Village Administration in Indonesia: A Socio-Political Corporation Formed by State

Abstract

Village government is the lowest level administration in Indonesia. It is formed by law. However, a village head is not a government official and also village employees are not civil servants. The Village Government has authority to administer government affairs; nevertheless, the central government doesn’t decentralize the government affairs to the Village. The organizational structure is like a municipal, consisting of a mayor and council; yet the mayor is not chief of local bureaucrats and the council is just a voluntary board that functions like a council. Such a fact is problematic, which raises the question regarding the legal status of village in the administration of the Republic of Indonesia. The study used a post-positivistic approach with a qualitative method. Jabon Mekar village, Bogor Regenstschap (Municipal), Banten Province was chosen as the locus of the study. The results conclude that the village administration is a pseudo local self-government. To that end, a village institution needs to become a public organization to comply with the Indonesia Constitution of 1945, in order to provide public services that would prosper the people.