For the benefit of children alone? A discourse analysis of policymaking relating to children's institutions in Indonesia, 1999-2009

Abstract

It is estimated that between two and eight million children live in orphanages or other residential institutions in the developing world (the Global South) and in the former Eastern Bloc. In recent decades the UN and international non-government organisations have called upon governments in these countries to develop and implement policies to ‘deinstitutionalise’, or reduce substantially the number of children who live in institutions.

Despite this heightened interest, research into how and why deinstitutionalisation policy change occurs remains in its infancy, especially with regard to the Global South. Using a discourse analysis methodology advanced by Hajer this dissertation sheds light on deinstitutionalisation policymaking in Indonesia. Specifically, it asks: What factors led Indonesia to adopt a policy during the 2000s to reduce reliance on a type of children’s institution known as panti asuhan?

The prevailing explanation for Indonesia’s policy change has been that it decided in the mid-2000s to comply more fully with the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which opposes the separation of children from their parents except in special circumstances. Through field interviews and other analysis I show, however, that political, economic, cultural, and religious discourses—rather than concerns about children’s rights only—predominated in shaping new policy.

I identify three phases in developing the new panti asuhan policy. First, from the late 1990s, a pro-reform group (or ‘discourse-coalition’) began to agitate for policy change. Second, in the mid-2000s, a ‘status quo’ discourse-coalition which supported panti asuhan opposed prospective policy change. Finally, the Indonesian Government’s wish to signal its adherence to international children’s rights standards, align policy with changed national economic, social and administrative directions, and avoid conflict with pro-panti asuhan forces generated the final policy outcome under which panti asuhan would continue to play a central, if somewhat changed, role while appearing to comply with Indonesia’s children’s rights obligations. Rather than designed only to benefit children, final policy thus attempted to appease both pro-reform and pro-panti asuhan groups.

The study provides important messages for practice and research. For policymakers and advocates, employing Hajer’s methodology can improve understandings about factors that impede or advance progress on deinstitutionalisation policymaking in other countries of the Global South. The study also contributes new understandings to literatures on deinstitutionalisation, public policy, and on panti asuhan themselves. It extends research into the deinstitutionalisation of children’s institutions by being the first to apply Hajer’s methodology to understand how this type of policymaking occurred in the Global South. As well as shedding further light on Indonesian social policy in general, it also provides new understandings about attitudes towards, and the operations of, panti asuhan.