Suchergebnisse

The production of social science in developing societies has attracted scholars across the continents. Certain perspectives dominate these studies, like academic capitalism and academic dependency. While these perspectives are useful to assess the position of national social science, they overlook the level of development of social science in a country. Employing institutional and social science division of labor perspectives and using Indonesia as a case, the article argues that the current poor state of the Indonesian university system can be traced to a failure to embrace wide‐ranging reforms on the part of politicians and universities. The causes for this failure can be found in a relatively weak production of the social sciences. This study reveals that shortfalls in state policy on higher education are the source of low academic productivity. Reforming this policy must be made a priority to strengthen social science and make it useful for formulating policy in the public sphere.

Much has been studied by political scientists about practices of corruption and their implications for development. They have provided useful analysis on the causes and impacts of corruption. In contrast, sociologists seem to have glossed over issues of corruption. This article aims to contribute to the sociology of organization by reconstructing a theoretical framework of organizational institutionalism through understanding corruption in an emerging democracy. Using cases of corruption in Indonesia, this article intends to enrich previous perspectives on social construction and contestation of corruption occurring in democratizing polities. It explores the extent to which reform in formal governance has taken into account informal arrangements to eradicate corruption. Secondary data and focused group discussions have been used to collect data. The findings inform that informal organizational networks of corruption emerge and develop within formal organizational relationships. On the other hand, informal norms and networks also exist that potentially facilitate anticorruption initiatives. This article recommends that the Corruption Eradication Commission, as the main anticorruption body, improves its understanding of the connections among public organizations, and between public organizations and societal organizations. This will enable public leaders to adopt a combination of the principles of Western and formal governance and existing informal arrangements to combat corruption. The sociology of organization will benefit from adopting the concept of informal organizational networks of corruption to illuminate the "dark corners" of formal organizational relationships.

AbstractMuch has been written about Indonesia's decentralisation since the fall of Soeharto. Scholars have developed different perspectives and provided useful analyses on 'right governance', but they seem to have largely neglected the organisational problems of civic organisations engaged in governance reform. By employing the concepts of legitimacy, organisational field and networks familiar in the sociology of organisation, this paper explores ways in which they develop and transform their organisations and networks, creating political issues and, mobilising the public. Three cities — Padang, Bandung, and Yogyakarta — were chosen as the study locations for the conspicuous and even prominent engagement of civic organisations in the struggle for reform of public governance. A qualitative method was used to collect data from various actors who are directly and indirectly engaged in contesting and cooperating with organisational actors in this area. This paper shows that the principles of independency and freedom within civic organisations have developed rapidly at the expense of organisational accountability. Such development has hampered the transformation of civic organisations into more influential social actors.