Connecting place and multilevel governance for urban river restoration

Figures & data

Table 1. Types of multi-level governance.

Aspects	Type I	Type II
Number of levels	Limited	Vast
Structure	Nested, hierarchical	Multiple, independent, competitive, polycentric
Purpose	General jurisdictions covering a wide range of functions	Specialised jurisdictions focused on distinct functions
Membership	By territorial boundaries No intersections across levels	By functional associations/goal orientation Intersections across levels/borders
Geographical scope	Mutually exclusive, cascading i.e., territorial scale of jurisdiction decreases across levels	Overlapping with variations in territorial scale, from global, interstate, regional, sub-municipal; organised by policy problems
Design	Systemwide, durable architecture, which is stable over a long period of time (although allocation of competencies across levels are flexible)	Flexible units, ad hoc, impermanent (come and go as demands for governance change)

Source: Hooghe and Marks’s (2017) ideal typical multilevel governance approaches.

Figure 1. Research design.

A diagram showing the embedded qualitative case design consisting of data collection conducted for the main case context of national and provincial programme level (indicated by a larger box) and two embedded units in Cimahi City and Bandung Regency (indicated by two smaller boxes inside the larger box). Data collection methods include interviews, participatory workshops and secondary documentation. This data collection period was subsequently followed by two data analysis phases (indicated by downward arrows going from data collection to analysis), including Phase 1 – coding and Phase 2 – thematic aggregation & explanations building.

Figure 2. Locations of embedded cases: Cimahi City and Bandung Regency (red lines show administrative boundaries).

Source: Google (2024) Cimahi City and Bandung Regency. Available at https://maps.google.com.

A map showing the geographical locations and administrative boundaries of Cimahi City and Bandung Regency within West Java Province. The side by side map also shows the much larger size of Bandung Regency in comparison to Cimahi City, whilst providing a sense that the latter is far more urbanised (indicated by predominantly gray colour of built up areas in the map).

Figure 3. Formal coordination structure of the Citarum Taskforce.

Source: Adapted from Citarum Taskforce coordination and implementation directives outlined in Presidential Regulation No.15/2018 and Citarum Action Plan 2019–2025.

An organisational diagram showing the hierarchical structure and coordinating lines between the national government, the Taskforce, the military commanders, the police force and the cities/regions and villages.

Table 2. Connecting multi-level governance with place-based conditions.

Governance modes	Approaches to navigating multilevel relationships	Place-based dynamics
Type I – Enforcement through militarised territories	Rigid military territories superimposed on river basin boundaries, ruled by physical means and social control through a prominently hierarchical approach.	The imposition of Type I military control was more suitable in the Cimahi context, with the unique combination of the following socio-material configurations: historically entrenched military power, playing a strong symbolic role and having an extensive physical presence across the city to enforce pollution control, a relatively small urban area and river territories overseen by two military sectors, facilitating quick removals of waste and monitoring of pollution, a closer interface between military, city officials, academia and industry players, which sowed a loose network of collaboration on greener industries. The approach was not well suited to the Bandung region with greater river territories to look after and shared by larger numbers of military sectors and geographically more dispersed sources of pollution across a mix of urbanising population and remaining agricultural communities. Political fragmentation also lessened the influence that military might have over local powerholders.
Type II – Muddling about in cross-jurisdictional ambiguities	Bioregional overlaps between river basin and administrative boundaries of cities, regencies and villages, ruled by decentralised governments with relative political autonomies from higher level governments and shared responsibilities in addressing environmental degradation; cross-level interplay appeals to the normative aspirations for vertical integration and horizontal coordination of collective actions.	Across Cimahi city and Bandung region – both represent politically autonomous decentralised governments – the Type II flexible and ad hoc coordination exercise holds no power over local offices. The normative call for policy integration was clear and the Taskforce has established programme-level priorities by involving relevant government agencies, but the restoration programme shows a low level of place-based legitimacy. Similar across both contexts, the dominant socio-material configurations include: a sense of disconnect between programme-level objectives and preferred on-ground developmental priorities, driven by local socio-political needs and aspirations, lack of technical and fiscal capacity of lower-level governments leading to missed opportunities to link with strategic national/provincial programmes and funding on environment and infrastructure development, a strong sense of autonomy across decentralised governments over how developmental priorities are set and contextualised within a given location, which may lead to inconsistent relationships across levels.
Type II – Emerging self-organisation and collaborative networks	Specific physical locations or sites (e.g., neighbourhood units, villages, river bodies) situated within the basin or locally manifested river-related issues/problems, which hold important meanings and values for different group(s) or networks of non-state actors and/or governments across different jurisdictions; the sense of place and attachment to those sites, in turn, embed specific environmental values and restorative practices.	Across Cimahi city and Bandung region, there were emerging and sporadic patterns of Type II polycentric arrangements, consisting of self-organised and semi-autonomous communities driving collective actions to address river pollution within their localities. In Cimahi, community-based initiatives took place in the neighbourhood units (or RW) whereas in Bandung the villages (or desa) were important sites of intervention. Despite geographical differences, the initiatives were influenced by some place-based configurations, including: a sense of place and stewardship for enrolling communities and fostering participation; collective actions were framed in in terms of contributing towards better quality neighbourhoods and built upon emotional attachment with the river and/or neighbourhood, place leadership in the formal and informal sense and with sensitivity to the varied conditions appear as key to connecting multiple actors around common issues, ambivalent discourses surrounding community participation, where communities were portrayed in either a positive or negative light. This leads to inconsistencies across different locations and require tailored approaches to fostering participation.

Figure 4 Military sectors in Citarum.

Source: Citarum Taskforce, 2021.

A map of Citarum catchment overlaid by 22 military sectors running along the entire river body from upstream in the Cisanti head region (south) down to the downstream low lying area in Karawang (north).

Hooghe, L., & Marks, G. (2017). Unraveling the central state, but how? Types of multi-level governance. Glob Gov, 97, 61–71. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315254234-12

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Citarum Taskforce. (2021). Revisi Rencana Aksi Pengendalian Pencemaran dan Kerusakan DAS Citarum.

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