Schein-Consulting, Titelblattgeschäfte, kick-back - Auftragsforschung als Instrument der Mittelumlenkung: Beobachtungen zum Wissenschaftssektor in Indonesien

Abstract

As in other countries, so too in Indonesia are foreign and multilateral development organizations funding research on economic, political and social issues. Usually the administration of research funds is monopolized by Indonesian government agencies. Civil servants are using these funds for increasing their income, frequently by ways officially illegal but widely applied. The paper analyses the different procedures and arrangements made by civil servants to privatize part of the research funds, and discusses the consequences for research in Indonesia. Decisions by the administration are taken in such a way that one of these procedures can be used with the lowest risk possible. Certain phenomena in the research scene which at first glance seem very strange to every western observer are better understood in this context. The bureaucratic rules for the supervision of funds set up by the foreign doners, demanding tenders and proper bookkeeping, are quite unsuccessful in limiting the misuse of funds. The paper argues that by a more decentralized system of funding and by strictly taking into account quality considerations in their funding decisions foreign doners could ensure that, to a higher degree than now, they support research instead of funding illegal extra income of government employees.