Local Conflict and Development Projects in Indonesia: Part of the Problem or Part of a Solution?

1. Local Conflict and Development Projects in Indonesia:Part of the Problem or Part of a Solution? Patrick Barron, World Bank Rachael Diprose, University of Oxford Michael Woolcock, World Bank Mixed Methods Course, Washington 4-5 February 2008 For more information: www.conflictanddevelopment.org Email addresses: pbarron@worldbank.orgrachael.diprose@qeh.ox.ac.ukmwoolcock@worldbank.org

2. Overview • Background • Context, motivations • KDP & Community Conflict Negotiation Study • Part I: Understanding local conflict trajectories • Part II: Assessing KDP’s impact on these trajectories • Definitions, Hypotheses, Methodology • Key Findings • Projects as ‘problem’ (i.e., as sources of conflict) • Projects as (part of a) ‘solution’? • Policy, Project Implications • Q&A

3. Conflict and Change in Indonesia • Indonesia in transition since 1998 • Political, Economic, Social • Accompanied by violence (large and small episodes) • Institutional vacuum for managing conflicts • Need to understand… • The nature and causes of violence • Possibilities for management or reduction of violence • Limitations of previous research and responses • Conflict literature in general: econometrics vs. ethnography • In Indonesia (and elsewhere), focus on high conflict areas • Policy responses largely top-down, technocratic

4. KDP and Local Conflict • KDP: US$ 1 billion community development program • Across 28,000 villages—40% of the total—from 1998-2006 • September 2006: Announced as full, nation-wide program • Mechanism: grants to sub-districts for villages to compete over • Small-scale infrastructure and economic activities • Built on local institutional structures; connects village to kecamatan • Mediated through forums and facilitators, to effect social change • Aims: poverty relief most immediately, but also democratization, empowerment of marginalized groups • ‘Democracy project disguised as development project’ • Conflict links: • Sustained presence in high conflict areas (e.g., Aceh) • Preliminary evidence that it plays a role in conflict management • Interest from GoI to expand/modify program in conflict areas (e.g., into Aceh and Maluku via SPADA) • Especially so in the aftermath of tsunami, Aceh peace agreements

5. KDP & Community Conflict Negotiation Study • Part I: Understanding local conflict trajectories • What factors affect local level capacity to manage conflict? • How do different types of interactions generate and/or resolve conflict? • What is the role of external actors in mediating local conflict? (Barron, Smith, and Woolcock, 2004) • Part II: Assessing KDP’s impact on those trajectories • Development projects: part of the problem, or solution? • Do community-based projects influence local capacity to manage conflict? • If so, how and under what conditions? (Barron, Diprose and Woolcock, 2006)

6. Definitions Definitions of key concepts • ‘Local’ • Sub-district (kecamatan) level and below • ‘Conflict’ • Disputes that become violent or non-violent • ‘Capacity’ • Collective ability to manage/resolve disputes • Direct KDP effects • Via forums and/or facilitators • Indirect KDP effects • Via behavioral and/or normative shifts

7. Hypotheses • Projects as ‘Problem’ • All projects generate disputes (cf. Anderson 1999, Uvin 2000), especially those that overtly entail an element of competition • KDP generates fewer conflicts than other projects • Fewer of the conflicts KDP does generate become violent

8. Hypotheses • Projects as ‘Problem’ • All projects generate disputes (cf. Anderson 1999, Uvin 2000), especially those that overtly entail an element of competition • KDP generates fewer conflicts than other projects • Fewer of the conflicts KDP does generate become violent • Projects as (part of a) ‘Solution’ • Direct effects: KDP forums and facilitators create spaces and procedures for both project and non-project dispute resolution • Indirect effects: KDP participation (a) improves inter-group relations, (b) enhances negotiation skills, (c) ‘empowers’ the marginalized, and (d) establishes new norms/precedents • Context effects: Positive impacts contingent on (a) program functionality and (b) ‘capacity’ of institutional environment

9. Summary of KDP Impact Hypotheses Higher impact

10. Locations of study in Indonesia East Java NTT • Selection of two “lower level” conflict provinces • Selected for diversity across all demographic indicators

11. Sampling Strategy East Java NTT High Capacity Ponorogo Low Capacity Pamekasan High Capacity Sikka LLow Capacity Manggarai Sample 2 Provinces: diverse provinces 4 Districts: high/low capacity 16 Sub-districts: matched KDP/non-KDP and extra for variation 40 Villages KDP Badegan non-KDP Sampung Extra KDP: Jenangan Extra KDP: Slahung

12. Breadth Summary of Methods PODES, GDS Depth Newspaper Analysis KI Survey Case Studies

13. Data Collection: Mixed Methods • Qualitative approaches (‘depth’) • Team (of 16 researchers) spent seven months in the field • Structured interviews: 800 individual, 100 FGDs • Informal interviews and participant observation • Initial analysis through case studies • Conflict pathways (68 cases) • Village conflict management capacity (40 cases) • Informed subsequent qualitative phases of research • Complementary quantitative approaches (‘breadth’) • Newspaper study of reported conflicts/violence • Key informant survey (N=268) • PODES and GDS (nationally representative)

14. Assessing ‘impact’ of CDD projects • Enormously difficult—methodologically, logistically, politically and empirically—to formally identify ‘impact’ • Multiple interacting components; non-uniform; highly discretionary and tailored to context idiosyncrasies; non-obvious (perhaps several, context-dependent) ‘functional form(s)’ • Prototypical “complex” CDD project: • Open project menu: unconstrained content of intervention • Highly participatory: communities control resources and decision-making • Decentralized: local providers and communities given high degree of discretion in implementation • Emphasis on building capabilities and the capacity for collective action • Context-specific; project is (in principle) designed to respond to and reflect local cultural realities • Thus equally problematic to draw general ‘policy implications’, especially for other countries, contexts

15. Using Mixed Methods to Make Causal Claims Alternative Approaches to Understanding ‘Causality’ • Econometrics: robustness tests on large N datasets; controlling for various contending factors • History: processes, conjunctures shaping single/rare events • Anthropology: deep knowledge of contexts • Exploring inductive approaches • cf. ER doctors, courtroom lawyers, solving jigsaws This study tries to integrate various types and ‘quality’ of evidence (qualitative and quantitative) to test particular hypotheses about the efficacy of KDP

16. Examples of local conflict (NTT)

17. Key Findings from Part II • Projects as ‘Problem’ • Development projects cause conflict, especially when they entail an element of competition, even when they ‘succeed’ • Sources: (a) In-built; (b) Program malfunction; (c) Interaction • KDP… • Almost never generates instances of violent conflict (in our sample, only one minor case in three years) • Any given episode of KDP conflict less likely to escalate • Generates much fewer instances of conflict than other projects (36 cases of violent conflict associated with other government projects) • Why? • Presence of feedback mechanisms • Presence of facilitators and forums • Widespread participation

18. Key Findings from Part II • Projects as (Part of a) ‘Solution’? • Evidence suggests indirect (group relations, behavioral, normative) rather than direct (forums, facilitators) positive impacts on conflict management capacity • Positive impacts of KDP strongest and most likely where • KDP itself is well implemented (not a given) • Direct effects strongest where ‘capacity’ is low • Indirect effects strongest where ‘capacity’ is high • Increased impacts over time • Endogenous: ‘learning by doing’, capacity building • Exogenous: broad-based institutional reform

19. 1. Projects cause/exacerbate conflict, but fewer in KDP, and fewer KDP conflicts become violent

20. 2. KDP (mostly) succeeds at resolving the conflicts it generates

21. 3. Why? How? • Responding to ‘problems of commission’ (e.g., corruption) and ‘problems of omission’ (negligence, inadequate socialization) • Feedback mechanisms • Facilitators • Participation • Socialization and monitoring

22. Direct vs. Indirect Effects

23. 4a. Direct effects of KDP • KDP per se does not reduce overall conflict • KDP forums, facilitators infrequently used to address non-KDP problems, though… • are usually successful when they do • but ad hoc (i.e., not institutionalized) • Especially so where… • other (legitimate) mechanisms exist • KDP facilitators are weak, risk-averse

24. 4b. Indirect effects of KDP • Positive indirect effects: • Improved inter-group (religion, class) relations • Increased participation in village meetings by marginalized groups (women, the poor, ethnic minorities), esp. in NTT • “… the women in Sana Daya experienced many problems. They usually stayed quiet at meetings, [but] now they’ve begun to propose things. Perhaps this can be interpreted as indicating that after KDP women have become bolder. For example, there was a women’s Koranic recital group reading Yasin [a book of the Koran]. Just one person regularly turned up. But after KDP arrived many of them began to come and offer something…” Female beneficiary, Sana Daya village, Pasean, Pamekasan • Increased monitoring and enforcement of accountability mechanisms on a broader village scale • Reduced potential for conflict in other decision-making realms • Stimulates demand for transparent decision-making • KDP a catalyst to social/political transformation in environments already conducive to change

25. 5. Summary of Context - Functionality Interactions, and Type of Impact * While we noted higher rates of KDP-triggered conflict in high capacity areas, such conflict is much less likely to escalate and/or turn violent. Hence negative impacts are greater in low capacity areas, where program functionality is poor.

26. 6. Effects over time • Harder to discern, but in terms of participation by previously marginalized groups, impacts appear positive over time, at least within villages: • Over four years of KDP: • * East Java: From 41% (initially) to 75% (after four years) say ‘more groups come to meetings’ • * NTT: 25% to 31% say ‘many more groups come’ • Still some concern that neighboring villages that have yet to receive KDP feel ‘left out’; some evidence of rising tensions between KDP and non-KDP villages over time. • Positive pragmatic impacts: Aceh response, full national coverage… • …but success more ‘muted’ in replications in East Timor and Afghanistan

27. Conflicts triggered by competition

28. 7. Broader Policy Implications • Re-think ‘policy implications’ orthodoxy • Incentives and project design details clearly matter, but reducing conflict rarely a technocratic ‘fix’ • CDD projects as part of, not substitute for, a coherent strategy for reducing local conflict, improving quality of governance • Ensure all development projects have accessible, effective dispute resolution mechanisms in place • Grievances likely, even (especially) in overtly successful projects • Importance of well-funded socialization and monitoring • Understand (potential, actual) flashpoints in project cycle • Provide spaces, resources, and incentives for negotiating difference • Conflicts often a product of confusing, contradictory rules • Include program staff, local leaders, state officials in dispute resolution • Innovative and legitimate enforcement mechanisms essential • Front-line intermediaries need full logistical support • Building capacity, accountability, and accessibility of government (at all levels) is the key long-term goal • ‘Supply’ (institutions) and ‘demand’ (citizen expectations) sides