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Institutional Change and Corruption of Public Leaders: A Social Capital Perspective on Indonesia

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Decentralization and Governance in Indonesia

Part of the book series: Development and Governance ((DG,volume 2))

Abstract

Incidents of corruption by local public leaders have increased in Indonesia in the era of a decentralized democratic regime, in which regional governments enjoy greater power and autonomy to manage regional resources. Previous research suggests that the shift of formal power from the central government to regional governments resulted in new actors at the local level becoming involved in corruption. Building on ideas from social capital theory, the current study attempts to complement previous work by analyzing the shifts of public leaders’ corruption behavior under the decentralized democratic government. We suggest that besides formal power relations, informal relations are important for initiating and sustaining corruptive transactions, and corruption requires a different social capital base in different institutional settings. The objectives of this paper are (1) to organize current knowledge on institutional change and corruption, (2) to extend current thinking on public leaders’ corruption in Indonesia and beyond, and (3) to suggest a framework for future empirical study. We present an empirical study on the link between institutional change and corruption, based on a unique data set of real corruption cases as they were reported in Indonesian public newspapers. Based on this first exploration—which indicates that indeed the nature of corruption networks in Indonesia has altered since decentralization—the proposed theoretical framework is deemed of value for further empirical investigation.

The first author is the original researcher and serves as the author for correspondence, the remaining authors are promoters and supervisors listed in alphabetical order who also have contributed to this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Inter-university Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS), University of Groningen, Grote Rozenstraat 31, 9712 TG, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Mala Sondang Silitonga, Liesbet Heyse & Rafael Wittek

  2. Stenden University of Applied Science, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

    Gabriel Anthonio

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  1. Mala Sondang Silitonga
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  2. Gabriel Anthonio
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  3. Liesbet Heyse
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  4. Rafael Wittek
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Correspondence to Mala Sondang Silitonga .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Arts, Department of International Relations and International Organization, University of Groningen, Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Ronald L. Holzhacker

  2. Faculty of Behavioural and Social Science, Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Rafael Wittek

  3. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Department of Planning and Transport, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom

    Johan Woltjer

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Silitonga, M.S., Anthonio, G., Heyse, L., Wittek, R. (2016). Institutional Change and Corruption of Public Leaders: A Social Capital Perspective on Indonesia. In: Holzhacker, R., Wittek, R., Woltjer, J. (eds) Decentralization and Governance in Indonesia. Development and Governance, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22434-3_9

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