Informality, Paradiplomacy, and Cross-Border Cooperation: The Development of Tourism on Bintan Island, Indonesia

This article examines how informality has enhanced the ability of the local government in Indonesia's Bintan Island to achieve cross-border cooperation for tourism development, despite the constraints imposed by the central government. The local government, the article illustrates, has negotiated between the development of the local tourism industry and its increasingly tense relations with the central government by using informality through patron-client relations. Informality has enabled the local government to mobilise private actors as proxies in its pursuit of cross-border cooperation. The government has also used international standards that govern the tourism industry in designated Free Trade Zones to accommodate local needs, such as employment. Informality provides local stakeholders with benefits from cross-border cooperation while simultaneously providing flexibility for foreign capital to operate in the region. The article concludes that informality is both an instrument that the local government can strategically use to circumvent the powers of the central government and something that local elites can use to maintain and expand patron-client relations to achieve their political and economic interests. Artikel ini mengkaji bagaimana informalitas telah meningkatkan kemampuan pemerintah daerah di Pulau Bintan, Indonesia, untuk mencapai kerja sama lintas batas dalam pengembangan pariwisata, meskipun adanya kendala yang diberlakukan oleh pemerintah pusat. Pemerintah daerah, menurut artikel ini, telah menggunakan pendekatan informalitas sebagai solusi untuk keterbatasan dalam melakukan kerjasama internasional. Informalitas telah memungkinkan pemerintah daerah untuk memobilisasi aktor swasta sebagai perantara dalam pencapaian kerja sama lintas batas. Pemerintah juga telah menggunakan standar internasional yang mengatur industri pariwisata di Kawasan Perdagangan Bebas yang ditetapkan untuk mengakomodasi kebutuhan lokal. Informalitas memberikan para pemangku kepentingan lokal manfaat dari kerja sama lintas batas sekaligus memberikan fleksibilitas bagi modal asing untuk beroperasi di wilayah tersebut. Artikel ini menyimpulkan bahwa informalitas merupakan instrumen yang dapat digunakan pemerintah daerah secara strategis untuk menghindari kekuasaan pemerintah pusat dan juga sesuatu yang dapat digunakan oleh elit lokal untuk mempertahankan dan mengembangkan hubungan patron-klien guna mencapai kepentingan politik dan ekonomi mereka.

Automated summary

This article examines how informality has enhanced the ability of the local government in Indonesia's Bintan Island to achieve cross-border cooperation for tourism development. The local government has successfully used informality through patron-client relations to negotiate between the development of the local tourism industry and its relations with the central government. Informality has enabled the government to mobilise private actors as proxies and accommodate local needs, while also providing flexibility for foreign capital to operate in the region.