There has been a shift in the methods and magnitude of citizen engagement and public deliberation in post-authoritarian Indonesia. During the first decade of democratisation after 1998, local-level power structures were moving away from patronage networks to stronger interactions between citizens and the state, creating space for civil society to engage government and re-politicising communities. However, recently there has been a stagnation; and practices of deliberation have failed to deepen on a larger scale, although spaces remain available. This is partly because the introduction of participatory democratic institutions did not challenge existing power structures. For substantive change to happen, we argue, citizens need to be involved not only in deliberations but also in challenging the balance of power by holding power holders to account. The key to this is to link citizen engagement – through public deliberations and social accountability – to service implementation. Public deliberation by itself is not enough – it needs citizen power enforced through accountability as a key lever. This is a new node for citizen engagement and political action, in which public deliberations and hybrid public action groups can play a key role.
