Decentralisation and village governance in Indonesia: the return to the nagari and the 2014 Village Law

This article looks at the work of Franz and Keebet von Benda-Beckmann on decentralisation and village governance in Indonesia. 1 It discusses the main findings of their magnum opus 'Political and Legal Transformations of an Indonesian Polity: The Nagari from Colonisation to Decentralisation'. Compared to other regions, West Sumatra presents a unique case, as it translated the post-Suharto decentralisation into a return to a traditional customary (adat) government structure - the nagari. How can we explain such an unusual turn, which happened nowhere else in Indonesia? This question is relevant to current political debates in Indonesia following the enactment of the 2014 Village Law. That Law explicitly presents the option for a return to adat structures in other regions as well, while granting villages more autonomy. Our central question is whether the same factors that promoted the 'return to the nagari' are likely to facilitate a similar process elsewhere in Indonesia. What can practitioners, policy-makers and researchers engaged in the latest wave of village governance transformations in Indonesia learn from the experiences in West Sumatra?