Why Some Subnational Democracies Fail? The Indonesian Case

• In Event: Sub-National Politics

Abstract

Why and how do some subnational democracies have better performance or higher quality—than others? Inspired by an institution-centered explanation, this study offers a subnational politics-based analysis of the within-country variations of democratic performance. It emphasizes the importance of local political institutions in influencing democracy at the local level. This study believes that local political institutions should be at the center of theories of democratic performance. Drawing lessons from subnational democratic governments' performance in the largest democracy in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, this study will apply a case study method of within-nation comparison. Furthermore, this study will be using process tracing to generate causal mechanism between political institutions, political elites’ autonomy, and democratic performance. This study hypothesizes that inclusive political institutions in a province will lead to the province's relatively autonomous political elites, which produces a higher performance of democracy in the province. On the contrary, extractive political institutions in a province will lead to the lack of autonomy of political elites in the province, which will result in a lower performance of democracy in the province.

Author

• Fnu Testriono, Northern Illinois University