Chapter 7 : Indonesia

In pursuit beyond good governance ideals, the Government of Indonesia has learned from well-established both Anglo-American and Continental European traditions of public administrations. The government has implemented merit-based civil service system iteratively. Nonetheless, the prevalence of social structures and political regimes has kept Indonesian civil service reform from further pace along with the state transformation. We examine Indonesia’s civil service system reform in a larger framework to assess constellations between government institutions and the state auxiliary body handling the reform. It turns out that conflicting policy rationales behind protracted reform persist. Iterative changes in civil service reform have focused more on tighter adherence to the government, not only in terms of bureaucratic process but also ideological justification. We also suggest that the standing position of civil service system reform in Indonesia remains ambiguous. This way, Indonesian civil service system reform requires improvements in five critical areas of institutionalized bureaucracy reform: recruiting and positioning; integrated vertical and horizontal mobilities; political neutrality; performance management and performance-based compensation; and supervision and accountability.