The Failure of Minimum Service Standards Policy: An Analysis of State Capacity

Abstract

This study aims to uncover the failure of the Minimum Service Standard policy using analysis in terms of state capacity. Minimum Service Standards (MSS) are an effort to overcome inequality in Indonesia’s decentralization era. Various policy changes have been made, however, service achievements are not always optimal, which causes disparities between regions to be indisputable. This study uses a qualitative approach with a descriptive type by interviewing 11 informants who are the main actors of MSS in several ministries related to the field of MSS. The results showed that failures in implementing governance spread from coaching actors, namely the government and actors directly involved, namely local governments, and the non-collaborative policy-making process proved to weaken state capacity, so that MSS implementation policies failed to overcome public service inequality in the era of decentralization.
 Keywords: policy failure, minimum service standard, state capacity