PART II: POLICY MEANINGS: SCENE-SETTING AND STORY LINES IN
Chapter 5: Field research and main story lines
5.2 Interview selection
Field-level data were collected during three visits to Indonesia between 2011 and 2013.
An initial seven-day orientation and fact-finding visit was undertaken to the provinces of Jawa Barat (West Java), Nusa Tenggara Barat (or West Nusa Tenggara), and Nusa Tenggara Timur (or East Nusa Tenggara, including west Timor) in August 2011, facilitated by the Jakarta office of an INGO, Plan International. Following that visit, I conducted initial desk research about panti asuhan by examining documents about Indonesia, Indonesia’s social welfare programs, and panti asuhan as published by the Indonesian Government, the UN, UNICEF, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and INGOs, such as Save the Children, World Vision and Plan International.
Most of these documents were written in the English language. As a non-Indonesian language speaker, this step necessarily limited examination of documents not written in English, such as materials published on the Ministry of Social Affairs’ website about social welfare programs. To help overcome this limitation, I was assisted by staff from the Save the Children and Plan International offices in Jakarta, who helped to identify relevant Indonesian language publications and, where these appeared to relate to the study topic, to translate them either in summary form or in detail where appropriate.
A second visit to Indonesia was conducted between 15 and 24 February 2012, which involved 12 ‘helicopter’ or high-level interviews in Jakarta with senior Indonesian national government officials, senior UN, local Indonesian NGO and INGO officials, and university researchers. These interviews enabled me to gain a general appreciation of the role of panti asuhan and the factors that may have been at play in the policy change process. These interviews were arranged jointly through the Jakarta offices of Save the Children and Plan International on the basis of discussions between myself and senior representatives of these organisations about people in government and non- government circles who had either been directly involved with the policy change
process or who had closely observed it in a professional capacity. Save the Children and Plan International officers arranged all interviews and assisted with translation from Indonesian language to English when required. I also visited a national government- operated panti asuhan in Bandung (West Java), accompanied by Ministry of Social
Affairs and local Save the Children employees. Between the second and third field visits, I undertook further analysis of documents that were obtained during and after the February 2012 field visit.
A third round of in-country interviews was conducted between 7 and 25 January 2013.
As well as basic training in Indonesian language, this visit involved 29 interviews with 22 people (seven were interviewed twice), including with a member of the national Parliament, senior Indonesian Government officials, senior local provincial or district government officials in Bandung, and senior UN, INGO and national NGO staff, as well as academics and a journalist with a national newspaper. Once again, all interviews were arranged through the Jakarta offices of Save the Children and Plan International.
During that visit, a telephone interview was also conducted with a former employee of an INGO (then residing outside Indonesia) who had been closely associated with the Indonesian Government’s change of policy on panti asuhan. In August 2014, a further interview was conducted in Canberra with an employee of an Indonesia national NGO who had closely observed the panti asuhan policy development process.
In all, 43 interviews with 35 people were conducted for this study (see Appendix A for a full listing of organisations consulted). Apart from telephone and in-Australia
interviews, all interviews were held at interviewees’ offices, either in Jakarta or in Bandung. Table 5.1, below, provides a summary of interviews (see Appendix B for more detail on the interviews).
Table 5.1 Interviewee summary, 2012-14
Category Code Number of interviews held Number of interviewees
National politicians NP 1 1
National government officials G 14 12
Local provincial or district officials LG 2 2
INGO representatives (current or former) IN 10 8
National NGO representatives N 8 5
Academics A 4 3
Journalists J 1 1
UN officials UN 3 3
Total 43 35
To ensure that the widest possible range of perspectives was obtained about the policy change process, interviewees were selected from the following eight fields: national politics; national government; provincial or district government; INGOs; national NGOs; academia; the UN; and, the media. Interviewees were selected because they (or their organisation) had either been directly associated with the panti asuhan decision- making process as a government decision-maker, as an advocate for policy change, or had observed the process closely in a professional capacity.
Being able to interview senior government representatives, especially in the Ministry of Social Affairs, who had been directly involved with developing, recommending and implementing the policy change on panti asuhan meant that first-hand access was obtained to those most directly involved with the policy change process (apart from the Minister for Social Affairs at the time of the policy change, Bachtiar Chamsyah, who was later gaoled for corruption).
The identification of interviewees for the first and second round of field visits was made in consultation with staff at the Jakarta offices of Save the Children and Plan
International. My growing familiarity with key players enabled me to independently identify interviewees for the third field visit.
Appendices D and E respectively provide further information on the organisations consulted and on interview dates, types and locations.
I interviewed senior INGO representatives who had conducted research on panti asuhan as part of an advocacy campaign to have the Indonesian Government change its policy on children’s institutions. I also interviewed senior representatives of Indonesian research, media and local non-government organisations who had closely observed the panti asuhan policy change process and were able to relate this to other aspects of Indonesian politics and society. In addition to interviews with middle-ranking
representatives and officials, interviews were obtained at the level of Chairperson of a Komisi or Commission at the national political level (11 Komisi have been established as standing bodies of the House of Representatives, comprising members of the House of Representatives who undertake tasks such discussion and reporting on draft
legislation, the State draft budget and the implementation of laws and policies), at Director-General and Deputy Director-General level within national Government, at head of Provincial office level within local Provincial or district Government, at Chief Executive Officer level within INGOs and NGOs, at head of school/professor level within academia, at senior national social affairs editor level within a national English language daily newspaper, and at head of department level within a local UN office.
Access to such well-placed elite individuals meant that the data collected were more likely to contain high-level strategic insights than, say, with more junior or middle- ranking officials, or by relying only on published government documentation.
Enlisting the assistance of local INGO staff to arrange interviews and to assist with translations raised questions about potential bias. I was cognisant that these employees and their organisations might have had real or perceived conflicts of interest in the way that the research was conducted by me and its final outcome. For example, their advice to me about the selection of interviewees could have been influenced by a wish for me to speak only to those who were well-known to the INGO concerned so that the INGO’s ongoing country operations would not be compromised. Moreover, I was aware of the possibility that interviews with critics of the deinstitutionalisation policy initiative might be side-stepped, and that translations from Indonesian to English might, either
deliberately or inadvertently, lead to important nuances being missed.
I sought to minimise potential bias in several ways. First, by undertaking a document review and conducting three field visits over the span of 18 months I was able to develop a detailed understanding of the main issues, personalities and organisations connected with the policy change process. As noted above, by the third field visit I was able to identify by myself the people I wanted to interview by name or organisation.
With this knowledge, I was able to precisely advise my local INGO contacts about the people I wished to interview.
Second, over the course of three visits to Indonesia, I paid particular attention to informing my local INGO contacts about the progress of the study. I discussed with them the gaps in interviews that needed to be filled and obtained their suggestions about who to interview. Through this process of discussion, I felt I was given a range of
potential interviewees from which select, rather than being presented with a list of interviewees entirely determined by my local contacts. Third, I always asked
interviewees for their thoughts about other possible interviewees. Thus, I was able to widen the circle of advice beyond local INGO staff. In some cases, this technique led to additional interviews (occasionally, in the course of the initial interview or immediately after it).
Finally, I sought to reduce bias in translations from Indonesian to English language by thoroughly briefing my translators on the purpose, background and key terms and concepts being used in the study. Again, conducting the study over three field visits proved invaluable as my translators gained in-depth knowledge of my study and recognised that my level of understanding about key concepts and matters such as government programs required less and less explanation. Moreover, by the third field visit, my growing familiarity with key Indonesian terms allowed me to follow parts of conversations, thus helping to verify to some extent that translations covered the matters being discussed by the interviewee. Translation bias was also reduced because at least half of all interviewees conducted interviews in English. At times, my local translator would assist in explaining complex terms, but generally this type of assistance was not required.
All interviews were conducted in a semi-structured, conversational manner around two basic questions. First, in order to understand whether, and to what extent, interviewees either directly or indirectly influenced the decision-making process, all interviewees were asked: What was your role in the policy formulation process? Second, they were asked: Why did policy change occur? Supplementary questions included: Why did the change occur at the time it did? What made the policy change occur successfully? What problems were encountered? What had to be modified during the policymaking
process? Handwritten notes or audio recordings (or both) were made during each interview with the interviewee’s prior informed consent. I later transcribed these notes and recordings into a typed format.
To protect the identity of interviewees, each interviewee was assigned a code according to their respective professional field (see Table 5.1, above), the number of the interview
within a particular category, and the year of interview. For example, the first national government official interviewed during the January 2013 field visit was coded as interviewee GA-13, that is, ‘G’ for government official, ‘A’ to represent the first such official to be interviewed in that interview round, and ‘13’ to denote the year, that is, 2013.
Data obtained through interviews were coded and analysed to help make interpretations about why policy change occurred. Bozoki’s (2011) five steps for coding and analysis were followed, namely: first, being aware of barriers to the reliability of interview data, such as interviewer bias; second, identifying how key words and phrases reflect the interviewee’s subjective perceptions in contrast to ways that others construct the topic of research, such as a policy change; third, coding interviews in terms of the frequency with which key words and phrases appear; fourth, using other data sources, such as publications, to corroborate interviewee perceptions; and, finally, drawing inferences from the interview about policymaking.
Interview transcripts were analysed as follows. I identified key words and phrases contained in each transcript. Key words and phrases were coded in terms of the frequency with which they appeared. Transcripts that used similar words or phrases were grouped together to reflect affinities in perspective amongst interviewees. These groupings ultimately formed the basis for the categorisation of interviews into one of two basic story lines. Also, coding of transcripts helped to discern narratives within particular story lines, that is, nuanced perspectives and attitudes in support of a basic story line but that were different from perspectives of others who also supported the same basic story line. Finally, in keeping with Hajer’s encouragement to take into account broader contextual factors, unpublished Indonesian Government documents and secondary published materials were consulted to help analyse and reflect upon the various policy discourses and reconstruct and draw inferences about the dynamics of policymaking.
It should also be noted that extracts from interview transcripts are presented in Chapters 6-10 of this dissertation in order to highlight key themes. In these chapters, interviewee comments that do not directly relate to interviewer questions were omitted and are
marked with dots (…). Also, for the sake of concision, interviewer questions (see above) were omitted from the transcripts contained in these chapters.