Projecting Development through Tourism: Patrimonial Governance in Indonesian Geoparks

Abstract

Research on governance of tourism development predominantly focuses on sustainable management of a tourism destination, pinning hopes on the market and individual entrepreneurs. In Indonesia, this mission has been codified in post-reformation era (1998–2014) policies of land-use change promoting tourism and environmental conservation. One of these is the introduction of the UNESCO Geopark charter as a tool to realize the image of a modern state and “modernizing” regional economies. In this, a particular patrimonial governance arrangement appears to govern land use distribution to accrue the potential value of land from different use. This particular clientelist order will be analyzed in this article, namely by examining how finance, state power, and informal interactions between the national and regional structures of governance mesh in arranging land-use conversions for tourism purposes. Based on 4 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 32 interviews with various stakeholders in the Gunungsewu and Ciletuh UNESCO Geoparks, the paper will show how Indonesian post-reformation decentralization policies induced regional clientelism in the production of tourism destinations. This includes hierarchical relations between the local elite, private business owners, and governments representing asymmetric loyalty relations, negotiated subordination, and dominance. The more recent re-centralization attempts from the national government under Joko Widodo’s regime seem only to encourage this clientelism as a form of resistance to the state. This evidences that the Indonesian patrimonial governance and the production of tourism destinations in geoparks run counter to the ideals in governance as promoted for destination development.

1. Introduction

1.1. Geopark and Tourism Governance

Global Geoparks have been proposed by UNESCO since the early 2000s as a development approach to preserve particular geoheritage landscapes, conserve natural resources, and sustain local communities worldwide [1,2]. Through its international networks of geopark management, the Global Geoparks concept aims to reap the potential benefits of such conservation and to promote economic diversification through tourism, especially geotourism, which has become a prominent alternative in geopark areas [3,4]. In Indonesia, the geoparks concept has induced a particular focus of national government to nationally promote geoheritage landscape and biodiversity conservation through geotourism development campaigns, involving different scales and scopes of the state, and non-state actor cooperations [1]. Geo-tourism essentially promotes the need to use natural resources sustainably, with a focus on non-extractive activities, for the benefit of local present communities, without neglecting the needs of future generations [5,6]. Subsequently, the concern of sustainable tourism management in geoparks focuses on the highest and best use of land through experiencing it as a destination [2,7]. In this sense, tourism in geopark areas directly induces the emergence of particular modes of governance that will be addressed in this paper.

A host of research on tourism governance has addressed how to manage tourism destinations sustainably, promoting the ‘good governance’ approach entailing innovative organizational forms, the building of resilience capacity, and fostering inclusivity [8,9,10,11]. ‘Good governance’ has been seen as inclusive governance promoting a redistribution of power, steering development through free market dynamics and flows. It also focuses on how to minimize the practice of clientelism and nepotism that were present in old patrimonial systems of governance identified in post-colonial states [12], including Indonesia. In the market, individuals are the entrepreneurial value creators, but tourism thereby becomes a particular capitalistic mode of producing space [13]. Therefore, an examination of tourism governance in relation to regional development and the consequences of tourism growth for people in the destinations is needed, including an unravelling of how they negotiate the expectations of ‘good governance’ in situ. Examining good governance practices in the post-colonial state context will bring particular insight into how the idea of governance has been translated in the local patrimonial practices, adding empirical insight into good governance adjusted with local patrimonial culture.

This paper aims at examining a particular form of governance in the Indonesian geopark context, with regard to how the idea of good governance in tourism and geoheritage management has been translated and adjusted in Indonesian patrimonial culture. This paper departs from the idea of good governance indicating that the inclusivity of stakeholders through power redistribution is central in the attempts to govern [12], but rather needs to be seen in a more nuanced fashion than simply that of individual entrepreneurialism. This nuance is provided through the exploration of how power redistribution is negotiated through particular clientelism in patrimonial governance, and how this impacts regional growth through tourism in two geopark areas. As governance always includes attempts to redefine the highest value and best use of land [7,14], there is always space for negotiation and adjustment to means of appropriating this highest and best use [7,15]. Different actors at different scales will therefore negotiate and cooperate to apprehend land value [16]. Geoparks and their concomitant sustainable tourism development will engender particular dynamics of governance at the regional level [17], involving the process of valorization and revalorization of land [18]. In this sense, particular governance orders and arrangements will subsequently emerge, with a dynamic of power-sharing between regional government and finance [19].

This paper proceeds in five parts. The following section discusses the theoretical framing of good governance and how it is translated into the ideal projection of tourism development, characterized by free market relations. We then provide a general historical overview of Indonesia’s centralization, decentralization and recentralization regime with a particular focus on the use of natural resources and the tourism development agenda. After explaining the methodology, we continue with elaborating on the geopark establishment processes in the decentralization period induced by a particular patrimonial system of land governance, using the cases of the Gunungsewu and Ciletuh-Palabuhanratu geoparks. Further, we show different patrimonial land governance systems in those two research sites as a form of resistance to the state’s recentralization agenda. The final section of this paper discusses the findings in the context of the broader scientific literature on tourism governance, by suggesting that good governance as a standard norm for development needs to be revisited in the post-colonial context.

1.2. Governance and Governing Tourism Development in Post-Colonial Countries

Governance essentially implies a “system of governing” and how societies are governed, ruled, directed and steered [20]. This system of governing involves collective action and cooperation to legitimize the allocation of resources and exercise control and coordination [21]. Governance evolves with the aim of achieving success through the inclusiveness of organizations and the participation of public and private sectors to meet the conditions of good government [22]. The result is a certain social order, objectives, policies and services delivered to attain particular commonly-defined goals [19]. In this sense, governance becomes broader than merely governing, including the recognition that governance tasks often involve not only the formal agencies of government, but also the ability of the state to work with non-state actors including actors in the business, community, and voluntary sectors [23]. This cooperation will then construct particular hierarchical layers involving formal governments, networks of actors beyond governments, and markets and quasi-markets [18,24].

Some studies, e.g., [25,26,27] argue that governance is linked to specific trends in the roles and activities of the state after the spate of neoliberal reforms of the public sector which began in the 1980s in the US and UK. These reforms depict the shifting paradigm of hierarchical bureaucracy, from a state bureaucracy to greater use of networks beyond the state, involving liberalized markets and quasi-markets [27]. In this sense, the neoliberal ideal of governance effectively masks the class and social relations that redistribute wealth and income to the affluent through a networked and decentered system of organized political-economic power [28].

Since both the state and the market can and will fail in allocating wealth and income, it is imperative to explore ways in which this failure can be overcome through improving and nuancing governance [12]. To measure the success of good governance, specific standards have been implemented at international, national, and regional levels. Most standards argue that the social benefits received by small communities through inclusive participation in governance outweigh the national economic interest [27]. Following this, redistribution of resources becomes the central idea in governance policies aimed at achieving inclusivity and justice [29]. This also signifies the treatment of resources as a scarce factor of economic production, and the incorporation of them into the system of value production through market mechanisms and entrepreneurship [18]. Some even go so far as to argue that the scarcity of resources in economic production can be evenly distributed by following free market forces as the critical agent determining the most economically-efficient reallocation and use of resources [30]. In this sense, the role of the state is then limited to administrative functions [27] and market forces demand that the state gives up its regulatory function over land resources so that free markets can work adequately to determine new land use, values and functions [31].

As tourism is increasingly seen as the new alternative for non-extractive economic activities, this also affects governmental policies at all levels, focusing on achieving good sustainable tourism governance [32]. To achieve good governance practices, many agendas for sustainable development through tourism and conservation have emerged that focus on sustainable use of land and natural resource in non-extractive ways [17,33]. While discussions regarding “what being sustainable in tourism means” continue [34], UNESCO has introduced Geoparks as a development approach aimed at preserving the geoheritage through tourism, prioritizing the need for sustainable use of natural resources and with equal and justice land-use policies [2,35]. By applying this concept, geopark-led development sees tourism as the best use of land [2,33], benefiting the locals [1]. This combination of tourism with geoheritage clearly echoes the notion of good governance, where the redistribution of land benefits is intended to reach as many stakeholders as possible and through involving them in the development as market entrepreneurs. A particular manifestation of this tourism entrepreneurship is investment in the accommodation sector [36]. Changing land use from agriculture and mining-related use to tourism-related use through incentivizing accommodation provision is assumed to both protect natural resources and open new alternative economic resources [37]. In this scenario, these participants should be well informed and active creators of knowledge, understanding and action [18]. Then, as a result of the involvement of various actors in tourism-related decision-making, contestation and consensus become part of local democratic market-led politics [6].

Indeed, as Bianchi [38] argues, most decisions in the tourism sector depend on private capital and, in practice, there are usually limits to the extent to which policies in the public sphere will influence commercial business and corporate decisions. State influence in governance mainly determines the production of public policies that guide state development and use of natural resources [39]. Ongoing state influence can occur, for example, through subtle state steering of prioritizing new agencies and partnerships [5]. Such state steering can be achieved through the use of detailed contracts, competition for funding, performance indicators, audits and evaluations [40]. The state can also maintain much influence by participating in the new partnerships [6].

Be it the market or particular state-centric approaches in facilitating destination development, both engender particular reactions at the regional level or that of the destination. These reactions in turn reflect power struggles at the local level and how they vary depending on the scale and complexity of the existing socio-cultural system [41]. In the post-colonial state, the feudal system, where the policy of distributing benefits aimed at creating a sense of loyalty and earning legitimacy to govern, has historically established patrimonial systems of governance [42]. This patrimonial system in governing society mainly consists of authoritarian norms and feudal legacies institutionalized over a long-term period in Southeast Asia [43].

The pervasive and severe corruption in several post-colonial states is sometimes attributed to patrimonial traditions and practices [43]. Moreover, it is widely believed that patrimonialism runs counter to democracy and in particular, to the touted practices of good governance [41]. In this respect, patrimonial government is claimed to benefit only a small number of powerful individuals with high social hierarchical status [44]. Yet there is more to the story. To examine how specific patrimonial governance works in the context of tourism development in two Indonesian geoparks, we first examine the three main political regimes in Indonesia: the centralization period in 1965–1998, the decentralization period from 1998–2014, and the recentralization period under the current Indonesia president, Joko Widodo.

1.3. Indonesia’s Natural Resource Development through the Centralization, Decentralization and Recentralization Period

The feudalistic culture that pervades Indonesia’s socio-cultural system emphasizes the avoidance of confrontation and the significance of ceremonial power and hierarchical relations. This was established with Soeharto’s inauguration as president of Indonesia in 1966, which signaled the institutionalization of state patrimonial governance [42]. This mode of governance allows the president to act as a single authority by establishing himself as a revered person according to Indonesia’s feudalistic cultural framework [43]. Indonesia’s patrimonial government structure thereby developed into a more extreme version after he was elected as president [44]. When traditional dominance creates administrative and military forces that are exclusively the political tools of the ruler, it is patrimonialism in its most extreme form [45].

During this era, Indonesia’s industrial development mainly focused on the extractive use of natural resources, such as mining and forest-based agriculture [15]. The use of natural resources was aimed at making them directly into a source of national income, with large import-export activities for the extracted raw materials [46]. This period is also characterized by massive industrialization, with the government open to foreign investments in industry [45]. Moreover, this strategy to strengthen the national economy was seen by the government as a means to absorb considerable labor and thereby address the poverty issue [47].

After Soeharto gave up his position as president in 1998, a new order was established. BJ Habibie, the newly-elected president, signed into effect a decentralization law that gave regional governments more power in land management [43]. This decentralization strategy subsequently gave regional governments a stronger legal basis for land management [47]. This led farmers to regain and reoccupy territories linked to the new order’s regime, demonstrating this regime’s reformation spirit [46]. During this period, and as part of the 2004 national policy plan (Garis Besar Haluan Negara), the state also used tourism as a way to link national economic development to local economies and promote more responsible use of natural resources through a long-term campaign on resource sustainability [44]. Tourism was identified and forecasted to be the highest value and best use of several areas. Herein, geoparks emerged as potential such areas.

After the regional autonomy law was enforced, each province could independently find funding sources for regional development [43]. Basically, each region in Indonesia has two main income sources: the national state allocation fund, and regional revenues. The Indonesian state provides a General Allocation Grant to each region, consuming 25% of the total national budget. This subsidy is essentially an intergovernmental fiscal transfer based on a fixed amount but increased by additional funding per region in the form of a special allocation grant [47]. The general grant allocation fund and the special allocation grant are funded through income taxes derived from the national exploitation of natural resources [47]. Regions exploiting natural resources received a fixed percentage of this exploitation. Resource-rich regions are thus less dependent on government allocation than resource-poor ones, but the calculation of a region’s general allocation grant does not take this factor into account. In fact, economically viable regions who contribute more to the funds receive a larger share than less economically viable regions. This system led to inequality between regions. This situation has led to regional governments seeking alternative sources of funding to finance their development projects. In doing so, they focus on different strategic sectors that can generate revenue for the regional economy, resulting in different practices in different regions. This means that less wealthy regions with fewer natural resources seek their regional economic alternatives mainly in non-extractive industries, such as tourism.

Governance at the regional level in the last two decades, following this structure resulting from the decentralization of the reformation era, is then about asserting rights and legitimizing their role [43,44]. These are achieved in fierce rivalries and power struggles between state leaders [48]. Regional violence and corruption have consequently increased over the past ten years, particularly in the land and natural resource exploitation industry [46,48]. The national government, aware of the convoluted, multi-layered strategy of decentralization that created these opportunities for rivalry and corruption, has thus opted for re-centralization [47].

The national government’s recentralization efforts are marked by the emergence of the Omnibus Law in 2020. The main objective of the national government in issuing the Omnibus Law is based on the idea of re-governing the convoluted bureaucratic situation of the previous decentralization process, which led to more “small kingdoms” at the regional level. The national government sees this law as the ultimate solution to prevent national income from being hijacked by the “dirty practice” of self-enrichment of the regional government actors.

One of the means by which the national government exerts its centralizing efforts is through the environmental impact assessment (EIA), which may now only be carried out by the national government. This EIA is at the crux of how this law re-regulates all legal permit components of developing tourism firms. Another aspect related to tourism development and facilitated by the Omnibus Law is Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Regarding investments in the tourism business, the national government believes that liberalization of the investment market will lead to a healthier investment climate under the auspices of the national government [49]. Following this, the national government established the National Geopark Committee in 2016 under the auspices of the Coordinating Ministry of Economy, Maritime, and Investment. The National Geopark Committee subsequently established the Geopark Investment Forum. Through the Geopark Investment Forum, the national government aims to create a platform for FDI to strengthen the tourism economy. All these efforts are based on creating a healthy investment climate by eliminating practices of nepotism and clientelism in land deals.

As decentralized politics subjects business and land use planning to increasingly lengthy bureaucratic processes which differ from region to region, the national government believes this Omnibus Law will break that vicious cycle at the regional level [50]. The claim is also that the law will improve business operations by simplifying regulations for business and investment permits, and restructuring land management nationwide, including in geopark areas. How to do this is set out in a specific instruction explaining the authority of the national government as the only institution that can issue permits for the development of tourism businesses in protected areas, according to chapter 1 A, line 35. This will most certainly engender different responses from the regional business arrangements already developed during the decentralization period.

2. Materials and Methods

The Ciletuh-Palabuhanratu Geopark lies in Sukabumi region, West Java Province. Consisting of 30 geosites, it was granted its Global Geopark status in 2018. Its initial development was proposed by local community organisations and PT. Biofarma, a national enterprise, that handed a development plan over to local and national government bodies. This development plan aims to use geotourism to help protect the geological features of the landscape against increasing micro-scale mining activities in the area. Its management is under the auspices of the Ciletuh-Palabuhanratu Geopark Management Body, established in 2015 and consisting of some regional and provincial higher-level functionaries from West Java Province. This management body works jointly with the local village governments in managing every tourism activity, including accommodation establishments and land use conversions.

By contrast, Gunung Sewu Geopark was jointly proposed by the regional and provincial governments through a tourism development agreement, representing a top-down basis for the development plan. The initiation of Gunungsewu Geopark was basically a strategic attempt from the regional and provincial government to promote sustainable use of karst landscapes, such as tourism, as the main regional economic sector. This joint cooperation between regional and provincial governments then initiated the Gunungsewu Geopark Management Body in 2010 to run every geopark development plan in this area, under the auspices of the Yogyakarta Province Governor, which is the Sultan of Yogyakarta.

For this research, data underpinning this paper was obtained through site-based ethnography from May 2021 to early September 2021, with an emphasis on the coastal regions of two Indonesian geoparks and the most active locations for tourism accommodation establishments in Girikarto, Kanigoro and Djepitoe Village (Gunungsewu), as well as Tamanjaya and Ciwaru Village in Ciemas District (Ciletuh Palabuhanratu). More than 70% of tourism accommodation in both geoparks has been established in those five villages. In the Ciletuh case, the focus is on local community bottom-up grassroots initiatives trying to preserve resources; in the Gunung Sewu case, the focus is on the dynamics of institutional negotiations under the auspices of the Yogyakarta Sultanate that holds dominant power as Governor, aiming for similar ends. The contrasting characteristics of these cases will enable a nuanced, two-sided insight into particular landscape governance with the introduction of tourism. Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the locations of the Ciletuh-Palabuhanratu Geopark and the Gunungsewu Geopark in Indonesia.

Thirty-two in-depth interviews were conducted by the first author of this paper with residents and varied stakeholders directly or indirectly involved in the development of the geoparks and tourism. The first author also participated in two events hosted by local community tourism organizations, and witnessed two others. The latter were a geosites management and coordination meeting with the local government in both research locations and meetings with the regional governments of Sukabumi and Gunungkidul regencies.

Table 1. List of Informants with Occupation and Anonymizer Code.

No.	Informants’ Occupation	Anonymizer Code
1.	Gunungsewu Local Tourism Officer	GSLTO-1
2.	Gunungsewu Local Tourism Officer	GSLTO-2
3.	Sukabumi Tourism Officer	CLLTO-1
4.	Sukabumi Tourism Officer	CLLTO-2
5.	National Geopark Management Body	GPNM-1
6.	National Geopark Management Body	GPNM-2
7.	National Geopark Management Body	GPNM-3
8.	Gunungsewu Geosite Manager	GSGM-1
9.	Gunungsewu Geosite Manager	GSGM-2
10.	Gunungsewu Geosite Manager	GSGM-3
11.	Ciletuh Geosite Manager	CLGM-1
12.	Ciletuh Geosite Manager	CLGM-2
13.	Ciletuh Geosite Manager	CLGM-3
14.	Gunungsewu Village Officer	GSVO-1
15.	Gunungsewu Village Officer	GSVO-2
16.	Ciletuh Village Officer	CLVO-1
17.	Ciletuh Village Officer	CLVO-2
18.	Gunungsewu Cottage Owner	GSHO-1
19.	Gunungsewu Homestay Owner	GSHO-2
20.	Ciletuh Homestay Owner	CLHO-1
21.	Ciletuh Homestay Owner	CLHO-2
22.	Ciletuh Homestay Owner	CLHO-3
23.	Gunungsewu Local Community Tourism Organization	GSLCO-1
24.	Ciletuh Local Tourism/Conservation Organization	CLLCO-1
25.	Ciletuh Local Tourism/Conservation Organization	CLLCO-2
26.	Gunungsewu Local Residents/Farmer	GSLR-1
27.	Gunungsewu Local Residents/Farmer	GSLR-2
28.	Gunungsewu Local Residents/Local Shop Owner	GSLR-3
29.	Gunungsewu Local Residents/Fisherman	GSLR-4
30.	Ciletuh Local Residents/Farmer	CLLR-1
31.	Ciletuh Local Residents/Farmer	CLLR-2
32.	Ciletuh Local Residents/Fisherman	CLLR-3

below lists all interviewed informants.

The interviews were conducted in iterative series, meaning each interviewee was interviewed three to four times. All interviews were conducted in Indonesian and local languages. Grand tour questions [51] were used to develop the interview questions, which began with asking the informants to describe the history of land use in their region to frame a deeper investigation into the specifics of land use agreements, land ownership, and the establishment of homestays and villas there. The interview processes were then followed by asking informants about the process of settling accommodation business, negotiation with the responsible authorities, the processes of cooperation with business networks and governments, and expectations towards future benefits in developing tourism business. The first author also attended two internal meetings of Anugrah Heha Jaya LLC’s business plan distribution in November 2021. Anugrah Heha Jaya LLC is a private tourism resort and theme park company owned by the former Mayor of Yogyakarta. All interviews were taped, manually recorded, and transcribed. Additionally, documents from the last 20 years (2000–2020) on land use and planning policies at the local, state, and federal level were examined. These documents included the national conservation policy, national tourism development policy, national investment policy, and government regulations regarding investment and development of tourism-related businesses in the Indonesian geopark areas.

Thematic analysis was performed using Atlas.ti on the interview transcripts, first-person field notes from participant observation and internal discussions, and document studies. The construction of the code that structures the sub-themes partially covered in this paper was part of the analysis process.

3. Results

3.1. Land Governance in a Formal Setting: Tourism Business and the Web of Power of Yogyakarta Sultanate Palace in Governing Tourism Business in the Gunungsewu Area

Since Indonesian independence in 1945, land-related businesses have been one of the main activities of the Royal Family of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. To secure the land as their asset, the Yogyakarta Sultanate has made multiple efforts, from policy intervention at the regional level to influencing negotiations on national land ownership policy.

Kurniadi [47] states that these land businesses are the main source of tension and conflict in Yogyakarta Sultanate Palace. To support their claims to land, the Sultan issued Gubernatorial Regulation (Pergub) No. 11/2008, which specifically regulates that village land achieved the status of “Crown Domain”. In the national political context, the Sultan uses cultural-historical references to reinforce Yogyakarta Speciality status and re-negotiate land deals by promoting the “Speciality” status of the Yogyakarta region, given that Yogyakarta Palace played an important role during Indonesia’s independency struggle between 1945–1948. Combined, these efforts successfully forced the national government to issue a national act, giving privilege to the areas of Yogyakarta and autonomy to the Sultanate in governing the region. The sultan of Yogyakarta was also granted a lifetime status as governor of Yogyakarta by the national government through National Act no. 13/2012. The lifetime status gives the Sultanate Palace the power to control all land use and transactions, which in turn supports the royal family business.

To facilitate regional economic growth, the governor of Yogyakarta started Yogyakarta’s tourism development project in the early 2000s by intensively promoting tourism. The increasing number of investment projects in hotel and tourism accommodation between 2010–2020 shows that Yogyakarta offers high returns of investment. However, investing in the Yogyakarta area is not as easy as it seems, as the central administration of land deals rests with the authority of the Yogyakarta Sultanate. The land is rigorously controlled, so the investors must be “insiders” to benefit from the special arrangements for land deals informally established by elite state actors. Moreover, the elected regent in the five regencies under the Sultanate authority must also have permission from the Sultan for any part of the development plan to ensure that any investment program and policy is in line with the provincial development vision [47].

In line with the vision of the Sultan and his provincial government, the regent of Gunungkidul elected in 2020 stated in his election speech that one of the main missions of the regional government is to enhance tourism investment in the area to support local economic growth, as well as provide more space for sustainable tourism in the region. He said this can be done by promoting local products through a tourism campaign, which will have significant multiplier effects for the local community and economic growth. In response, a regional tourism official argues that the recent Gunungkidul regent has a more business-oriented view of regional development than the previous regent. Considering his background as a businessman and the fact that he used to serve in the Indonesian army for more than a decade, the current regent has been involved in some land transactions. He is also cooperating with the governor of Yogyakarta, the Sultan of Yogyakarta, in some land contracts using the sultan’s land in the coastal area of Gunungsewu. The deals mainly relate to the renting scheme of sultan ground land with special profit-sharing agreements.

The regent made business arrangements with his close relatives who eventually constructed a particular business arrangement in establishing tourism accommodations in the coastal area. This arrangement is thereby informally and indirectly under the command of the Yogyakarta Sultanate. The owners of holiday resorts in the Gunungsewu area are mostly “wong gede” (big players), meaning they are the most notable people who become prominent members of the political party and run many businesses – for example, the former mayor of Yogyakarta, members of the royal family of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, members of the regional parliament, and members of the Indonesian armed forces. Based on the interview with a member of the National Geopark Management Body, this alliance of ‘wong gede’ owns up to 70% of the land on the coastal side of the Gunungsewu area.

Moreover, the Gunungsewu government informally issued permits for the establishment and operation of resorts to speed up the establishment of accommodation businesses. Most resorts have not performed an AMDAL (Analisis Mengenai Dampak Lingkungan, or Environmental Impact Analysis), which is compulsory to attain a legal certificate to operate a business, especially when it comes to green field development. However, the regional and provincial governments do not react by sanctioning these resorts. They solve this situation by establishing a certain platform to organize an alternative for those that do not have a completed AMDAL. The government allows the businesses to replace the AMDAL with self-sourced acclaimed scientific papers to justify the feasibility of the business with respect to environmental impact.

At the same time, the regional government has an informal agreement with business owners to involve local business people in small-scale tourism enterprises. For example, a resort owner in Gunungsewu states that she regularly involves “local businessmen” when she needs to provide local cuisine for guests in her cottage, or when her visitors ask for particular local dishes to be prepared when they stay overnight in her cottage. A theme park manager also states that the theme park needs huge support from the local community in running the business. He argues that more than 80% of the theme park’s employees are young people from the area. The regional government responded positively to the theme park’s ability to provide employment opportunities. A resort owner claims that the establishment of many resorts in the coastal area of Gunungsewu can reduce unemployment and poverty, by empowering the use of local resources, including food supply, human resources, and building materials:

“If we use local products for every service we create, it will directly increase our economic impact on local economic growth. You can imagine that with this business, we could employ more than 30 local youth and involve more than five micro-scale enterprises to meet our raw materials needs. Imagine this is just one business, what about if this policy becomes a regional policy? How much regional income can the tourism sector generate that will support regional economic growth? That is outstanding, I would guess…”

The central authority under the auspices of the business network led by the Sultanate of Yogyakarta gained public trust because local involvement was tangibly visible. Maintaining public support is key to the sustainability of the patrimonial regime, resulting in more profit from the operation of tourism businesses through this governance arrangement. In contrast, when it comes to the national government recentralization project, the alliance of local government and business owners saw the central (national) government’s attempts to nationalize the permit to establish buildings as “mengada-ada” (nonsense). The regional government in the Gunungsewu area claims that making the environmental impact assessment a national government responsibility may lead to errors when it comes to deciding whether an investment project is feasible or not. This assumption is based on the incapability of the national government to comprehensively understand the local context, as claimed by the regional government.

Therefore, the regional government still allows the establishment of resorts in the coastal areas of Gunungsewu. Under the protection of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, the alliance also developed new business plans designed to avoid occupying a site for a long time. This short-term business plan aims to reach a break-even point after two to four years of operation. This short-term thinking is reflected in ambitions of the businesses to sell as soon as the area is perceived as too crowded for tourism activities and the land price increases.

More importantly, in protecting against the government’s re-centralization ambitions, some key mechanisms need to be considered. In some villages, even some resort owners still rent some parcels of land belonging to members of the Royal Family of the Yogyakarta Sultanate. From the perspective of reaping rent from land appropriated for tourism, the alliance has been shown to ensure the safety and security of the growth of tourism businesses in the Gunungsewu area. From the business owners’ perspective, joining this alliance will be more beneficial to ensure the security of renting/buying land in Gunungsewu for the establishment of tourism businesses than following new regulations imposed by the government. Moreover, and important to the respondents, is the fact that tourism businesses also create employment opportunities for the locals and increase the Gunungsewu per capita income up to 40% between 2015 and 2021.

To further protect the region’s business stability, the Provincial Government held several public hearings in 2020 on the old land ownership regulation in Yogyakarta based on the Sultanate policy. This regulation states that only local indigenous people in the Yogyakarta area have the right to land ownership. Non-indigenous people, including Europeans and Vreemde Oosterlingen (Foreign East such as Chinese, Arabs, and other non-European people), are only entitled to use and rent property, not own it. This regulation is designed to protect the ability of local indigenous people to own a plot of land from the threat of foreign investment. With this regulation and prolonged campaign from the provincial government, combined with the “special region” status of Yogyakarta, the regional government-business alliance has the legal position to control the investment climate in their area and resist against the national government’s intervention.

3.2. From Village to Regency: Forming Grassroot Alliances to Govern Tourism in Ciletuh-Palabuhanratu Geopark

In Ciletuh, tourism development in the established geopark was perceived as a new avenue for the village authority to regain control over the land, which was previously under the auspices of the National Centre of Nature Reserve Conservation (BKSDA), part of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The village authority’s land claim started in the very early days of the geopark program, with its cooperation with the Community Social Responsibility Program of PT Biofarma, a national company with an interest in the touristic use of natural resources. The struggle to claim the land was initiated through legal wranglings about allowing tourism activities in the conservation area under the BKSDA. PT Biofarma provided funding to initiate tourism activities. Through this cooperation, the director of PT Biofarma, the village head, the head of the conservation group, and academics from Universitas Padjajaran developed a close relationship.

After his election as a regional parliamentary representative in 2014, the former village chief’s younger brother became his successor as village head. In his new role, the former village head extended his business networks by involving his new acquaintances in the regional parliament. To secure power in determining land deals in the village, this new land-based network created a more established alliance. This alliance then involved many more members of the regional parliament and the Indonesian armed forces spreading information on land sales and prices through informal means and granting privileged access to settling resorts. Later, many more business owners established their tourism businesses in tourist areas without worrying about being disturbed by the National Centre of Nature Reserve Conservation.

The practice of securing land-based businesses went far beyond judicial proceedings to obtain legal ownership of land, including capitalizing land resources. In Ciletuh, informal means and backdoor agreements predominantly determined the processes for securing village ownership and dominating land deals. With this power to select and enable what and whose business may enter the village, the village head alliance has full authority to decide on the future direction of land-based tourism development in the village. In an interview with an official of the village government, the discourse of community-based development was employed as a powerful tool to resist the potential land-grab attempts from national state actors with their own business interests:

“The national government cannot contradict its development mission of village community welfare and sovereignty. Actually, we adopted this mission to protect our village from the business intention of the national government. We know that some national state actors have made some attempts to use our land for developing national business projects. But we must resist them until we get proper compensation. Until that time, we must base our land management on the spirit of local development, from local to local and for local.”

This business alliance continues to encourage local economic growth in the tourism sector. The alliance coordinates approximately 135 tourism accommodation businesses (including resorts, homestays, and hostels). Subsequently, the development of tourism accommodations also catalysed the growing number of local businesses such as souvenir shops, food stalls, mini-markets, and tour operators. The number of local guides (most of them non-certified) also increased–from only five local guides being counted in 2015, there were more than 100 local guides working either part-time or full-time in 2021.

At the same time, the alliance keeps the business network exclusive to ensure political stability and minimize potential conflict through the establishment of tourism businesses. To maintain the security of businesses, the village head instructs his group of local youth to control and sustain each business within their alliance. The business owners are also required to pay him a certain amount in protection fees every month. The business owners include these costs in their monthly business expenses. However, they perceive this as something beneficial, as they will have the assurance of safety and security for running their business. As a homestay owner explained:

“No problem if we have to provide monthly funds for safety and security services for the local organization. We are aware that our business has to support the economic growth of the local community, and this is one thing we can do. We can get full support from the local authority since we follow the administrative rule. The fund will benefit the local organization treasury to support their creative activities and needs.”

The informal business deals in the Ciletuh area are recognized and openly noted by both local authorities and business owners. This exclusive arrangement also involves bribery practices against the national authority to get informal permission to run businesses on state land. These deals also include many backdoor arrangements that the business owners make with both the local village and the national authority. However, most of the local community feel that the growth of business in the Ciletuh area has significantly improved their domestic economic income. They see many opportunities to gain more income by setting up small enterprises such as small food stalls, gift shops, and even construction services for resort construction and maintenance.

Seeing this land arrangement established by the village government, BKSDA claimed that the village government had transgressed the law. BKSDA tried to confront the resorts, but the village government and its alliance responded violently. This violent response on the part of the village government began when the BKSDA official attempted to re-map the BKSDA areas to update them after some communities had registered their land ownership under the agrarian land reform in 2010. BKSDA argued that the re-mapping program was necessary to resolve the tension between BKSDA and the village government over the division of land use. When the officers came to one of the forest areas, the village government group followed their activities with suspicion and eventually confronted them. The village government group intimidated the BKSDA officer with chopping knives and asked him to leave. On another occasion, another BKSDA officer claimed he had been verbally threatened by the village government group as he rode his motorcycle home from his office.

Based on an interview with a village government officer, the village government group admitted that some members threatened the BKSDA officer. However, they argue that the reason was to show that the local community has the power to confront the state’s authoritarian power. Their concern is that foreign investments will take over the village land after the state successfully gains legal ownership of the land. They did emphasize that their intention was not to injure the officers.

The village government sees the BKSDA attempts as “greedy practices” of the national government. Moreover, a local village officer argues that the national government intends to claim their area and convert it into large-scale FDI-fueled national tourism projects that will destroy the natural environment as foreign investors do not respect the local value and norms. Additionally, these projects will benefit the national government through land taxes, introduction of permits, and environmental taxes, possibly leaving regional tax coffers high and dry. The district government head even adds that the state is making the regional government suffer. The national government wants the district government to accumulate a certain amount of annual district tax revenue from built-up areas. The district government sees this as impossible since the national government has made the settlement of resorts and hotels more than 200 m² in size a national tax object and not a regional or district tax object. The district government can only collect tax revenue from housing settlements, which is very rare, especially in an era of COVID. The district government head’s dissatisfaction with the way the national government has created the tax policy has led him to support the village government alliance decision to confront the state’s authority.

4. Discussion

In these two examples of the tug-of-war between informal regional business practices and attempts to regulate them at a national level in a tourism context, a few things are worth reflecting on. In these cases, patrimonial land governance in Indonesian geoparks appears to be a form of struggle by the rentier class to ensure their benefits in the distribution of value. A key intention is to protect the land development from the intervention of foreign investors, facilitated by national policy and legislation, whom they assume are destroying the environment. In both cases, the business arrangements between the private and public sector at the regional level have been established since the Indonesian decentralization era. Those arrangements successfully generate a formal policy that supports business growth and investment in the alliance between the regional government and private business owners, thereby protecting themselves from the interests and aspirations of the national government.

Deviating from most geopark governance studies that focus on either top-down or bottom-up development approaches that successfully enable good governance arrangements in the European context (see [52,53]), this study shows that patrimonial governance and clientelism established in an informal setting took a much more active approach to boosting business and investment than the conventional wisdom of ‘good governance’ recommendations, which focus too much on free market dynamics and individual entrepreneurship, and critique the damaging effects of clientelism and rent-seeking. Against the policy of enabling environmental impact assessments, other documents successfully justified business feasibility and proved to be legal justifications for the clientelist order that is the prerequisite for the neo-patrimonial state of land governance, in which that clientelist order takes a more formal guise. In this sense, the new governance assemblage from informal setting emerged, deviating from the standard of top-down and bottom-up approaches in the development of UNESCO Global Geopark as addressed by Orus and Urqui [52]. These new assemblages then become dominant regulators in land use and management practice, against the state and free market interventions.

Resonating Kelsall [41], powerful actors in regional government have the essential goal of safeguarding land development from outside investors and influence through patrimonial governance. However, a new recentralization strategy through the Omnibus Law seeks to dissolve these regional governance arrangements by increasing the state’s interest in the use of the land. Because it restricts the local village’s ability to regulate land sales, the appearance of state control becomes a constraint to the new arrangement in the case of Ciletuh. In the case of Gunungsewu, a commercial agreement between the public and private sector results in the establishment of official policies encouraging the expansion of business growth of the regional alliance between the government and private businesses. Both cases thus demonstrate how the patrimonial system may spur economic growth and win over most of the population through long-term informal business agreements. In line with Rodrik [54], this informal form of clientelism has been considerably more active in promoting investment and business than the formal one. Clientelist orders that are successfully justified by policy serve as a precondition for the neo-patrimonial state of land governance, in which clientelist orders operate in a more official framework [19]. According to Rodrik [55], market failures often become a more severe issue and a barrier to growth than government failures in many post-colonial states. However, by promoting economic development and informal investment with business owners, this clientelist and patrimonial method of governance seeks to minimize the emergence of market failures [19,41].

5. Conclusions

This article shows that the growth of the tourism industry in the studied geopark areas is an important means of accumulating money used by numerous players at the local, regional or national level. The fragmented patrimonial system contending and vying for control in the tourism industry seems apt at benefit sharing and delivery. In the post-colonial era, the patrimonial system has been established culturally, which somehow engenders cultural adjustment in its governing practices. The patrimonial systems that emerged from informal settings have also been successful in practicing good governance arrangements in geopark tourism development that requires an intersection between scientific and commercial stakeholders to control the benefit-sharing between stakeholders and manage emerging conflicts [53]. To this, the new patrimonial governance assemblage also practically shows good governing practices through the protection of business interests. The protections somehow comprise the need to distribute benefits towards related stakeholders within the alliance that also simultaneously counter the state and free market interest in tourism accommodation investment projects.

Examining the development process in general, the patrimonial system of tourism governance in Indonesia’s geoparks is a double-edged sword. Contrary to common belief in the literature on ‘good governance’, this patrimonial system of governance effectively lowers the degree of poverty, defying the perception that ‘good governance’ based on free market redistribution is a key factor in promoting pro-poor growth [41]. In this context, policymakers can stop giving general answers for land administration and development in Indonesia and start tailoring their plans to the type of regional regime in place. However, the patrimonial system also includes a certain kind of exclusion that runs counter to the idea of good governance in the tourism sector. Considering this, future studies may focus on the specific form of exclusion and subordination, and the struggle to “not be excluded” by the logic of capital accumulation in the context of tourism.