Decentralization and Regional Autonomy in Indonesia: Implementation and Challenges

List of Contributors

xv LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Adi Abidin holds a B.A. in comparative politics from Northern Illinois University and has been deeply involved in the implementation of the 1999 legislation on decentralization and regional autonomy in various capacities. He was programme officer for the unit “Decentralization and Local Government” at The Asia Foundation in Jakarta where he was engaged in the implementation of the Indonesia Rapid Decentralization Appraisal (IRDA), a three-year programme dedicated to monitoring the pace and direction of the decentralization process in Indonesia. He was a member of the initial implementation team of the decentralization policy at the State Ministry for Regional Autonomy in 2000, where he was involved in the drafting of the initial implementing regulations and was responsible for the whole research unit of the ministry, assisting the senior political adviser and setting up the decentralization facilitators’ network in the regions. After the State Ministry of Regional Autonomy had merged with the Ministry of Home Affairs, due to the restructuring of the government in late 2000, Abidin joined the office of the National Democratic Institute in Jakarta as a programme officer dealing with issues concerning constitutional and electoral reform as well as decentralization. In this context, he served as a close observer of Indonesia’s constitutional amendment process, particularly the crisis leading to Abdurrahman Wahid’s removal from office in 2001. He also assisted the central government as well as local governments in preparing innovative institutions, practices and procedures to strengthen the initiatives for regional autonomy. Abidin has recently started a new job at the Jakarta office of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Bambang Brodjonegoro holds a Ph.D. in Regional Science and a Master of Urban Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is Dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Indonesia in 00 D&RA_Indonesia Prelims 9/16/09, 8:40 AM 15 xvi Jakarta. He is also President of the Indonesian Regional Science Association (IRSA), Deputy Chairman of the Indonesian Economist Association (ISEI) for Decentralization, Regional Autonomy, Cooperatives and Agriculture, and Chairman of the Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD). His latest publications include Regional Development in the Era of Decentralisation: Growth, Poverty and the Environment (2004), co-edited with A.S. Alisjahbana. Cynthia Gek-Hua Chou holds a B.A. and MSoc.Sc. from the National University of Singapore and a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University, UK. She is Associate Professor at the Department of Crosscultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. Previously, she had worked as Curator at the Singapore History/National Museum and as postdoctoral research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden, The Netherlands. Her publications include Indonesian Sea Nomads: Money, Magic, and Fear of the Orang Laut of Riau (2003), the anthology, Tribal Communities in the Malay World: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives (2002), co-edited with Geoffrey Benjamin, and the theme-issue Riau in Transition (Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 1997), coedited with Will Derks. Edwin de Jong holds a M.A. in Development Studies from Nijmegen University. Having carried out extensive fieldwork in South Sulawesi, he has recently finished his doctoral thesis, titled Living with the Dead: The Dynamics of Translocality and Livelihoods in the TorajanWorld, Indonesia. In his thesis, he analyses the impact of the multiple crises in Indonesia on the livelihood of the Sa’dan Toraja in the highlands of South Sulawesi. His focus lies on the way in which the Sa’danToraja respond to the effects of the crises and the consequences of these responses for essential social relations and (trans-local) networks. De Jong’s doctoral research project was part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences’ “Indonesia in Transition” Research Programme within the Netherlands-Indonesia Scientific Cooperation Programme. He is currently appointed as post-doctoral researcher at the project “Adapting to Water Change: Social-Ecological Resilience and Livelihood Innovation as a Consequence of Aquatic-Ecological Change and Changing Water Regimes of the Mahakam River, East Kalimantan, Indonesia”, financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). He is also working as an educational coordinator and lecturer at the Department of Development Studies at Nijmegen University. xvi List of Contributors 00 D&RA_Indonesia Prelims 9/16/09, 8:40 AM 16 xvii Dibyo Prabowo is President of Atma Jaya University in Yogyakarta. Previously, he was Professor of Economics at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta and Director of the university’s...