Governing a Pandemic: Centre-Regional Relations and Indonesia’s COVID-19 Response 2020 November RESEARCH BRIEF BRIEF RESEARCH AUTHOR: Chris Morris 1 Governing a Pandemic: Centre Governing a Pandemic: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The author would like to thank Marcus Mietzner for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. DISCLAIMER: - Regional Relations andRegional Indonesia’ s COVID This article is part of a New Mandala series related to the Supporting the Rules-Based Order in Southeast Asia (SEARBO) project. This project is run by the Department of Political and Social Change at the Australian National University and THE AUTHOR: funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The opinions expressed here Chris Morris is a PhD Candidate in the are the authors' own and are not meant to Department of Political and Social Change, represent those of the ANU or DFAT. Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. COVER IMAGE: “Location of reported COVID-19_cases_in - 19 Response Jakarta as of 2 April 2020” by Poci.wasiats is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 . 2 possible expense of speed of response and Governing a Pandemic: Centre Governing a Pandemic: L eadership, state capacity the risk of all eggs being in one basket if and societal trust in central authorities get it wrong. government are three Decentralisation, on the other hand, may variables likely to influence tend to produce the inverse of these the extent to which characteristics. countries are willing and This focus of this paper is Indonesia, a able to put in place unitary state that in 2001 transitioned to a effective measures to largely decentralised system of governance, contain COVID-19 and based upon the principle of regional mitigate its impacts.1 And if - Regional Relations andRegional Indonesia’ s COVID autonomy. Indonesia faces undeniably leadership and state formidable challenges from COVID-19. capacity matter, then so too While it remains too early to assess the may the distribution of long-term appropriateness of Indonesia’s authority for decision- COVID-19 strategy, the effectiveness of its making and initial public health response compares Introduction implementation between unfavourably with many of its Southeast and within levels of Asian peers (notably Vietnam, Thailand and government. Malaysia).4 Initial analyses of the pandemic responses The central government was slow to react of unitary and federal states2—and those to the latent threat posed by the virus, and with more or less centralised health has since taken a somewhat half-hearted systems3—suggest that while neither is and fragmented approach to halting its inherently superior, each comes with 5 - spread. By late October 2020, Indonesia 19 Response advantages and disadvantages. had over 400,000 confirmed cases of Centralisation, for example, may aid COVID-19 and over 13,600 deaths.6 Low coordination and consistency, but at the 1 Fukuyama, Francis. ‘The Pandemic and Political https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14 Order: It Takes a State’. Foreign Affairs, July/August 494035.2020.1783788?src=recsys 2020. Available at: 3 Heitmueller, Axel and Roemheld, Lars. ‘Covid-19 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/202 and the false dichotomy between centralised and 0-06-09/pandemic-and-political-order decentralised healthcare systems’. BMJ Opinion, 5 2 Gaskell, Jen and Stoker, Gerry. ‘Centralised or multi- August 2020. Available at: level: which governance systems are having a ‘good’ https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/08/05/covid-19- pandemic?’. British Politics and Policy at LSE, 16 and-the-false-dichotomy-between-centralised-and- April 2020. Available at: decentralised-healthcare-systems/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/governanc 4 CSIS Southeast Asia Covid-19 Tracker, 10 October e-systems-covid19/ ; Rocco, Philip, Béland, Daniel 2020. Available at: and Waddan, Alex, 2020. ‘Stuck in neutral? https://www.csis.org/programs/southeast-asia- Federalism, policy instruments, and counter-cyclical program/southeast-asia-covid-19-tracker-0 responses to COVID-19 in the United States’. Policy 5 ‘Endless first wave: how Indonesia failed to control and Society 39(3): 458-477. Available at: coronavirus’. Reuters, 20 August 2020. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health- 494035.2020.1783793?src=recsys ; Migone, Andrea coronavirus-indonesia-insight-idUSKCN25G02J (2020). ‘Trust, but customize: federalism’s impact on 6 Worldometer Indonesia Coronavirus Cases, 28 the Canadian COVID-19 response’. Policy and Society October 2020. Available at: 39(3): 382-402. Available at: 3 testing rates mean the true number of The second section turns to events during 7 Governing a Pandemic: Centre Governing a Pandemic: infections is likely much higher. the period January—June 2020, and particularly the critical months of March One explanation for Indonesia’s apparent and April. By tracing how the actions of the reluctance to act—and the nature of its central government and regional response when it did—rests on particular governments have been respectively characteristics of its recent democratic enabled and constrained by the framework, decline: populist aversion to science, rising it draws attention to key points of friction religious conservatism and polarisation, and decision-making bottlenecks. It shows 8 together with persistent corruption. In that greatest impact of the current contrast, this paper approaches Indonesia’s arrangements has arguably been to slow the - Regional Relations andRegional Indonesia’ s COVID COVID-19 response from a governance speed of initial local responses to the perspective. It examines how Indonesia’s pandemic without a corresponding payoff framework for centre-regional relations— in terms of better national coordination particularly as it relates to the management than might otherwise have been the case. of public health emergencies—has facilitated or hindered timely and The third and final section briefly considers coordinated action to mitigate the impact of two other aspects of Indonesia’s COVID-19 the pandemic. response of relevance to centre-regional relations. First, it highlights areas in which Outline of the paper administrative coordination between levels The paper is divided into three sections. of government (and between national The first describes the interlocking web of ministries) is hampering effective and laws and regulations that define the scope timely action, despite the locus of decision- of public health and emergency making authority being clear. Additionally, - management measures available to 19 Response it describes how the central government is Indonesian policymakers and assign attempting to use the inter-governmental authority to impose those measures fiscal framework—and in particular between different levels of government. As regional incentive funds—to encourage will be seen, decision-making authority regional governments to combat the spread under this framework for pandemic of the virus. response is skewed heavily in favour of the central government, with regions largely responsible for implementation. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/count 8 Mietzner, Marcus (2020). ‘Populist Anti-Scientism, ry/indonesia/ Religious Polarisation, and Institutionalised 7 World Health Organization, Indonesia. ‘Coronavirus Corruption: How Indonesia’s Democratic Decline Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report 23’. 2 Shaped Its COVID-19 Response’. Journal of Current September 2020, p. 11. Available at: Southeast Asian Affairs 39(2): 227-249. Available at: https://www.who.int/docs/default- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/186 source/searo/indonesia/covid19/external- 8103420935561 situation-report-23- 02september2020.pdf?sfvrsn=7ed23646_2 4 Governing a Pandemic: Centre Governing a Pandemic: 1. Indonesia’s framework for pandemic response Indonesia’s COVID-19 response has been assignment at the most basic level across shaped by two legal frameworks: one key policy areas. general and pre-existing, the other specific and enacted in response to the pandemic. In practice—and with health being no The former has its roots in the current exception—this means the central iteration of Indonesia’s decentralisation law government generally sets policy and plays - Regional Relations andRegional Indonesia’ s COVID and the basis on which it divides authority a coordinating function between provinces. between the centre and the regions, with Provinces manage a limited range of service the detail set out in a series of health and delivery and regulatory functions disaster management laws and themselves, but primarily guide and implementing regulations. The latter supervise the districts/municipalities comprises a range of additional measures within their jurisdiction. Although put in place to deal with the unique districts/municipalities are not directly challenges of COVID-19. accountable to provinces in their own right, provincial governors are empowered to 1.1 The 2014 Law on Regional Governance play this role in their alternative capacity as Apart from six ‘absolute’ governance the representative of the central functions (such as foreign affairs and government in their province.12 The bulk of defence) which remain under the exclusive basic service delivery is then actually control of the central government,9 the carried out by districts/municipalities, - 19 Response 2014 Law on Regional Governance financed through their budgets but designates almost everything