LAYERS OF POWER IN DELIBERATIVE VILLAGE PLANNING: THE CASE OF PEMATANG TENGAH VILLAGE, NORTH SUMATRA - INDONESIA

• Main Author: Taufiq, Muhammad
• Format: Dissertations
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/55408
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

For many countries, especially in the third world and the global south, village planning plays an essential role in implementing regional development strategies. In the village planning, communities initiate local development through communicative forums. This practice is called deliberative planning. All stakeholders sit together and have a dialogue to make policies. In the Indonesian context, deliberative village planning is aimed at deciding the development projects that will be realized based on suggestions from the community. As planning requires an institutional design, planning experts and communicative support practitioners involved in the planning process focus on the formal aspects of the policy-making arena. In society, however, power also plays a role at the informal level. The existence of power in deliberative planning has been discussed extensively in the literature. Its current understanding is generally based on urban planning theory and practice from western countries, where formal deliberation is pursued. This is not directly applicable in various other parts of the world, especially developing countries, where planning is more characterized by informality. A sufficiently comprehensive overview of deliberation in planning is given in Network Power in Collaborative Planning by Booher and Innes (2002). The authors argue that power should be evenly distributed among all participants in the form of a network power system that ensures ideal deliberation prerequisites, such as diversity, interdependence and authentic dialogue (DIAD) in the policymaking process. The DIAD notion was used in the present research as the main debate. Although it successfully describes how power works in deliberation, it lacks an explanation of the influence of power mechanisms working outside the formal arena. Previous studies have discussed separately the influence of informal arenas toward planning products. Multi-layered powers have not been accommodated in deliberative planning. So that, it is not sufficient to explain how power in informal arenas affects the deliberation result in the formal arena.vi On the theoretical side, this research provides a contribution to the deliberative planning debate by addressing this specific issue in a village planning context. The practice of village deliberation was analyzed to show the layers of power in deliberative village planning. The power capabilities of the actors in the formal arena were analysed as well as how power works outside of the formal arena and how authentic dialogue is affected by the relationship. On the practical side, this research is useful for policymakers who are involved in developing appropriate village planning strategies in Indonesia, or in other countries with similar characteristics, where power mechanisms working in informal arenas have to be handled. The forum of village development planning (musrenbangdes) of Pematang Tengah, North Sumatra - Indonesia was the case study in this dissertation to illustrate the deliberative planning in practice. Field research was carried out during 2018-2020 using ethnographic and autoethnographic strategies. Data collection was carried out by in-depth interviews, oral history, observation, forum group discussions, and document analysis. Interviews and oral history were conducted with 29 informants, consisting of villagers, village government officers, village assistants, subdistrict officers, and district agency officers. Also, this study involved informants from academia to comment on the obtained results. Observations were made in the formal arena of village planning, such as the annual meeting at the village office, and in informal arenas where community groups discussed development projects to be proposed at the hamlet level, such as around the village road, rice fields, food stalls, residents’ houses and hamlet posts. Forum group discussions were conducted with several groups, such as villagers, village government officials, subdistrict officials, and combinations of them. Document analysis was conducted of village planning implementation reports, government regulations, related research publications, and internet news sites. The analysis result shows that, normatively, the actors can be divided into groups according to their power capacity derived from a particular position, source of power, and capability to influence policy-making through the formal path. Meanwhile, empirically, the study found that the group with the capability to propose projects has the potential to exercise power through the informal path. On the other hand, the power cube approach helps explain the power configuration in deliberative village planning. This study found the three layers of power mechanisms in deliberative planning, i.e.: (1) ‘figuring out in openness’ confirming the occurrence of authentic dialogue (DIAD) in the formal deliberation with a specific contribution; (2) ‘herding public desire’ to explain the occurrence of ‘disjointed deliberation’ outside of the formal policy-making arena; and (3) ‘forcing direction’ to explain the influence of invisible actors on the course of the deliberation and policy-making. Each layer of power has a relationship affecting the other layers, based on the elements of authentic dialogue. Furthermore, this study argues that in the case of Pematang Tengah, the network power was formed before the formal arena of policy-making was entered. In othervii words, the policies have not been made in the formal arena but they had been prepared in informal arenas. The case study showed that the formal arena of policymaking only represents the outer layer of deliberation process. This is different from what is conveyed by the notion of network power in the DIAD notion and most of the western planning literature, where formal deliberation is used to generate ideas, learning and policy-making. Interestingly, this study has shown that this is more compatible with village planning than the original notion based on the urban planning context. In contrast to urban planning, where very intense negotiations take place in the formal arena making the idea is not practical. It is applicable in village planning, where the negotiations in informal arenas are more intense. In other words, informal arenas support the occurrence of authentic dialogue in the arena of policy-making.