relatively significant votes. Although the incumbent failed to win in the pilkada (the election of the district head), the votes that they got became the reason to uncover the redistribution and infrastructure strategy that was used to muffle the image of the incumbent as a corrupt politician. The findings of this research indicated that supporting political parties used the corruption case as a momentum to change the pattern of clientelism, by transforming the personal loyalty to the party loyalty. The political party institutionally took a role as a patron, so that the personal dependency to the elites decreased, but also was directed to a wider variation of the use of public resources for the sake of mobilising support. By using this strategy, the coalition of political party in “tim sukses” maintained their solidarity as well as redeveloped the patron structure that was weakened by corruption cases. The strategy change used by “tim sukses” in reframing the corruption issues indicated the work of clientelism networking to justify the new construction about corruption cases done by the incumbents, so that the incumbents remained able to get votes although they had been considered as the suspects in those cases

Governing Water, Engaging Community: Indonesian Water Security Roadmap

Water policy assessment could be multifaceted in nature considering its systemic implications for governance. The context of governing water is constantly changing. Water demand may rise of population growth and economic activities, whilst water service provision may be challenging due to interconnected aspects of water justice, water conflict and water resources management.  Policymaking adaptability to change should think about the consequences of the policy design to all stakeholders, including their situation and options and determine the most possible alternative resolutions. Most attention is given to key lessons for development considering the impact of and the need to discuss the issue of water security in a way that could contribute to protecting lives and the environment. To some extent the issue of water security in Indonesia is interconnected with general enabling measures of assessing the existing regulation at the national level. Unambiguous actions may be required at regional and local levels, together with sound socio-economic and socio-cultural institutions and instruments, namely building capacity and advocating partnerships. This primary qualitative research is about providing water security roadmap in West Java as a case in point, contributing to policy discourse on how to govern the complexity of water security issue concerning making model grounded on collaborating local community participation and regional government support