Government domination in policy making in the House of Representatives during the President Jokowi era

Abstract

The rigid cycle of public policy making was ignored when the oligarchic group from the party elites controlled the agenda-setting process, which became the basis for policy making in Indonesia. This study explains how the political tradition of building consensus among political party elites and the government needs to pay more attention to the formal legislative process in the House of Representatives (DPR). The agreed consensus forms the basis for the chairperson of the commission group to control members of their party in the commission and legislative bodies to support the consensus agreed upon by their party's political leadership. This study discovered that restrictions imposed by strengthening the hierarchical leadership and elite command of political parties affected the power of the DPR. During almost two decades of Jokowi's administration, the shift in the power of the DPR has continued to occur so that it has a decreased effect in policy making to modify, replace and reject government proposals.