The politics of participation in forest management: a case from democratizing Indonesia

Embracing the opportunities provided by democratization and decentralization, the Wonosobo district of Central Java, Indonesia, enacted a local regulation for participa-tory forestry. The regulation emphasized rights-based political participation and as such entailed significant participation by civil society groups. However, this regulation faced a backlash from the remaining representatives of the old authoritarian state. They demanded a state-created utilitarian-based participatory forestry scheme, emphasizing economic and ecological consequences of participation in an instrumentalist manner. Because of legal uncertainty and the persistence of conventional political culture at the local and national levels, state actors were able to produce outcomes contrary to the established regulation. This article illustrates the importance of differentiating between distinct forms of “participation ” in order to understand the political struggles concern-ing forest management decentralization