Disaster Policy Change in Indonesia 1930–2010: From Government to Governance?

Scientific study on what actually drives disaster policy reform in the developing world is extremely limited. As pioneering research for Indonesia, this paper questions what are the forms of disaster risk governance in Indonesia through time and what are the main reasons for such changes over time. Disaster reduction policy reform in Indonesia today takes place amid global disaster risk governance initiatives under the auspicious Hyogo Framework for Action. The author observes that changes in disaster reduction policy in Indonesia over the last 80 years have been less attributed to domestic responses to the large scale natural catastrophes than to co-production of and interaction of local and disaster reduction actors and institutions. The paper highlights how new forms of risk governance have emerged from government as a dominant actor during the 20 th century to more polycentric governance in first decade of the 21 st century in Indonesia.