Situated agency as a form of discretion: evidence from Indonesia’s higher education

This paper argues that discretion as a concept and practice has undergone transformations since the widespread of New Public Management (NPM) that replace trust-based collegial relationships with performance-based relationships. Such a paradigm shift has enabled and necessitated the proliferation of accountability mechanisms in the form of monitoring and audit tools, which arguably limit and constrain street-level bureaucrats’ creativity and capacity to make judgements and perform their duties in delivering public service. Against this background, this paper asks the following questions: How do narratives justifying the accountability mechanisms intersect with street-level bureaucrats’ individual and professional traditions and beliefs? And what do such encounters explain about the reconceptualization of discretion? To answer these questions, the study focuses on Indonesia’s higher education and academics’ responses to regulatory changes from 1999 until 2019.

Using empirical evidence drawn from document analysis and interviews with 21 academics of autonomous state-owned higher education institutions, this paper identified the resentments and frustrations of academics, as the street-level implementers in higher education, in dealing with multiple accountability mechanisms and frequently changing and narrowing performance measurements. Moreover, as these accountability mechanisms are operationalized through rigid contractual means and measured through ill-fated and quantity-based audit systems, some academics have developed a variety of coping mechanisms in the form of a 'fight or flight' (Kozlowska et al., 2015) to continue performing their duties in knowledge production.

Such responses and reactivity explain two things. First, there is a certain degree of incompatibility of NPM-inspired doctrines and ideas (Hood and Jackson, 1991) with existing higher education and knowledge production traditions and practices, which led to a lower level of acceptance among academics. This is consistent with findings from earlier studies (i.e., Enders, Kehm and Schimank, 2015). Second, despite systemic limitations, street-level implementers can always exercise the ‘situated agency’ (Bevir and Rhodes, 2003) by referring to their traditions, beliefs, and practices to incorporate and internalize external forces, reformulate standpoints and pursue a creative yet informed course of action.