Bureaucracy Reform Deficit in Indonesia: A Cultural Theory Perspective

Abstract

The motivation of this paper is to identify the possible unintended consequences of reform program to modernize public administration in Indonesia through cultural theory looking glass. The cultural perspective matters to understand the context of reform-based implementation and the setting of society where public sector reform occurred. Applying cultural theory perspective, four patterns of unintended consequences in Indonesia’s bureaucracy reform are proposed to aid the analysis of reform deficit pattern. I name reform inertia for fatalist, formalistic reform for hierarchies, benefit-based reform for individualist, and conformity-based reform for egalitarian typed-organisations. This framework gives an alternative outlook to address potential negative effects as well as unintended consequences of bureaucracy reform in which reform advocates or public administrators could consider to anticipate in the process of reform.