i – Why Public Officials Complicit in Corruption?

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - ii

Why public officials complicit in corruption? It is absolutely a nagging and antiquated question. This thesis examines the corruption on a micro-scale from those convicted in corruption cases in Central Java Province, Indonesia, more specifically by taking the personal views and experiences of the imprisoned actors into account. Broadly speaking, the problem of corruption is a tantalizing daily issue around Indonesia. Despite the government is highly committed to overcome corruption, it is argued that national corruption eradication efforts have not simply failed to diminish the number of corruption cases, but they - at least until 2019 – failed to impede the deployment of corruption from central to local government levels. Empirically, this study explores corruption from leadership theories to build its own analytical framework of corruption, namely administrative and political corruption. Using narrative analysis methods, this study analyses nine interviews with elective public officials at district and village levels, combined with several secondary techniques. In drawing its conclusions, this study highlights three major findings to understand the failure of government in addressing corruption, each of which is related to 1) critical role of public legitimacy built upon informal norms; 2) strict bureaucratic function built upon formal norms; 3) cleavages between formal and informal norms that encourage public officials to enact one or both types of corruption. Above all, the idea of ‘private gain’ as the central element of corruption cannot be found in this study. Ultimately, this study provides some direction for future research that would suggest academia and policymakers to better understand the corruption in the public sector by taking informal norms into consideration.

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1 – Why Public Officials Complicit in Corruption? 1. Background

The problem of corruption is a tantalizing daily issue around Indonesia. Much evidence figures out that corruption is increasingly ubiquitous, rampant and uncontrolled as faced by government as a serious crime which generates deterioration of public trust. Despite the government is highly committed to overcome corruption as proven by the implementation of National Law No. 31/1999 (recently amended through Law No. 20/2001) on the Eradication of Criminal Acts of Corruption and National Law No. 30/2002 (recently amended through Law No. 19/2019) on the Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi or KPK), yet, it is argued the corruption is unduly acute and its solutions are still publicly doubtful.

Meanwhile, as frequently exposed in various media out of which public officials are arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced due to corrupt practices in the public sector, it is reasonable to assume that national corruption eradication efforts have not simply failed to halt the rise in corruption. They have – at least until 2019 – failed to impede the deployment of corruption from central to local government levels. Albeit popular opinion and allegedly many reports admire the performance of KPK by apprehending many more suspects and sending them to prison, some consider that anti-corruption strategy needs to be evaluated since corruption has been decentralized. Note that after the enactment of National Law No. 23/2014 (amended through Law No. 9/2015) concerning the Regional Government, the amount of power, resources and amenability is partially given to the local governments for the sake of local democracy and autonomy. Yet, the idea of power decentralization is inextricable with the decentralization of corruption which became unforeseen consequences. As to date, the country is seeking both root-causes and comprehensive prescriptions of corruption since it is detrimental to the state's finance, public services, and legitimacy.

Various perspectives have been widely used to understand corruption and sparingly elucidate the concept of corruption, particularly in the disciplines of economics, sociology, legal and political. In economics, corruption is comprehended as the misuse of authority for personal benefits by a violation of formal norms, in which its misuse emanates from power latitude of the person in charge over the allocation of benefits and costs (Misangyi et al 2008, 751). In the standpoint of sociology, corruption is a social phenomenon derived from several contentious social norms (Williams 2010, 12) and strongly correlated with inequality in which interest groups can exert bribery to influence policy implementation and to manipulate the interpretation of formal laws (You and Khagram 2005, 138). In legal approach, corruption is simply conceived as a practice that violates particular legal rules undermining the stipulated

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 2

public duties, including illegal transaction for personal stakes (Dimant 2013, 5), and is associated with the circumvention of administrative laws and policies (Begovic 2005, 4). In the political perspective, corruption is interpreted as a behaviour contradictory to the formal duties in office by leveraging personal influence to elicit desired affluence or positions (Johnston 1986, 460). Regrettably, the fundamental problem of corruption research nowadays is that personal views of corrupt actors are not considered, thus this state of affairs necessitates to undertake empirical study by understanding corruption from the doers’ perspective to discover a better picture of corruption. Further, it is argued that a lot of research has focused unduly on the formal aspects to view corruption, but it is not very much on the informal aspects.

Above all, there is no consensus both in academia and public to provide clear definition and measurements of corruption, chiefly in the public sector where corruption operates tacitly in and links persistently to the performance of public officials, which may be regarded as ‘public role’. The public role itself is associated with leadership values out of which public officials own moral obligation to be accountable for their roles and responsibilities since they take the oath of office. Therefore, public officials are encouraged to ideally comply with a set of norms, both formal and informal norms when they make use their power. Ultimately, in sum, there is very little of intensive research that considers personal views of public officials who are convicted as corruptors, which entailing this current study as the main contribution in the field of corruption studies, not least leadership studies.

2. Purpose and Research Questions

The primary purpose of this study is to understand corruption on a micro-scale from those convicted in corruption cases in Central Java Province, Indonesia, more specifically by taking the personal views and experiences of the imprisoned actors into account. Advancing this purpose, it also tends to explain the formal and informal aspects of executing public leadership roles, from which the formal aspects rely on what is officially written and should be done, whilst the informal aspects hinge on what is socially unwritten and is done by public officials. To achieve this purpose, the formulated research questions of this study are:

• What corruption means for public officials, both understood formal and informally? • What types of corruption exercised by public officials, and how these relate to their

public leadership roles?

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3 – Why Public Officials Complicit in Corruption? 3. Delimitations

This study has several limitations. First, this study is not intended to represent the voice of corrupt actors which contains the subjective justification of corruption. Rather, it is designated to canalize my avail interest to study corruption, thus I and the connoisseurs of this study may elicit better understandings of corruption from the standpoint of those are convicted. Second, this study was conducted in prison where I got the access to carry out in-depth face-to-face interviews during June and July 2019 with imprisoned public officials. Given this, this study creates its significance and contribution to understand corruption from the standpoint of the doers at the expense of observers' common views who solely understand corruption from the media. Third, this study is situated where National Law No. 30/2002 concerning KPK has not been amended by the government and parliament through Law No. 19/2019, which currently public protests still flock due to the perception of attenuation of KPK’s discretionary authority derived from the new law.

4. Structure

The remainder of this thesis is structured as follows. Part 2 descriptively explores the prior and existing research on corruption. Part 3 discusses the theoretical framework developed for this study, followed by Part 4 which explicates the choice of methodology. Part 5 concisely presents the background of corruption in Indonesia, particularly in Central Java Province. Part 6 is dedicated to reveal the empirical findings and analytically answer the research questions respectively. Ultimately, Part 7 offers a conclusion and avenues for further research.

Review of Literature

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 4 (Huisman & Vande Walle 2010, 115). While many researchers strongly emphasize on the significant role of social norms and cultures to shape corrupt practices (e.g. Barr & Serra 2010; Cameron et al 2009; Dimant 2013; Fisman & Miguel 2006; Fungáčová et al 2016; González-Trejo 2007; Lee & Guven 2013; Silitonga 2018), yet, some researchers concern on government arrangements to observe corruption in public sectors. In this vein, Bergh et al (2017) consider that government size affects significantly public corruption in which the more seats for politicians and administrators in the office are meant more corruption problems.

Relatedly, Fisman and Gatti (2002) point out that fiscal government decentralization may contribute to diminishing corruption, and it is likeminded as noted by Gurgur and Shah

(2014) that decentralization has a negative impact on corruption.

Conversely, Prud'homme (1995) contends that decentralization generates corruption, and as Goldsmith (1999) underscores that administrative government centralization is a cure of corruption with the supports of economic liberalization and political democratization. Despite some say that corruption occurs due to the shortcomings of the public organizations to determine and suffice a higher income for public officials compared to private organizations as exclaimed by McLeod (2010), Fjeldstad (2003) highlights that added remuneration and incentives for public officials cannot equitably indemnify the money they gain from bribery, given that the precondition of corruption network is well-established through social relations.

Not surprisingly, in a broader scope, many studies have explored the dissimilar types of corruption manifested commonly through bribery. For example, Rose-Ackerman (1998) identifies six types of corruption in the public sector according to the perceived benefits, namely to obtain underserved legal services, to speed-up or avert the delay of deserved public services, to acquire exception of laws and policies implementation, to win and monopolize public procurements, to get electoral votes from constituents, and to elicit more side of judicial decisions. Meanwhile, Disch et al (2009) classify corruption into administrative and political corruption, whilst Jiang (2017) divides based on the levels and periods of corruption events as pre-corruption, in-corruption, and after-corruption. Further, Begovic (2005) indicates three major types of corruption, namely accelerating public service fulfilments, achieving leeway from disadvantaged legal rules, and creating and amending the public policies. Moreover, Nilsson (2009) investigates corruption based on the social class of involved actors, which the findings find that corruption is a way of survival for lower-class, and for upper-middle-class it is used of achieving or expediting certain benefits.

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5 – Why Public Officials Complicit in Corruption?

this problem ought to be seen as an enabler of political development, which potentially underpins the collective agenda for economic development, national integration, and governmental capacity. In contrary to earlier work, research by Mauro (1998) reveals that corruption of politicians glides up the government spending allocation for education in several countries. Lambsdorff (1999) delineates that corruption exacerbates investment, government spending, and poverty. In addition, You and Khagram (2005) ferret out that corruption causes economic inequality as the worst repercussion. Other work by Williams (2010) observes that political corruption also has negative social impact in embodying corrupt behaviour of individuals on a local scale. Lately, some research has paid attention to the pervasive impacts of corruption on electoral and political party system (Xezonakis 2012) and forest management (Sundström 2016). The facts overtly say that many attempts to end corruption, such as

institutional political and organizational reforms (Rothstein

& Tegnhammar 2006; Tanzi 1998), anti-corruption legal strategies (Polner & Ireland 2010), social reforms of anti-corruption institutional logic (Misangyi et al 2008), familial education of anti-corruption for youths (Hauk & Saez-Marti 2002).

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 6 This part presented a comprehensive state of the art of earlier and existing research on corruption in a wide range of spectrums and methodologies. In concise, a great deal of efforts has been made to understand causes and types of corruption, focusing on legal and sociological approaches, in which the ongoing scholarly persistent debates are fraught with the contentious conceptual meanings of corruption. Some research attempt to find out the nitty-gritty of corruption by which economic and political approaches are inextricably used, accentuating the path of dependency of public and private actors. Concerning with corruption in public organizations, it is noteworthy to perpetuate legal aspects that confine the public officials to do or not to do in term of their public roles to ideally shrug off corrupt practices. Besides, along with formality elements of understanding corruptions, much of the work has conspicuously analyzed corruption by wielding statistical measurements of its public perceptions and claimed its impacts against development. Regrettably, this state of affairs imparts theoretical gap in studying corruption, in which personal views of the doers thus far has remained little studied by empiricists. More importantly, there is a minuscule of academic interest and rare accessibility to examine corruption in the public sector from imprisoned public officials to explain the contradictory of corruption concepts between the laws and the practices at the micro-level, including this relationship with leadership aspects in the public sector. Ultimately, empirical research is required to examine corruption concepts from corrupt public officials to contribute to providing alternative explanations of corruption and potentially to answer the public quests on why corruption is thriving in spite various anti-corruption strategies are implemented.

Theoretical Framework

This part is dedicated to exhibiting the theoretical groundings of this study drawn from leadership theories to build up the concepts of corruption, that is divided into 1) administrative corruption and 2) political corruption. These two categories emanate from the in-depth inquiry of leadership theories, which leads this part to analytically explain the emergence of corruption classification, and as well as emphasizing each of categories to the public roles and leadership values from which public official subscribe to.

1. Leadership and Public Roles

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contexts. Pertaining to specifically explain leadership in a public sector relevant in a democratic society, Terry (2002) develops a concept of administrative conservatorship, by which he argues that public bureaucrats have a moral function to not merely serve governmental organization under political elites, but beyond that, they play crucial leadership function to preserve the social and cultural values out of formal tasks. In addition, in broader contexts, Burns (2003) conveys a valuable concept of transforming leadership, in which leadership is highly typified as integrated efforts to not just accomplish tangible common outcomes but to generate a radical or substantial change in societies to promoting and propagating public values. Likeminded, Nye (2008) considers the concept of distributed leadership, by which interlinking the interdependence of leaders, followers, and contexts, to shape leadership function derived from the power-relation dynamics to achieve common ends. Further, focused more on the private sector, Heifetz et al (2009) introduce the concept of adaptive leadership, which situating leadership as improvisational practices of informal power to mobilize people to tackle multifaceted problems.

Much of the work on leadership in the public sector has been done by restless scholars, which posits leaders and their function as the central foci to approaching the leadership in order to achieve what may be regarded as effective leadership (Fernandez 2005; Thomas & Rowland 2014). Further, many studies have contributed to study administrative-bureaucratic leadership (see e.g. Fairholm 2004 & 2006; Trottier et al 2008; Tummers & Knies 2013; Silvia 2011; Van Wart 2003), and most of them have vividly explored the leadership of politicians holding the highest authority in public organizations (see e.g. Acuto 2013). A bulk of leadership literature, arguably, has faced a number of shortcomings in the theoretical vehemence given that many of public leaders had posed ill-moral and ill-authentic ethical aspects in wielding the authority (Copeland 2014, 106), whilst they are responsible to support their followers to create and promote moral values (Burns 2003, 29; Heifetz et al 2009, 38; Vilma 2018, 44). Moreover, many studies have tried to affirm the important role of personal values and behaviours of leaders in influencing leadership style, not least the followers’ motives, beliefs, and interests with respect to achieve public goals meaningfully and effectively (Andersen 2010; Dean 2008; Roșca & Stănescu 2014; Smikle 2019; Thomas & Rowland 2014). However, in sum, public officials have a moral obligation to be accountable for public roles and responsibilities because they take the oath of office, thus they are ideally subservient to avoid any of corrupt practices.

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 8 and goals (Nye 2008, 19), affirming and renewing values (Behn 1989, 499), realizing public satisfaction (Van Wart 2003, 214) by employing power and trust (Srivastava 2014, 171) both in internal organization and in communities. Since this study centres on individual public officials as the public leaders, thus their public roles are embedded in a set of values as a prerequisite to perform of making use their authority either formal or informal power in the public sector. Reflecting the public roles of public officials, these values encompass:

• Stewardship: it refers to the wisdom and effective exertion of power and resources by which the leaders have personal moral responsibility and commitment for serving the organizations and people in a legitimate way (McCuddy 2008, 13; Terry 2015, 25). • Integrity: it concerns with moral willingness and audacity to keep the promise and

maintain public trust for achieving expectations (Burn 2003, 28; Vilma 2018, 46). • Empowering: it relates to the ability to understand, mobilize, and support the followers

to accomplish social and cultural efficacy through being exemplary (Burn 2003, 71; Heifetz 2009, 17; Nye 2008, 58).

• Articulate and Reflective: it hinges on expertise and experience to be willing to take risks and learning from previous and common failures through reciprocal ways, to utilize alternative contemplative responses and participatory decisions for all, particularly to anticipate the conflict of interest detrimental for public principles (Cameron 2008, 79; Dean 2008, 62; Heifetz 2009, 169; Smikle 2019, 4).

Many sought to define corruption, which includes both monetary and non-monetary losses in regard to empirical worse impacts of violating rules of law and regulations within public organizations. Yet, however, it is unavoidable that corrupt decisions, behaviours, and practices are difficult to determine and measure, thus many types of research decided to employ legal basis to understand corruption as the abuse of official public position or roles for private or particular group interests by betraying formal laws. Being cognizant of that, this study prefers to understand corruption on a leadership basis, which entailing to not use the popular definition of corruption. As a conceptual starting point, I define corruption as “the circumstances where public officials have no leadership values to undertake public roles in creating and implementing legitimate decisions and policies, both legally for office and politically for communities."

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roles of public officials which encompasses tangible and intangible performances inside and outside the office by which public has the chance to personally appraise them as to whether decent or undecent public leaders. Further, by employing the term ‘legally for office’, it means that public officials are obliged to comply with and confined by formality aspects within the office, including the use of formal power to run the administrative necessity. Ultimately, by borrowing the term “politically for communities”, I stress that public officials are situated to politically supported by the communities in which informal power matters to underpin the existential role of public organization within communities, not least to work for and with people outside the bureaucratic activities.

2. Type of Corruption

This study tends to classify corruption in the public sector by adopting the leadership approach, which entailing this study to distinguish between political corruption and administrative corruption in order to affirm that leadership type matters in understanding corruption. The former pertains to emphasize its primary characters in a position of formal power to issue strategic order and decision-making, while the rest pertains to assert its main feature in a position of informal power to rather cope with technicalities of policy implementation and rigid organizational procedures. With respect of many tantalizing studies on corruption, it is reasonable to assume that public leaders are not detached from any corruption practices inasmuch as their success of leadership performance are not merely appraised legally by their organizations, but to be more concrete, they are examined politically by their communities. As consequence, this study proposes two types of corruption built on transactional and transformational leadership, namely administrative corruption and political corruption.

2.1. Administrative Corruption

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 10 corruption and usually involves extortion and ‘speed money’ from public officials. Further, administrative corruption occurs when formality and informality aspects of public roles are not clearly and sufficiently separated, thus remaining interstices for public officials to jumble their personal interests in public organizations and potentially violating administrative rules (Graaf et al 2010, 35). In the era of administrative decentralization in the public sector, Gurgur and Shah (2014, 112) point out that the hierarchical control of higher-level authority over lower-level bureaucratic functions and rules compliance ironically decreases to overcome corrupt practices, which in parallel, the number of public officials complicit in administrative corruption pervasively increases. In a nutshell, it is in line with other arguments that organizational arrangements of administration cause corruption in response to the congested formal rules, as studied by Banfield (1975), Bergh et al (2017), and Prud'homme (1995).

In this study, administrative corruption is related to the transactional style of leadership. It posits the leaders, by function, as a broker who substitutes their roles to give and take (Burns 2003, 24) based on personal gain (Wright & Pandey 2010, 76) manifested through exchange relationship with their organizations (Van Wart 2013, 556). Further, it is characterized as leaders-centred, so that transactional public leaders rely highly on self-interest and interact with the followers by creating a combination of rewards and punishment (Nye 2008, 62–63). In this vein, public leaders are assumed as purposeful and goal-seeking, which Trottier et al (2008, 321) point out that it also includes active and passive intervention when organizational standards are not pursued or when their followers violate procedures. Since transactional leadership relates more to managerial activities in the public organizations measured by efficiency and effectiveness (Fairholm 2004, 585), the relationship between leaders and followers is hierarchy bounded (Silvia 2011, 67). All in all, in sum, transactional leadership is delineated as less dynamic for greater change in communities, less participatory for outsiders, more opportunistic for duty fulfilment, more use of formal authority with rigid traditional work procedures, and more directive roles.

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actors in public procurements. Since administrative corruption is related to the conformity of organizational rules, occupied by the rigidity of formality aspects, it influences the performance of organizational effectiveness and efficiency to operate on a managerial and legal basis (Dimant 2013, 10; Villoria et al 2012, 86). Eventually, administrative corruption implies the offences of lower-level public leaders against written rules, regulations, and other political decisions that come to force in organizational work (Morris 2011, 10)

2.2. Political Corruption

Becoming public leaders is decisive to govern public business in pursuit of prosperity, thus they are equipped by a set of panoply to make use of the power in office. As a result, public leaders are expected to dedicate themselves both to serve the office and communities from which they are originated and supported by their people. In this vein, public leaders are not only demanded to comply with organizational rigid rules and regulations but in practice, they are politically and morally demanded to achieve public satisfaction through the organizational agility to create and execute policies. Accordingly, it is cogent to assume that public leaders often face political pressures from their constituency or citizenry in term of policy agenda-setting they have to accommodate in the form of aspirations and predicaments. Therefore, public leaders are often situated to preserve social values and act beyond the formality aspects of organizations. At this point, Banfield (1975, 599) considers that the voids of hierarchical control to cope with administrative ambiguity posit the public leaders in a dilemmatic position, whether to step down from the office or to act corruptly. Further, Begovic (2005, 4) points out the in formulating public policies, all interest groups deserve to exercise political negotiations with public leaders given that these are legally legitimate democratic processes, albeit the loopholes to intercept oligarch groups from influencing unjust political agenda are presumably difficult. By the same token, Disch et al (2009, 41) conceive this phenomenon as political corruption by which political groups influence the creation and implementation of government’s rules and regulations, thus they acquire inappropriate benefits. Yet, however, as observed by Gephart (2009, 31-32), the term “political” denotes to the social consensus among political interests which determines how and to which extent the authority in the office is exercised to distinguish whether the usage of authority is being misused. Nevertheless, I contend that political corruption is related to social norms and expectations of people upon their public leaders, which often urges informality aspects at the expense of organizational rules and procedures.

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 12 (Burns 2003, 27) to define and tackle rapid changing circumstances (Heifetz et al 2009, 11). At this point, conceptually, transformational public leaders are expected to form a deep structural change (Burns 2003, 24; Van Wart 2003, 218) by inspiring and empowering their followers to transcend their self-interest (Nye 2008, 62), which collectively striving for public values (Burns 2003, 28). More specifically, transforming leadership is described as changed-centred, and the leaders themselves are assumed as articulate and skilful (Trottier et al 2008, 321) and is an exemplar or inspirational figure (Nye 2008, 58). In contrast to transactional leadership, transformational leadership profoundly relies on personal characteristics and ability of the leaders to commit to the public interests (Javidan & Waldman 2003, 230), be able to deal with a conflictual relationship (Srivastava 2014, 169), and be willing to collectively work with followers in collaborative processes (Fairholm 2004, 586; Silvia 2011, 68–70; Van Wart 2013, 559). Accordingly, in brief, transformational leadership is assumed as more dynamic for both organizational and societal change, more participatory for both insiders and outsiders in agenda-setting and implementation, more altruistic for a supportive relationship, more use of informal authority with legally uncontrolled discretion and more decentralized power.

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which cannot easily be separated from the office and include loyalty (Dávid-Barrett & Fazekas 2019, 2) and friendship (De Graaf & Huberts 2008, 643).

3. My Framework for Analysis

It is imperative to provide such a summary and clarity upon the discussed theoretical framework to mitigate the potential nebulous understandings (see figure 1 for the complete theoretical model of this study). The whole story of this study is about the deficit of leadership values, which subsequently entailing public leaders to enact corrupt practices. Note, however, the concept of corruption used in this study does not subscribe to any specific previous concepts containing several crisscrossing forms and types of corruption count, and often analytically is problematic to understand corruption in the public sector. Importantly, the argumentative backbone of corruption rests on the inability and fiasco of individual public leaders in balancing

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 14 contexts the precise equilibrium of both roles are still vague, and specific parameters to combine both roles are not deeply stipulated. As a result, public leaders often cope with conflict of interests between being conservative in terms of organizational formal norms and being adaptive in terms of political and social dynamics in the specific contexts. Ultimately, public leaders are trapped and/or tempted to act surpassing the formality aspects in organizations given that informality aspects aspired by and in communities much prevail.

Despite public authority is gleaming, salutary, and potent in facilitating the common ends, not least personal ends, the surest point is that public leaders are assumed to be aware of and cautious to entire consequences of exercising their power. Conceptually, public leaders may complicit in corruption activities defined by formal laws or social norms when undertaking their public roles in accordance with their particular type of leadership. Firstly, transactional public leaders hinge on formality aspects of using their discretion to execute and comply with organizational values embedded in the formal rules and procedures. In practice, when they interpret, create, and implement legally legitimate decisions and policies, they are penetrated by pervasive political and social pressures, which in turn induce them to act illegally in the implementation processes. Secondly, transformational public leaders rely on informality aspects of using their discretion to sustain and preserve social values of public organization in communities. When they articulate, create, and execute politically legitimate decisions and policies, they are not underpinned by bureaucratic agility to undertake them dispassionately and gratifyingly in the negotiation and formulation processes, thus they corrupt politically. Hence, in concise, two types of corruption are proposed, namely administrative corruption (pertaining to written legal norms within an organization) and political corruption (pertaining to unwritten social norms within communities). Above all, it is empirically anticipated that a combination of both types of corruption in this study may evolve considerably in which public leaders corrupt both legally and politically.

Methodology

1. Research Design

According to Denzin and Lincoln (2005, 3–4), qualitative research is conceived as an activity to:

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variety of empirical materials… that describe routine and problematic moments and meaning in individual’s lives…”

Given that, no methods in social research are absent from methodological debates in explaining a phenomenon. Nevertheless, the decision of choosing a specific method should consider the problem being studied, the researcher’s personal expertise, and the respondents for the study (Cresswell 2014). Compared to the quantitative method that is laconic, stingy, and relatively confining itself to merely understand the phenomenon in causality and often at the surface, Patton (1980, 22; 28) observes that qualitative method is more lucrative to conceive the empirical phenomenon viewed by the respondents in a depth and in detail, without predetermining their views using previously developed questionnaire categorization. Different from the quantitative method that mainly produces tables and diagrams to analytically tailor the data, Staff and Carlsen (2017, 26) pinpoint that qualitative method is strongly incorporated with text derived from transcribed interviews which in turn presenting the data in a descriptive means, such as quotation from respondents.

Considering the point of interest of this study and indeed aforementioned research questions, that pertains to consider the personal views and experiences of imprisoned corrupt officials, this necessitates the use of the qualitative method. Despite that this method is time-consuming and needs extra effort during data collection, yet, this method enables the researcher to play a pivotal role as an instrument to construct meanings and views from the object of study to generate scientific explanation. Likeminded, Glesne (1999, 5) considers that qualitative research provides precious opportunity to interact with the respondents to find out plenty of interpretations and explanations of social realities, which I argue quantitative method is not sufficient to gain in-depth empirical data comprising reasons, feelings, beliefs and meanings. Most importantly, to study corruption from the perspective of the doers is not value-free, thus it requires the ability of the researcher to play inter-subjectivity, including as argued by Yin (2011, 270–271) to play self-reflectivity element of qualitative research.

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 16 copes with several cases to ferret out the similarities and differences between cases. Given that this study examines several empirical cases in the different offices and levels comprehensively, multiple case study is applied considerably.

This is explorative qualitative research designed to investigate the experiences and meanings of corruption from imprisoned public officials in Central Java Province, Indonesia. More specifically, this study addresses the nagging and antiquated question of why public officials complicit in corruption by exploring real experiences and views of elective public officials in pursuing and reigning the office but ironically wrestling with corruption which jettisons them to the prison. In addition, the multiple case study is used to study corruption cases in the separable offices and levels. In regard to the office, this study involves the executive and legislative branch of local governments in five districts, while concerning with the level, this study also examines village governments in 4 respective districts. Meanwhile, the unit of analysis is the political journey of becoming public officials and their motives to engage in corruption in the public sector. It is sensible to envisage that this study is value-laden inasmuch as the personal experiences and meanings of imprisoned public officials is not only scholarly rare to be studied by foregone research, but also it potentially captures rich essential ideas to redefine corruption from the standpoint of the doers. Thereof, this study is expected to contribute to the corruption studies which insofar field-work qualitative research teeming with corruption doers is arguably minuscule, leastwise in Indonesia until 2020.

2. Operationalization of Theory

For the purpose of approaching the unit of analysis, that is corruption in the public sector, the theoretical framework of this study requires operationalization to deal with practicalities in analyzing the empirical materials.

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formal authority in public organizations, both in executive and legislative offices. Albeit, it may refer to elected politicians at the upper level and/or civil servants at mid-lower level, this study strongly refers it as elected politicians at district and/or village level, either on a political party basis for district level or an individual basis for village level.

‘Type of corruption’ refers to the high tendency of corrupt practices which is related to their type of leadership when performing public roles, both in-office and in communities. Firstly, ‘administrative corruption’ is linked to transactional leadership of public officials, in which they more rely on formal power to fulfil their duties as written clearly on organizational work regulations and procedures. When they enact maladministration and omission against bureaucratic written rules either purposively or inadvertently, their behaviours, decisions, and activities can be regarded as administrative corruption. This may involve financial government loss and/or just faults upon standard operating procedures without causing insolvency. This type of corruptions can be seen when the public officials describe their corruption background due to 1) prevalent procedural mistakes in procurements and government reports; 2) receiving bribes from people against tardiness of public services provision; and/or 3) failed to reach organizational targets of policy implementation that cause financial loss.

Secondly, ‘political corruption’ relates to transformational leadership of public officials, in which they more rest on informal power to run the office in creating and executing public policies, particularly to maintain the interests of their family, relatives, or supporters. Therefore, they are situated to keeping their personal promises and/or political manifestos, in which the bureaucratic agility is viewed as an obstacle to realizing them in a normal way. When they create certain decisions and policies with partiality, which are bias to specific target groups in communities, their actions can be termed as political corruption. This explicitly violates the organizational rules and regulations and potentially may undermine the etiquettes of bureaucratic order, the effectiveness of policies, and efficiency of government resources. This type of corruption can be examined when the public officials elucidate their corruption background due to 1) exercising favouritism based on kinship and friendship to recruit officers; 2) deliberately producing and implementing government policies with a potent tendency to their economic networks and/or political followers; 3) manipulating the use of their subordinates and interpretation of regulations for short-term political and/or economic interests with or without earning gratuity money.

3. Data Collection

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 18 had become elective public officials, either as mayor, local legislature member, or village head; 2) have been sentenced by the corruption court as guilty due to corruption case; 3) they are still being jailed as custody in 2019. In addition, an in-depth individual interview is opted given that it is beneficial and suitable for capturing personal experiences and views of individual respondents, including providing an opportunity for them to explain confidential and sensitive information to the researcher personally.

The semi-structured face-to-face interview is carried out in Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Kelas I Semarang (Class I Semarang Prison), Central Java Regional Office of Ministry of Law and Human Rights. Note, importantly, the researcher has obtained research permission from the Directorate General of Corrections, Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Republic of Indonesia to interview the respondents in prison as proven by letter number: PAS1.HH.05. 04-91 which issued on 29th of May 2019. Further, the interview process takes 50 until 90 minutes in duration for each respondent respectively, and all interviews are recorded for the purpose of transcription and analysis. During the interview process (see appendix 1 for the interview guide), the respondents are free to share their life story concerning with 1) their political career of becoming elective public officials, either as mayor, local legislature member, or village head; 2) the views of their public role and performance during their tenure; 3) the experiences and meanings of their corruption cases; 4) their interpretations of the enforcement of anti-corruption laws, including their personal recommendation. Moreover, nine respondents can be classified as follows (see: appendix 2 to find out the complete list of respondents):

• Three mayors from Kebumen District, City of Pekalongan, and Purbalingga District separately.

• Three local legislature members from Boyolali District, Demak District, and Kebumen District separately.

• Three village heads from Batang District, Blora District, and Boyolali District. 4. Data Analysis

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individual interviews, and the researcher does not just report the subjective experiences and meanings of the individuals but also examines the contexts underpinning the corruption cases. 5. Validity and Reliability Aspects

It is clearly understood that the quality of qualitative work cannot be assessed through statistical or numeric appraisal, which leads its product to be susceptible from academic scepticism or even mistrust to admit it as scientific results. To deal with this issue and mainly to mitigate the potential bias from the researcher’s subjectivity, as considered by Brink (1993), validity and reliability aspects are imperative. Validity aspect concerns with the accuracy of the data collected which has truth value in exhibiting respondents’ views and experiences (Noble & Smith 2015, 34) without personal intervention or even manipulation done by the researcher. Meanwhile, reliability aspect relates to the ability of the research to have consistency and stability of its findings, as well as the precision and credibility to be evaluated and replicated (Brink 1993, 35; Golafshani 2003, 559–600).

In this vein, I will examine interview resources as the primary data against several secondary data, such as 1) my observation and field note when undertaking the research in prison area; 2) document analysis derived from prison records; 3) the news on media related to the respondents’ corruption cases respectively; 4) the personal statements of respondents to the researcher outside interview process, and 5) comparison of different respondents’ viewpoints. All of this can be termed as triangulation used to intertwining qualitative data which I argue can reinforce this research both in presenting the empirical materials and drawing conclusions (Patton 1980, 557–559). Most importantly, note that this study builds its own analytical framework, thus it is anticipated for analytical generalization, and more specifically for theoretical replication as explained by Yin (2009, 54), despite similar findings or literal replication cannot be predicted when it applies in different contexts outside the locus of study. 6. Research Ethics

To overcome any aberrations and improprieties which stem from this interpretative research, by building on the ethical aspects considered by Webster et al. (in Ritchie et al. 2014, 87–106), this study highly concerns that:

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 20 methodology, as well as the mechanism of how their data is organized and used. Further, the respondents are asked to share their experiences and answer the questions from the researcher, including to conceal particular information which they do not wish to include in the writing of the research report.

• To shield private information of respondents, I apply anonymity and confidentiality aspects upon request from the respondents. In this vein, anonymity allows the respondents to use aliases in the research report, whilst confidentiality constitutes that their sensitive information will not be propagated to those who are not entitled to. • To anticipate any jeopardy for the researcher, I explain my personal and academic

background to the respondents, thus I am able to obtain sympathy and social trust from them to collect the data, and to convince them pertaining to the urgency of the study for themselves.

7. Methodological Reflections

Considering that this study is epistemologically an interpretive, the data collection and analysis are conducted through intersubjectivity works to explain the social reality of corruption derived from constructed views and experiences of respondents. This consequently entails the researcher to use personal bias to understand and present the transcribed interviews which may diminish the research quality as a scientific product. Yet, to address this problem, the data collection process is equipped and regulated by several tools, such as reliability and validity aspects, research ethics, and semi-structured interview guide. It is clearly argued that the interview materials will be the same when conducted by other researchers, but the data analysis may vary according to the theoretical approach and methodological approaches. In addition, the data analysis process is supported by the analytical framework and narrative strategy to capture and construct the respondents’ various personal subjectivity in which the researcher acts as mediator or facilitator to explain corruption phenomena on natural settings, and in turn, determining the chunks of transcriptions beneficial for answering the research questions with the help of operationalization of theory.

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framework helps the researcher during the interpretative mutual work with the respondents to explore corruption in real practice. It is also used to marshal the empirical findings that include verbatim interview quotations in which the researcher translates the Indonesian language into English without any attempts to mislead or manipulate the interpretations. As the final reflection, the results of this study may be questioned or doubted by academia and public due to perceived as channelling the voices of convicted corrupt public officials. But, since this study locates itself to fulfil the lacuna of research explaining corruption from leadership approach, the personal views and experiences of respondents can be depicted as fruitful materials and the conclusions of this study may provide an alternative explanation to understand corruption.

Overview: Corruption in Central Java

1. National Context

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 22 the corruption cases in the country can considerably be marked after this anti-corruption agency was formed in 2002 and officially work in 2004.

As lately published by Transparency International in its annual report in 2019, Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of Indonesia, which globally is ranged from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), was scored 40 and ranked 85th out of 180 scored countries (Transparency International 2020). Despite its score positively increases in the past 5 years, its global rank significantly decreases (see Figure 2 for Indonesia’s CPI Score and Rank between 2014–2019). In average, its score has 44,4 points, and however, it has no significant meaning in

comparison with that of gliding up the number of corruption cases in since the establishment of KPK (see Figure 3 for the Corruption Cases between 2004–2019). Note that, the number of cases in 2019 decreased since the structural and organizational changes reached the peak since July comprising

amendment of national law on KPK and selection of new commissioners of KPK for the period 2019-2023. Nevertheless, the government’s efforts to address corruption should be fairly appreciated as proven by the increased CPI score, and simultaneously emerging a loophole to criticize its global rank which illustrates the potential deterioration of anti-corruption enforcement at a domestic level compared to other countries having the higher position.

After 16 years of the establishment of KPK as the stronghold of anti-corruption struggle, 1218 cases are examined in the pre-investigation, from which 948 cases have been carried out into investigation process, 789 were prosecuted, and only 650 cases have obtained final verdicts from the court. In a similar vein, roughly 68,56% of cases have been successfully avowed as corruption out of investigated 948 cases. In addition, concerning the actors have been involved (see figure 4 for the complete corruption category based on actors), 60% are occupied by public officials (elective, appointive, and career bureaucrats), whilst 40% entangle private actors.

Figure 3. Corruption Cases between 2004–2019

Source: https://www.kpk.go.id/id/statistik/penindakan (accessed 4 March 2020). Source: Transparency International (accessed 4 March

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Howsoever, this state of affairs compels the public to reflect the existing anti-corruption agenda in two afterthoughts. Firstly, anti-corruption efforts are fruitless since it has become inherent to the government, even its contagion wide spreads to the local level at which massive arrests are arguably seen as futile. Secondly, in contrary, anti-corruption is on the right trajectory and the rise of corruption cases should be understood as a fabulous advancement to reveal corruption which insofar has not been detected, and even addressed at all levels and in a wider scope of the public sector.

The former is line with those have pessimistic views on anti-corruption strategy, in which KPK has exceeded its functions by creating a public sensation, creating uncertainty of law enforcement, and causing anxiety to the public administrators in decision making (Adyatama 2019; Indonesia Lawyers Club 2017; Lesmana & Sari 2019). Meanwhile, the remainder is in parallel with those have optimistic views, arguing that KPK acquired public trust higher than any institutions in the country (Ramadhan 2019). Therefore, it has proven that its anti-corruption efforts were successful in preventing potential state’s financial loss of IDR 63,8 trillion and arresting 603 suspects from 327 field operations during 2016–2019, thus these facts should be extolled its special authority need not be diminished (Indonesia Corruption Watch 2019; Rachman 2019). Above all, the facts submit that corruption is still limelight regardless of the ongoing debates, particularly the KPK’s performance to not merely investigate the corruption by showing massive arrests, but as mandated by the law, KPK is expected to end corruption significantly with measurable framework and timeframe. In a nutshell, I contend that a successful anti-corruption agenda can be depicted by the decrease of corruption cases and the halt of its deployment to the lower levels, in particular at village level where many village heads around Indonesia complicit in corruption (Alamsyah et al 2018, 17–19).

2. Central Java and Its Corruption Cases

Central Java is one of 34 provinces in Indonesia, located in Java Island as the mainland, where Semarang as the capital city of the province is situated. As one of the big provinces in Java Island, geographically, Central Java is sited in between West Java and East Java Provinces (see Image 1 for Central Java Province on the Map), and more precisely located at 5°40’–8°30’ south latitude and 108°30’–111°30’ East longitude, which in total it has 3,25 million hectares

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 24 of land area or approximately occupies 25,04% of Java Island area (The

Government of Central Java Province 2020). Further, administratively, it consists of 29 districts, 6 municipalities, 576 sub-districts and 8.559 villages, which by 2019 is inhabited by 34.718.204 people comprising 49% males and 51% females (Statistics of Central Java Province 2020, 25; 69).

While the provincial government has its higher level of authority as the representative of the central government to coordinate, facilitate, and supervise the work of government at district/municipality level (Government Regulation No. 33/2018), however, every district/municipality has its own feudal turf encompassing local autonomy, geographical entity, and elected public officials both in executive and legislative branches. Thus, the scope and power of provincial government to intervene the lower level of governments in policy-making arguably is deficient, as since 2014 the enclave of decentralization rests on district/municipality governments rather than provincial government (National Law No. 23/2014). Importantly, by 2019 total of civil servants at all district/municipality governments in Central Java is 281.022 persons (Statistics of Central Java Province 2020, 30) who act as subordinates of 1.650 elected officials comprising 70 mayors/regents and deputies (The Government of Central Java Province 2020) and 1.580 local legislature members (Regional Election Commission of Central Java Province 2017). Yet, however, after the enactment of Law No. 6/2014 on Village, the power decentralization has altered from district/municipality autonomy to village-regional autonomy. In consequence, in turn, the bigger amount of power, government resources, and public leadership are transferred on the village government, which led by 8.559 village heads (Statistics of Central Java Province 2020, 30). However, the provincial government, district/municipality government, and village government have its own authority to work for public business respectively, which entailing every elected public official to be accountable for

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Peta_administratif_jawa_tengah.gif (accessed 5 March 2020).

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and uphold his/her moral obligations to comply with binding rules and regulations. By the same token, in relation with corruption, every level and branch of governments in Central Java reasonably have circumstantial chance to enact corrupt practices, or other words, the wider the scope of and the more complex the organizational body of governments may induce more corruption when public leadership is fallout.

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Results

1. Empirics

1.1.The Tragical Ending of Becoming Public Official

This is a story of the long journey about public leadership possessed by nine public officials in different offices and at separable levels of government. To complicit in public affairs as an elective public official is a critical decision, which to some extent perceived as a reputable political career which strengthening their social status and self-esteem. Despite that public officials own self-determination to comprehend their intervention to contribute to their communities before in office, yet, the political competition through direct elections is imperative. Therefore, many of them develop their initial motives and realize their special interest in public issues for many years along with their pursuit of leadership experience and constituency development. Hence, no formulae are adept to ensure public leaders gaining political support unless they prove their political willingness in the candidacy process to convince their followers and supporters that they are eligible and able to help to address societal problems as trouble-shooters. However, to be nominated as a political candidate and elected as public official then, a virtuous is not sufficient. An effort to begin with the political career as political sympathisers, social activist, or party cadre is inextricably required to hone social sensitivity and leadership skills. Owing to observe unaddressed public problems in his city, Mayor 02 who recently runs his first tenure shares his remarkable background to become a public official in 2008 back then:

“… at the time, my intention to join a ‘mayor election’ was to give greater benefits… when I wanted to do that for communities at the city or district level, so the way is to become the mayor. It was accomplished. Since then, I issued several policies for urban communities…”

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“… (as a businessman) I had no business with (elective) position… at that moment, I was already protracted (in the candidacy process). I never thought to run (for office). Never thought at all. My goal is just to become a businessman… I agreed (to run) at the last-minute, because of compulsion, many (of the followers) had pressured (me). This is because I had no consideration upon financial anymore. Yeah, I hoped that the authority can realize public welfare, to defend my religion. When talking about heaven, no matter how much billion, (I) just sincere it…”

Regrettably, the lofty and potent intention of public officials as leadership’s foreground cannot always thrive and be achieved as willed. Their political career should end dramatically due to several factors, to which they engage in corruption, which exacerbated and confounded by the conflict of interest, residuals of political competition penetrating the office, and social jealousy. Importantly, the underlying factors are realized by public officials when they are convicted as rule-breaker. Despite that they are accused as corrupt officials and typified as to damaging office, betraying official vow, and abusing the power in office. Yet, they admit that running the bureaucratic organization is challenging. They often cope with values conflicts when exercising leadership function both in-office and communities. As a consequence, they are situated in a dilemmatic situation to make a difficult decision, including to sacrifice their position to prioritize more salient values or interests over the formal laws. However, it is clearly understood that corruption actions are always linked to the formality aspects of bureaucratic regulations and procedures, which disregards the political factors that lie behind the informality aspects of law enforcement. Above all, public officials conceive their cases as an unpredictable and inevitable risk of their leadership, as well as a part of destiny that should be undergone. Village Head 02 asserts that:

“… (it is) my fate as village head struggling for especially the small community. By their mandate, I strived for them… their spirit was incredible. With regard to my presence here (as custody), I must be grateful. Because I helped to realize the development project (of house restoration). As yet, my rural people are still enthusiastic, respectful, heartfelt and often visiting me here. That is their concern (on me) …”

1.2.Struggle to Winning the Office and Executing Political Manifesto

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 28 including specific developmental issues which can subsequently be formulated as a political manifesto. Being experienced and has closed relationship with the constituency, their career in the party mounts gradually as functionaries at the sub-district level, then at the district level within party structural organization. The formal position in a political party can be delineated as ‘ticket’ to complicit in electoral competition, whether as mayor or local parliament member. Mayor 02 who starts his political activism since 19-year-old explains:

“… (I) entered politics in 1987 when I was 19. At the moment, I acted as a witness for Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (Indonesian Democratic Party/PDI) before transformed as Partai Demokrasi Indonesia-Perjuangan (Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle/PDIP). In 1996 there was upheaval because PDI was prohibited to participate in the general election, and the party was segmented into two cohorts. I officially joined PDI led by Mega (hereafter become chairwomen of the PDIP). Finally, I participated in the party congress in Bali, then in 1996 I became party treasurer at the sub-district level, then in 1998, I became party leader at the same level. 1999 was my debut to participate in a local election to become a local legislature member…”

In a similar way, Local Legislature Member 01 who works as Islamic preacher elucidate his involvement in electoral politics:

“… when the reform era came (in 1998), many activists established political party. The name was Partai Keadilan (Justice Party/PK). So, activist brothers who actively were Islamic preacher invited to join and set up organizational structures at the respective districts. Fortunately, I am in Boyolali. I became the party leader at the district level (Dewan Pimpinan Daerah/executive council of Justice Party) since 1998 onwards after the reform. After that, there was the general election, (and the party) got 1 seat, then I was elected (as local parliament member). So, (I am) the only member from PK because I only acquired 1 seat in Boyolali…”

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Pembangunan Jangka Menengah Desa (Village Medium-Term Development

Planning/RPJMDes) for 6 years. Village Head 01 who tends to increase village income through levy as a manifesto, states that:

“… I intended to bring the factory in. But the municipality spatial planning and territory forbade it. The plausible program was for office space and housing. Then, the housing was chosen, and a housing developer came to build. At that time, there was public protest due to massive private housing development. Finally, after discussed with village apparatuses and village consultative board, we issued village regulation on levy applied to the housing company operating in the village…”

At the district level, Mayor 02 explicates his political manifesto after translated into public policy:

“… in the first year, I declared ‘Tegal Healthy’, so that people can pay attention to health issues, and (I) promote health service and access to health care is designed to be easier… At that period, I implement populist programs. In the second year, I created ‘Tegal Smart’, followed by other programs in the subsequent years, including maritime and tourism. Through these programs, I mobilized all regional apparatus work agencies to fully provide service for the people…”

1.3.The Predicament of Public Leadership

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Agung Widhianto 2020 - 30 values that often reject bureaucratic values in office. Mayor 03 exemplifies the demerits of formal norms to address actual problems through rapid policymaking:

“… on social media and newspaper were written in bold that Kebumen has a new mayor and new tourism spot, that was ‘Jeglongan Sewu’ (potholes on the public road). When I was inaugurated, the budgeting had been decided by the legislative office. (We) could only realize seedling assistance and agricultural equipment, and market. But, for road infrastructure was nothing. As a new mayor, I could do nothing…”

It is evident that public officials are situated in an inexhaustible circumstance between the formal and informal sphere of leadership, comprising dual roles and responsibilities which often are overlapping and crisscrossing to fulfil. While formal power with structural elements embedded in organizational rules and regulations are a necessity, but regrettably, it is not robust and socially legitimate for communities who heavily hinge on informal power embedded in personal and cultural relationship. Surprisingly, an increasing shift of understanding public leadership occurs related to public officials’ function both for the office and communities. The impetus of this shift emanates from the social realm that public officials cannot be separated from their constituency. In other words, the public leadership is not solely office ownership, but also social ownership given that they are originated, supported, and elected by their people. Therefore, they must stand for the people by turning back the authority as public ownership and tools to pursuit for prosperity, rather situating the public officials as dispassionate and naïve people. Given that the nature of public leadership is understood as stewardship of public values and stewardship of government’s rigid procedures, thus public officials cope with the predicament of balancing their formal and informal power. This structurally and culturally bounded position leads them to make a difficult choice when value conflicts emerge. Village Head 03 roundly speaks his awry when trying to comply with formal procedures of policy implementation:

“… there was a program from (central) government related to massive land certification. Here in Blora (we had) 44.000 (quotas), distributed to all villages. Because it was the government’s program, the (upper) government has allowed (us) to glean IDR 150.000. But in practice, that was not enough (when implemented). Ultimately, based on the village deliberation and consultation, the additional cost was necessitated. If we just followed what the government wanted, for instance for free, it could not be implemented at all…”