Indonesia is one of new democratic country in the world compared with Western countries. The global economy is giving Indonesia a huge set of opportunity to accelerate the growth. Indonesia’ economic has performed well in recent years where economic growth, at arround 6 percen in the past 10 years, has made Indonesia one of the world’s fastest growing large economies. This condition also open the opportunity for this country to improve the democracy and public participation environment. It was the statement of Eko Subhan as a resource person in monthly seminar of IAP2 Indonesia held on 20 October 2014 in Jakarta.
Eko Subhan added that inaugation the President of Indonesia recently and the new election brought a change constellation of relationships and improving political systems. Pattern-elite public relations through social media show a new color in the social dynamics in the national level. The pattern of public participation in a process change in Indonesia as understanding the effectiveness of social media using by Indonesian people.
According to Eko Subhan, despite the fast economic and political changes, the government has not so strong to accommodate public participation in the process of legislation. A number of regulations governing public participation is limited in the field of corruption (PP No. 71/2000), education (PP No. 39/1992), spatial planning (Permendagri No. 56/2014). While in many other sectors, there is no clear policy guidelines regarding the public participation.
Therefore, stressed Eko Subhan, facing with challenges of economic and political process in the future, the government has to consider about the important of public participation, by provides opportunity for partnering/working jointly and strengthen citizen Power (citizen control, delegated power, and partnership). (Admin)