Everyday Bureaucratic Practice in Village Development Planning: An Institutional Ethnography of Community Empowerment Programs in Bengkulu

Titi Darmi; Sri Indarti; Shella Stepani; Novia Fitriani

doi:10.59535/wfag3x91

Authors

Titi Darmi Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Muhammadiyah Bengkulu, Indonesia Author
Sri Indarti Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Muhammadiyah Bengkulu, Indonesia Author
Shella Stepani Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Muhammadiyah Bengkulu, Indonesia Author
Novia Fitriani Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Muhammadiyah Bengkulu, Indonesia Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59535/wfag3x91

Keywords:

institutional ethnography, village development planning, bureaucratic practice, local governance

Abstract

Village development planning in Indonesia has, since the enactment of Village Law No. 6/2014, been formally regulated through a cascade of participatory forums, technical guidelines, and administrative reporting requirements. Yet formal procedure alone rarely explains why plans succeed, stall, or drift from their original intent. This study uses institutional ethnography a method that traces how everyday, local work is coordinated by wider institutional relations to examine how village officials, facilitators, and community members actually produce village development plans in the upland villages of Bengkulu Province. Data were collected through sustained field observation, informal conversation, document review, and semi-structured interviews with village heads, village secretaries, community facilitators, women's group leaders, and ordinary residents. The analysis maps a set of recurring informal routines pre-meeting lobbying, document “polishing,” selective invitation, and negotiated attendance quotas that operate alongside, and sometimes in tension with, the formally mandated Musyawarah Desa (village deliberation) process. Findings show a persistent gap between the participatory ideal inscribed in national regulation and the practical, relationship-based work required to make planning documents move through the bureaucratic chain. The study argues that these informal practices are not simple deviations or corruption but are meaningful “work” that village actors perform to reconcile limited resources, tight deadlines, and genuine participatory aspirations. The paper contributes to public administration theory by demonstrating the analytical value of institutional ethnography for Indonesian local governance research and offers policy recommendations for strengthening facilitation support, simplifying reporting formats, and recognizing informal coordination as a legitimate object of capacity building efforts.

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