Assessing the value of ‘virus-based’ policies in Indonesia – Monash Lens

In recent social media conversations in Indonesia, citizens have been lamenting high taxes on goods purchased abroad. Earlier, the customs office also decided to limit the amount of goods that natural persons can import from abroad.

These events went viral and became hot topics on social media. People started calling the office “becuk” (a derogatory term indicating poor performance).

The staff of Indonesia’s Minister of Finance, Prastow Yustinus, then asked netizens (a term used to describe social media users in Indonesia) on X/Twitter if they were providing feedback that would make the current policy change work better to address their needs and concerns.

After receiving the information, the government decided to change its policy – namely not to limit the amount of goods brought abroad by Indonesian citizens.

Many people in Indonesia call this policy “virus-based”, and the sentiment on X/Twitter is: “If we don’t make noise about it to make it go viral, it won’t become policy again.”

Basic theories of virus policy

The term “virus policy” has negative connotations, and some issues of thought would only lead to policy solutions after intense discussion in the media and social media.

However, it is expected that decision-makers should know the problems based on scientific research and understand the evidence about “what works” best to solve the problem.

The question remains whether policymakers are able to correctly see and understand the evidence and further implement it in real policy frameworks?

Published research has shown policymakers’ limitations in recognizing the policy agenda and the regular use of heuristics, or shortcuts, to identify, assess and evaluate the importance of a particular issue and whether it requires policy intervention.

For example, in a groundbreaking work Agenda setting in public policy (2007), the author suggests that political actors can formulate issues to solidify their agenda in the policy-making process.

This suggests that policymakers should make the issue salient and attract public attention by competing with other issues to get it on the political agenda and develop policy around it.

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) theory also recognizes the role of coalitions or groups of people in spreading their shared beliefs throughout the political system to ensure that the issue gets noticed and enters the policy arena.

This theory suggests that policy can spread across government in a variety of ways, rather than the systematic application of scientific evidence that addresses problems and solutions in a linear fashion.

We argue that the term “virus-based policy” fits into realist thinking about the policy-making process, in which the use of scientific reports and evidence is not necessarily the determining factor in the design of policy instruments.

Citizens’ ideas expressed through advocacy and public campaigns can serve as a “shared idea or belief” in civil society that provides value to policy-making processes.

Is it inappropriate to base policy on the virality of an issue?

While not ideal, this type of approach to policymaking is highly feasible. When an issue goes viral, it can detect a “mismatch” between policy goals and policy outcomes, which can cause the policy to become poorly designed.

Policy learning through citizen input and feedback is also considered another way of shaping public policy, which is also characterized by and enables the development of social media activity.

Policy scholars have also noted that new information from citizens and non-state actors is perceived to influence policy reforms or change in existing form.

This networked governance structure enables short-term participatory policymaking processes involving multiple stakeholders.

While this is not considered “significant,” a short-term approach can also provide valuable insights because it often involves the process of gaining input in an intense environment.

This is because the decision-makers themselves have asked for such comments, which gives us a chance to present our evidence and information.

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According to Kingdon (1982), in the Multiple Streams Framework, the combination of policy (the need for new instruments), policy (a change in policy makers’ attitudes, e.g. willingness to listen to comments), and issue (limiting the quantity of goods) provides policy makers with the impetus to pursue policy reforms – which may also mean a return to to the status quo/previous policy.

However, the ideal situation would be to highlight opportunities to add momentum to the more meaningful and robust citizen participation process that sound policy requires. The more thoughtful and meaningful the participation, the more likely the input provided will be more relevant to better policy design.

There are risks in opening a window quickly and briefly for non-state actors (or citizens) to make their views known.

It provides only a small space for evaluation of policy implementation, which could have been given a longer period to ensure that more and better evidence of policy implementation emerges after evaluation.

With such a rushed process, it is understandable that citizens become angry and the government faces a backlash.

Should this practice be continued?

The Indonesian policy-making arena, in terms of law-making mechanisms, follows a cyclical, rational, step-wise linear process, starting with the agenda-setting process, the production of academic reports justifying the urgency of the issue requiring intervention, and ending with the evaluation of policy options.

A 2018 study, where agenda-setting processes can also take place at an intermediate stage, highlighted the problematic nature of back-and-forth.

Previous research indicates that Indonesia’s policymaking processes have almost never achieved a linear, step-by-step process.

But at the same time, there is a growing number of policy actors, such as knowledge brokers connecting evidence and policy and connecting different stakeholders to obtain perspectives that signal the urgency of the problem.

Virality may mean that it is an urgent issue requiring the attention of policymakers for change and reform, and therefore the practice of spreading the issue, while not ideal, may still have value.

In this sense, such value should be translated into the ability to engage society in policy change. Engagement can therefore deliver greater value if it occurs on a regular, fair and consistent basis throughout the policy cycle.

The act of creating space for engagement in a digital space where internet users actively contribute their voice to policymaking can still be seen as creative while policymakers gain public support for policy goals.

Nevertheless, if not managed within an engagement strategy that includes well-planned corrective actions, controversy can damage a government’s credibility and the legitimacy of dominant policies, thereby undermining their value to the publics they affect. (See the introduction to the book).

Therefore, when it comes to policy legitimacy, it is important to note that policymakers continue to play the role of sensing, assessing and identifying policy problems and corresponding evidence-based policy solutions.

It is this analytical capacity that is missing in this process, which is why virality becomes habitual practice.

We therefore argue that while virality has value, state actors still have a responsibility to sense and understand inherent problems and recognize the urgent need to address them through a variety of policy options.

This article was co-authored by Anne Aprina Priskila, a Master of Public Policy and Management graduate from Monash University in Indonesia.