The Practice of Village Governance: Comparing traditional form of Desa and Cultural Form of Nagari

Abstract

Indonesia has been implementing a more in-depth decentralisation system encouraging village governance since 2014. Since then, village governments have been given more autonomy on governing village fund to further encourage village development. This paper aims to compare two forms of village (desa and nagari) in terms of the practice of village governance. Using Lowndes and Sullivan’s framework of neighbourhood governance, this study suggests all types of neighbourhood governance has been practiced in both forms. Although village government type is more significant in both forms, the social rationale is more significant in nagari because of the cultural aspect. Furthermore, this paper seeks to identify the potentials and challenges of village governance.  This is mainly based on the comparation of the implementation of village governance in both forms of village.