Smart city narrative in Indonesia: Comparing policy documents in four cities

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the narrative of smart city policy in four Indonesian cities. Yogyakarta City, Surabaya City, Magelang City, and Madiun City were chosen as the locus of this study since these cities were winners of the Indonesian Smart City Index 2015. The author compares their medium-term development planning documents using analysis of policy narrative approach which reconstructs the stories that actors tell about policy issues written in the official policy document. This study endeavours to analyse how these cities engage with smart city policy and initiative from a comparative-based study. Based on the content analysis as a research method, it can be concluded that these cities conceptualise the smart city program in different ways since there is no specific regulation guiding smart city policy in Indonesia. The result of this study also maps the main themes of smart city as stated in their medium-term development planning document. Theoretically, it contributes the discourse of smart city policy studies in a developing country context. Practically, this study suggests a policy implication that cities need to consider as a specific grand design on how local government implement smart city initiative.