INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the controversy over Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) policy, as defined under the Water Sector Adjustment Loan (WATSAL), and how the policy conflicted with the bureaucratic identity of the Indonesian irrigation agency (at the time, under the Ministry of Public Works [MPW]). This conflict brings into light the antagonistic relationship between IMT policy and the very agency responsible for its implementation. With IMT renewal in 1999, pro-reform government officials in the newly formed Ministry of Settlement and Regional Development (Kimbangwil) attempted to remove the very foundation upon which the agency's existence and survival was based; that is, infrastructure-oriented development and its institutionalized rent-seeking practices. These pro-reform government officials consisted primarily of mid-level officials from the National Development Planning Agency (NDPA), mid-level officials from Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), and of course, Kimbangwil itself. Taking the evolution of IMT policy in Indonesia as my case study, I argue that as long as the irrigation agency's core actors remained antagonistic towards the IMT policy, the policy would continue to be contested with the irrigation agency.

This chapter broadly discusses the assumptions of and the rationale behind IMT policy formulation worldwide and specifically its implications for implementation in Indonesia. It starts with a critical analysis of IMT policy as defined by international donors and policy-makers (Section I) and highlights the gap in the current discourse on IMT policy (Section II). It then gives an overview of the IMT policy evolution in Indonesia and how the irrigation agency first shaped IMT implementation under the Irrigation Operation and Maintenance Project (IOMP) 1987 Statement (Section III). The chapter moves on to discuss the role the 1998 political upheaval played in accelerating the speed of irrigation sector reform, with my analysis focused primarily on the legal framework of the WATSAL IMT programme (Section IV). I then present the formal decision-making structure in WATSAL (Section V) and analyse how the WATSAL policy-makers strategically planned Water Users Association (WUA) empowerment in an attempt to eliminate institutionalized corruption within the irrigation agency (Section VI). The implementation set-up for the WATSAL IMT programme in 1999 is described in section VII.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter gives specific details on how the Water Sector Adjustment Loan (WATSAL) Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) programme shaped the overall water distribution pattern in the seven technical irrigation systems in the Kulon Progo district from June 2004 to July 2005. Moreover, it describes both the domination of the rural elite in running the Water Users Associations (WUAs) and Federation of Water Users Associations (FWUAs) and the subsequent unbalanced FWUA–WUA–farmer relationships.

An explanation of the interconnected irrigation systems in Kulon Progo is presented in Section I. Section II discusses how the WATSAL IMT programme reshaped inter-system water distribution rules and how the Sub-Division of Irrigation (SDI) tried to cope with this change. In Section III, I present the dominant patterns of alliances in water distribution; and the establishment of spatial authority is explained in Section IV. Section V illuminates the rural elite's domination in the FWUAs and WUAs. Section VI describes the different types of elite leadership that emerged in Kulon

Progo's seven technical irrigation systems, and how the elite's management could either shape farmer-elite relationships towards greater representation of farmers’ needs in water distribution, or be self-serving, while Section VII highlights how the elite's domination in FWUAs thus shaped WUA behaviour. Section VIII gives life to these behaviours in detailing how a single person at the WUA Suka Maju in West Pekik Jamal shaped water distribution in a particular tertiary unit.

SECTION I: GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF IRRIGATION SYSTEMS IN THE KULON PROGO DISTRICT

The irrigation systems in the Kulon Progo district consist of small-scale (mostly smaller than 1,000 hectares), run-off-the-river systems, which are interconnected through networks of irrigation and drainage canals, as well as river tributaries. Each irrigation system's location and their interconnection are presented in Figure 7.1.

Technically, irrigation systems in this interconnected system were divided into three jurisdictional areas, with each area operating under the authority of either DPIS (Division of Provincial Irrigation Services) 1, 2, or 3. DPIS 1 was responsible for the operation of the Pekik Jamal and Sapon irrigation systems; DPIS 2 was responsible for the irrigation systems of Papah, East Pengasih, and West Pengasih; and DPIS 3 was responsible for the Kalibawang, Penjalin, and Donomulyo irrigation systems.

INTRODUCTION

Throughout this book, my research provides empirical evidence and conceptual arguments to support Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) policy (re)conceptualization and demonstrates the political dimensions embedded in policy strategies and the “politics” of policy. The research analyses the basic assumptions in IMT policy formulation and why the actual scope of IMT in Indonesia is limited to written policy, not enactment. Under the Irrigation Operation and Maintenance Project (IOMP) Statement in 1987, the irrigation agency reduced IMT to a mere construction programme. The WATSAL IMT (Water Sector Adjustment Loan IMT) programme that followed remained trapped in agency-oriented practices, despite policy-makers’ attempts to use IMT as a tool to eradicate bureaucratic rent-seeking in the irrigation sector. The WATSAL policy-makers’ reform initiatives failed because the district-level irrigation agency adapted IMT's policies to meet its bureaucratic interests, not the farmers’ actual needs.

Using Indonesia as a case study, this research shows that government's partial initiatives in IMT policy formulation and implementation were rooted in a controversy that was never addressed in any policy discourse: WATSAL IMT policies conflicted deeply with the irrigation agency's bureaucratic identity. It perceived IMT as a threat to its power, as IMT proposed the transfer of decision-making authority in sectoral development from the agency to the Water Users Associations (WUAs) and Federations of Water Users Association (FWUAs). The agency also viewed IMT as a potential danger to its organizational foundation, as IMT proposed a shift from infrastructure-oriented to farmer-focused development. Rooted in these fears, the irrigation agency's antagonistic position towards IMT was directly related to its motivation to defend and protect its bureaucratic territory and interests.

I analysed how policy actors within the central ministries directed WATSAL IMT policy formulation and implementation from parliament down to the different administrative levels in the field. Central in levels in the field from August 2003 to July 2005 these processes were the policy actors’ interests, strategies, and access to resources; these factors, of course, shaped the actual outcomes of management transfer.

This chapter considers reconceptualizing IMT in relation to the political dimensions of policy strategies and bureaucratic design. The core concepts of bureaucratic identity, policy characteristics, policy channelling, policy debates, farmer–agency dichotomy, and spatial authority are discussed in Section I through Section III.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter explores the irrigation agency's bureaucratic identity, and how it is sustained and reproduced by core policy actors' interests and strategies (see Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith for a definition of core policy actors). It describes the agency's main attributes, which are its orientation towards infrastructure development and its focus on bureaucratic rent-seeking. These mutually reinforcing drivers of agency behaviour are translated into specific management rules and procedures in and around the project development approach. This chapter also analyses how the agency's identity was contested by the shift in international policy trends in the late 1980s and again with the Indonesian political reform of 1998, and, finally, how its identity was affected by the major changes in its organizational structure when the Ministry of Settlement and Regional Development (Kimbangwil) was formed in November 1999, to replace the Ministry of Public Works (MPW), in directing irrigation sector development.

I discuss the irrigation agency's bureaucratic identity as the product of “bureaucratic capitalism” (Section I), and illustrate how the agency's organizational foundation is based on infrastructure-oriented irrigation development (i.e. construction and rehabilitation) and how its bureaucratic mechanisms are shaped by the practice of bureaucratic rent-seeking (Section II). This chapter goes on to clarify how rent-seeking rules are established in the actual management of project funds (Section III). Details are given on how the policy shifts in irrigation systems management — from infrastructure to system operation and maintenance (O&M) and farmer empowerment, and later to irrigation management transfer (IMT) — were hampered by core policy actors’ resistance to change (Section IV). This chapter ends with how these same actors’ bureaucratic powers were diminished with the abolition of the MPW and the establishment of Kimbangwil in 1999, which were later restored with the transition into Kimpraswil in 2001 (Section V).

SECTION I: THE IRRIGATION AGENCY'S BUREAUCRATIC IDENTITY

I define the irrigation agency's bureaucratic identity as the product of accelerated bureaucratization or what Evers calls “run-away bureaucratization” (p. 666). According to Evers, the process of bureaucratization in Indonesia resulted in retarded Weberian bureaucracy, where the rapid growth in government personnel was not accompanied by a growth in its ability to perform the assigned bureaucratic tasks.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter focuses on how the irrigation agency at different administrative levels coped with the internal contradictions that developed when implementing Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) after passage of the Water Act. It explains the strategies used by provincial and district governments to undertake the IMT policy changes that occurred with the new Water Act. It illustrates how IMT implementation under Water Sector Adjustment Loan (WATSAL) was shaped by the project development approach both before and after the IMT policy struggles.

This chapter is divided into six sections. Section I highlights Kimpraswil's Participatory Irrigation Program (PIP) after the passage of the Water Act on 19 February 2004. In Section II, I discuss the provincial governments’ general position on IMT, and then in Section III, I dissect how the irrigation agency in the Kulon Progo district, in particular, dealt with the WATSAL IMT programme. Section IV analyses how WATSAL policy-makers’ attempt to use the stimulant fund as a tool to eradicate rent-seeking practices in the irrigation sector backfired. In Section V, target-oriented IMT implementation and Federation of Water Users Associations (FWUA) organizational development is discussed, while Section VI explains how the implementation of the WATSAL IMT programme was overwhelmed by project procedures and mechanisms.

SECTION I: KIMPRASWIL AND ITS NEW PARTICIPATORY IRRIGATION PROGRAM

In the aftermath of the IMT policy infighting in 2003 and early 2004, Kimpraswil promoted its new IMT policy under its PIP, in which farmers’ involvement was limited to the tertiary level. At the national level two workshops were held, on 11 March and 18 April 2004 at the National Development Planning Agency (NDPA), to inform regional government representatives about the recent passage of the Water Act and the need to halt WATSAL IMT implementation. Present at these workshops were officials from Kimpraswil, the NDPA, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), and regional government representatives from the twenty-nine provinces in Indonesia. At the regional level, Kimpraswil also introduced its new programme through seminars and workshops. For example, in Yogyakarta, a workshop was conducted on the cultural aspects of irrigation management.

Formally, Kimpraswil did not have any authority to direct regional governments’ policy on IMT. In 2001, regional governments had been authorized to define their own development programmes within the overall application of regional autonomy.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter gives further insights on how interdependencies and alliances at the central government ministries contested ideas and contradictions in Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT), as incorporated in the Water Sector Adjustment Loan (WATSAL) IMT programme.

This chapter, organized into ten sections, analyses the political wranglings in chronological order and maps the evolution of coalitions in the overall promulgation process of the new Water Act. Section I analyses the conflicting policy frames in Indonesian irrigation development. The prelude to the IMT policy struggles on the principles of management transfer is examined in Section II. Kimpraswil's controversial revised clauses of the new Water Act, from those originally formulated by Working Team IV in the WATSAL Task Force (WTF), are discussed in Section III, while Section IV details both Kimpraswil's moratorium and its relationship with the other ministries. In Section V, I show how Kimpraswil and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) each designed specific actions to legitimize their positions on the WATSAL IMT programme. The parliamentary network and networking at each stage of the Water Act promulgation process are then discussed: Section VI covers the emergence of a Kimpraswil–PDI-P (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia–Perjuangan) coalition that wanted to retain power over the IMT process; Section VII covers the emergence of a counter-alliance that sought to give the farmers and Water Users Associations (WUAs) more control; and Section VIII discusses the reoccurrence of bureaucratic conflicts between the National Development Planning Agency (NDPA) and Kimpraswil. Section IX discusses actions various actors took after the draft Water Act was returned to parliament, and Section X rounds out the chapter with an analysis of the Kimpraswil–World Bank relationship.

SECTION I: CONFLICTING POLICY FRAMES IN INDONESIAN IMT

IMT policy renewal under WATSAL symbolized the attempt of the new Indonesian government (or some segments of it) to reform irrigation sector development as part of the country's 1998 political reform. In the early 2000s, however, the national government's position towards political reform was divided between those who wanted the reform to continue and those who did not. In the irrigation sector, these political differences became the battleground of various ministries fighting for decision-making power and control of the budget.

EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA IN MODERN TIMES

OKB: May I suggest that we continue discussing Southeast Asia as a concept?

WGW: As I mentioned earlier, the term really came out of World War II, from the Mountbatten Command in Colombo, which was called the South East Asia Command. The term stuck, and it did so because of the advent of decolonization. The British and the Americans found it useful, and I think the French and Dutch followed thereafter. Decolonization made them think of the region's future, which they feared would be similar to what had become of the Balkans — fragmented, and in effect a power vacuum. European experiences were transposed on to the region, and the notion was that, where there is fragmentation, big powers would intervene. So a quick look around showed an independent but fragile India on one side, and on the other, Communist China, one of the five powers in the United Nations Security Council.

The strategic planners saw a potential political vacuum, and to get down to work they needed a coordinated bigger picture. Identifying Southeast Asia as one region helped them visualize the future. This didn't happen immediately, by the way. The Americans took some time to accept it because they thought in terms of East Asia, or the Western Pacific. They never looked at South Asia much, the way the British and the French did. On their side, Europeans saw India and they saw China; and they saw the region in between as a residue. So the French used the term “Indochine”, which is very interesting because it showed that the French had understood the area to be a bit of China and a bit of India. For Western powers that had been moving eastwards, this area would have indeed been orientated through references to India and China.

OKB: In the early days, the British were denoting the region as “Farther India”.

WGW: Farther India, yes. They were thinking in terms of the projection of British power out of India, an extension into the Malay Peninsula and into Burma. Burma was actually managed as a province of India, a tail end of India; something the Burmese have never forgiven them for. So their view was always India-centred.

ADAPTING TO THE WORLD ORDER

OKB: We are now in a situation where the eastern edge of the Europe-Asia landmass meets the western edge. It would be interesting at this point to discuss China again. Perhaps we can start with an article you wrote a while ago on China trying hard to adjust to a world order it had no part in creating.

That is in fact the process that China has been going through for a long time, starting with the Opium War, followed by the fall of the imperial system, then the rise of the Kuomintang, and then the triumph of Mao. It was Deng Xiaoping's reforms after 1978 that finally brought remarkable economic growth to the country. All this took a hundred and seventy years. But now, in its new position of power and influence, functioning well at the global level in all areas becomes extremely important for China. There is also a fall in confidence in the West, which in a way opens up space for the Chinese to actually tweak the world order wherever they can. This begs the question: to what extent is Confucianism — or Confucian thinking — still at play here? After all, in the bigger scheme of things, communism will probably just be seen as an anomaly.

You told me the other day that you see yourself as a Confucian, and that you were raised that way. I'm one of those who believe that the contribution that Confucian thinking can bring to modern life is actually quite enormous. But because of colonialism and the rise of Western science and technology, whatever knowledge that was not Western was pushed aside as being essentially misguided. I am hoping to hear your views on that.

Also, China is now ranked the second-largest economy, and aiming to be first. But we know for a fact that the American system is much more stable, and even if it should someday rank only second in terms of certain statistical figures, it's got strong institutions and it's got impressive unity in ideology. On the Chinese side, things are rather chaotic and fragile.

DISTORTED IMAGES OF EACH OTHER

OKB: The western edge and the eastern edge of the Eurasian landmass historically viewed each other across a threatening cultural and geographical expanse, and would therefore have conjured in each of their minds a messy mix of diverse phenomena about the other. “The Other” would have been perceived by each through a highly distorting filter of in-between cultures.

WGW: It is very significant that both these edges — Western Europe and China — saw each other from afar, across a continental mass. “The Other”, for both of them, was everything on the other side. Being fringes, they had not been in direct contact with each other. Now, in the global age, both sides still exhibit residual thinking from earlier times. We still talk about the East and the West, and the West still entertains notions of “The West versus the Rest”.

But all this should also remind us about how important the core was to them. The core both filtered and coloured at the same time everything that was on the other side. Today, all that has changed; the world is now effectively round. The Americas have made all the difference. The Americas include Europe, but also East Asia. We have the North Atlantic world, and we have the APEC world, for example. The continental fringes have met each other, and perspectives have changed. The edges now hold the global initiative.

What I wanted to point out when I wrote my article about the Two-Ocean Mediterranean was that the Mediterranean expanded into the Atlantic, and made that the second Mediterranean. Europe and America controlled this Mediterranean, and this Mediterranean came to control the world, spreading into the Indian Ocean and then the Pacific Ocean. This expansion now lines all these up, until the other end of the continent is reached. A maritime linkage is made, bordering China, Russia … and maybe India. India is not quite sure whether it is part of the maritime world or part of the continental world.

China is quite clearly continental in nature. To survive a maritime global world, it has to have a navy.

SOUTHEAST ASIA ON THE PERIPHERY

OKB: Let's talk about Southeast Asia as a phenomenon. Modern nation building in the region can to an extent be seen as a defence strategy inherited by the region's peoples as a postcolonial contingency. ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations founded in 1967, would then be understood as a collective attempt in that direction. Elsewhere, you have drawn some parallels between the Mediterranean and archipelagic Southeast Asia. Can we continue our discussion in that direction?

WGW: One must acknowledge that Southeast Asia was very much peripheral to the main action in world history for a long, long time. And one of the reasons for this was because the main action was between powers that were essentially continental ones, land powers.

To what extent the peculiar features of the Mediterranean acted as a trigger for civilization is arguable. Egypt's civilization or the Babylonian civilization didn't actually depend on the Mediterranean. They were riverine civilizations, and the urban conditions that rose out of the two great river systems of the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates didn't have much directly to do with the Mediterranean, although they — the Egyptian one particularly — had an impact on the Mediterranean development later on. The entire struggle to define themselves as peoples, as economies, ultimately as states, was done mainly on land, except for the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean story is fascinating to me because that was the only place in ancient times where they fought at sea. Everywhere else the fighting was on land. In the Indian Ocean there was virtually no fighting at sea. No naval warfare, or at least no record of such. And on the China side, very little as well; just some minor conflicts along the coast with Japan and Korea, but all quite negligible. So the only real fighting on water was in the Mediterranean, and it has a special resonance for me because the creation of modern civilization really came out of the fact that land and water conditions were combined for a particular system of political governance.