Decentralization of Forest Administration in Indonesia, Implications ...

Christopher Barr, Ida Aju Resosudarmo, John McCarthy, and Ahmad Dermawan
at the sub-national or local levels, but also the degree of accountability that exists
between those lower level agencies and their constituents.
In a similar manner, democratic decentralization always involves a
“redistribution of power, resources, and administrative capacities” between central
government agencies or actors and those located at a lower level in the politicaladministrative
hierarchy (Agrawal and Ostrom 2001). More specifically, according
to Agrawal and Ostrom (2001), democratic decentralization can be viewed as “a
strategy of governance, prompted by external or domestic pressures, to facilitate
transfers of power closer to those who are most affected by the exercise of power.”
For analytic purposes, Agrawal and Ribot distinguish four types of power as being
crucial to understanding decentralization. These include the following:
(1) the power to create rules or modify old ones; (2) the power to make
decisions about how a particular resource or opportunity is to be used; (3)
the power to implement and ensure compliance to the new or altered rules;
and (4) the power to adjudicate disputes that arise in the effort to create rules
and ensure compliance (Agrawal and Ribot 1999).
The redistribution of power and resources can take many forms, depending on the
objectives and context of a particular decentralization initiative. Agrawal and Ostrom
(2001) emphasize the fundamental importance of property rights being devolved
to local actors involved in managing or utilizing a particular resource. Specifically,
they argue that “it is necessary for local users and their representative institutions to
possess property rights that transform them into claimants and proprietors to achieve
effective decentralization” (Agrawal and Ostrom 2001). In their view, the allocation
of property rights to local actors is not only an equity concern, but also an issue of
pragmatism:
When local users do not exercise significant control over collective and
constitutional-level choices related to rule design, management, and enforcement,
the impact of decentralization is limited. To create an impact, governments need to
allow local users and their representatives at least the rights to manage resources and
make decisions about resource use and exclusion (Agrawal and Ostrom 2001).
A similar argument can be made for the devolution of fiscal powers to local
governments. In many countries, decentralization efforts have assigned greater
responsibility to local governments to provide public services. But they frequently
have not expanded the fiscal resources available to local governments, which the
latter would need to fulfill their new responsibilities (Ribot 2002; Tanzi 2001). Ribot
points out that without adequate fiscal resources, local authorities often have difficulty
implementing and enforcing the decisions they make, and this frequently perpetuates
a relationship of dependency vis-à-vis the central government:
The lack of revenue mechanisms – whether local taxation powers, rights to a
fixed portion of national revenues, or block grants from central government
– has stymied decentralization everywhere. The failure to empower local
government with fiscal resources or revenue-sharing powers undermines its
effectiveness in the short run and its legitimacy in the long run (Ribot 2002).