Revisiting Crisis Governance: Toward Collaborative Crisis Management

Abstract

This chapter attends to three main modes of crisis governance: centralization, decentralization, and collaborative crisis management (CCM). While the first two modes focus almost exclusively on government actors, CCM goes beyond them by involving private sectors and civil society. CCM is a more robust form of crisis governance since it combines knowledge and resources from multiple actors, which is a key to managing the more complex nature of modern crises. This chapter uses the case of Indonesia in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic to show the dynamics of crisis governance. Indonesia moved from a centralized mode of crisis governance toward a more decentralized one. Simultaneously, there were several collaborative initiatives involving multiple stakeholders to deal with the crisis, such as in the case of SONJO. The case illustrates that while CCM provides a more effective response, it has some limitations as it has a smaller scale, may create internal conflict, lacks sustainability, and has a nonbinding character. The experience of Indonesia lends the lesson that for CCM to be robust crisis governance, and there needs to be a clear arrangement to boost its scale, manage internal conflict, improve sustainability, and induce a more permanent and binding framework.

1. Introduction

As the world is moving toward its more sophisticated version, numerous crises have become the order of the day. Crises have presented the world with their challenging nature, be they natural or man-made. The most current incidence of the COVID-19 pandemic has attracted both academia and practitioners to present a more solid response, and this begins with finding the most appropriate—if not the best—mode of crisis governance [1].

In developing the mode of crisis governance, scholars are divided into two camps. One camp argues that as a crisis requires prompt and decisive responses, a centralized mode of governance is preferable [2, 3]. The opposing camp contends that crisis has multiple causes and effects, necessitating a more localized, contextual response and, as a result, a more decentralized mode of governance [4, 5].

Moving beyond these dichotomous debates, some argue that the choice of governance mode depends highly on contextual, situational, and institutional factors [6, 7]. Some crises, such as wars and economic crises, are better dealt with centralized governance; others, such as pandemics, are better dealt with a more decentralized mode of governance; and still others use a combination of both.

This chapter extends the debates by presenting the third mode of governance, namely collaborative crisis management (hereinafter CCM). CCM refers to an arrangement where multiple stakeholders from different sectors and backgrounds work together to manage a crisis [8, 9]. It argues that, as a crisis brings multiple challenges, involving more stakeholders, including nongovernmental actors with different responsibilities and resources, presents an alternative mode. However, for CCM to be effective, there needs to be a clear arrangement of responsibilities and interactions among these multiple actors.

To pursue this argument, this chapter reviews the existing literature on crisis governance, focusing on the debates among different camps of scholars. Focusing on CCM, it employs the case of Indonesia in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The case was chosen since Indonesia represents a complex institutional choice where it has initially applied centralized governance and then moved toward more decentralized management. In the latter episodes of the pandemic, Indonesia turns to nongovernment actors for more collaboration. The effective work of CCM is illustrated by the case of SONJO. SONJO stands for Sambatan Jogya, a Javanese culture that emphasizes solidarity, collaboration, and mutual support. It is a bottom-up approach to dealing with the pandemic, focusing on vulnerable and high-risk societal groups most affected by the pandemic. It uses several WhatsApp groups to accomplish the mission by distributing information on the community’s health condition, distributing health and food supplies, promoting small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) through online platforms, and initiating vaccine provision for the low-income and rural communities.

This chapter employs a qualitative documentary study by using both primary and secondary documents from various sources [10]. These documents are used in a reflexive process to uncover the moral and political underpinnings behind the text [11]. It assesses government policy documents in responding to and dealing with the pandemic as well as previous research on the same topic. The focus of the analysis is on the dynamics of the choice of crisis governance. In illustrating the case of SONJO, it uses various publications and especially discussions in various WhatsApp groups under SONJO, where the author has been an active member.

This chapter is organized as follows: the following section starts by presenting the theoretical foundation by elaborating on the literature on centralization, decentralization, and CCM. It assesses the advantages and disadvantages of each crisis governance mode. It then discusses the case of Indonesia in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, which moves from highly centralized governance toward a more decentralized mode. It then presents the case of SONJO to illustrate the move toward more collaborative crisis governance. This chapter concludes with some drawn lessons and implications.

2. Crisis governance in perspective

2.1 Decentralization-centralization debate

Crisis governance has attracted academic enterprises for decades. As the world is moving toward a more sophisticated version, crises have become part of daily life, from war to economic downturn, from pandemic to natural disaster. A crisis is a critical juncture with consequential and far-reaching effects on both institutions and societies [12].

Crises are always associated with events involving complex policy choices and tricky political and ethical dilemmas. This is because crises deal with situations where “cherished national, organizational, and personal values are at stake” ([13], p. 3). As a result, crises can jeopardize a society’s high-priority goals, present time constraints and pressure, and surprise the society. That is also why crises always contain not only uncertainty but also urgency and a threat to certain basic values. They create ambiguity and risk, which require prompt, critical, and potentially irreversible decisions ([14], p. 158). While some crises are natural and technical, their management requires a much more complex social and political process, which may lead to institutional complexity or even paralysis.

The institutional complexity posed by a crisis deserves further elaboration as it dictates whether a crisis can be managed well or creates further complications. This institutional complexity has both a horizontal dimension that concerns numerous agencies at the same level of government and a vertical dimension that covers different actors from different levels of government [9]. To these two dimensions, it is also important to add the third dimension, namely the diagonal dimension, dealing with the involvement of nongovernment actors across sectors. As crises have become more complex and given the limited capacities of the government to deal with them, it has become increasingly important to involve actors from all backgrounds. Therefore, the whole-of-government approach must be transformed into the whole-of-nation approach [15].

Even with such a relaxation of the unitary assumption of the state, one must realize that as the world is moving toward more globalized interaction, crises also contain a global (not only domestic) dimension. This implies that crises beg attention to the international aspect, where global actors, values, and preferences may come together or clash. Therefore, the management of certain crises on a global scale must also consider such global dynamics. Even the traditional approach to the studies of epidemics and pandemics, for example, has come to realize the importance of the global context as they are restricted within and by national boundaries [16].

This discussion sets the background for the importance of understanding crisis governance. Reliable crisis governance will provide credible warnings and forecasts and emergency responses once a crisis develops [1, 17, 18]. Credibility is explained by differing institutional contexts and governance structures among countries [19].

Departing from the institutional approach, crisis governance is divided into two main camps: centralization and decentralization.¹ The choice of either camp has spurred a lasting debate concerning its workability in ensuring efficient communication and coordination, which are key to successfully dealing with a crisis [21].

2.1.1 Centralization mode

The centralization mode aspires to a more command-and-control governance where the decision-making process centers on one specific point only. This might refer to the national government where a specific body of crisis management is responsible for making the decision and monitoring its implementation. It could also manifest in the domination of the government over nongovernment actors. The other form is when political deliberation gives way to the technocratic process by, for example, constraining, undermining, or even bypassing the parliament’s scrutiny and legislative power [22]. The implementation of that decision could be either centralized or decentralized.

The centralization mode is argued to work better for decisive and prompt decisions in responding to a crisis where the cost of delay is high [4, 23]. Goetz [20], for example, shows that the need for action by the national government sometimes contradicts the time-consuming nature of democratic deliberation and therefore requires a much simpler and concentric arrangement. At worst, democracy may compromise the effective response and management of certain crises, such as nuclear leakage or natural disasters. These types of crises are better left to those with expertise, seniority, and experience, leading to only a limited number of leaders, and they may override the claims of democracy [14].

Wang and Wang [23] also argue that as a crisis may bring together different institutions with different preferences and priorities, leading to complex multisector cooperation, a special and centralized chain of command is required to coordinate a joint response. This line of reasoning is consistent with Tsebelis’ [24] claim that more concentric governance, i.e., fewer veto players, leads to decisive policy. Centralized governance creates a clear point of accountability, and this provides an institutional incentive for a more responsive polity. When one specific unit in a polity is responsible for managing a crisis, the pressure for performance is strong since people can easily identify where to point their finger for either fame or shame. The pressure serves as an incentive for the unit to perform its best, resulting in good policy delivery.

The presence of a centralized body also enables a clear and well-coordinated release of information for the public, not to create further complications, uncertainty, and stress [25]. Under crisis circumstances, valid and credible information is critical. Information may come from different sources, but only one single institution must be responsible for managing and disclosing such information. Jin et al. [26] maintain that under crisis, effective information communication is critical as the public has many alternative sources of information due to the development of social media. This development may (mis) lead to different reactions and policy directions unless crisis communication professionals can address it. Moreover, as many polities tend to employ a multidisciplinary crisis management team to present a more comprehensive response [27], centralized control is needed.

For the sake of efficient decision-making and when there is a lack of trust in the locals, centralization is also preferable [4]. The issue of local trust is important as there is always tension between the national and subnational governments in both unitary and federal states. Mishra [28] introduces four dimensions of trust, namely competence, openness, concern, and reliability. These components are argued to be negatively correlated to centralization of decision-making, undistorted communication, and collaboration within and between organizations during a crisis.

Despite its merits, the centralization mode is broadly criticized for its limitations. One criticism focuses on the danger it puts on democratic governance. Some crises are so complicated that public participation concerning information and resource sharing is critical. Moreover, since centralization frequently bypasses the political process, it is deemed a nondemocratic mode that leads to a legitimacy crisis, or what Maatsch and Cooper [22] dubbed “governance without democracy.” Goetz [20] also maintains that concentration of authority due to urgency runs the risk of policy and political legitimacy. Against the liberal democratic view of democracy, the civic-republican tradition calls for a more democratic decision-making process, which manifests itself in the issue of participation, inclusion, and deliberation [29]. Therefore, the need for a rapid response must be arranged in such a way as not to time-out democratic procedures while keeping pace with such rapid development [30].

A unified and centralized mode of governance is deemed susceptible to error or even abuse of power. Reflecting on the case of Chinese crisis governance, Bardhan [31] raises his concern for such a risk as centralized governance lacks sufficient downward (and horizontal) accountability and there is no sufficient mechanism for scrutiny and checks. The polities with this system are prone to overreaction to a crisis and therefore less resilient. These criticisms give way to the development of the second camp, which aspires to a more decentralized mode of crisis governance.

2.1.2 Decentralization mode

The decentralization mode argues that it promises better adaptation, a stronger division of responsibility, and enhanced room for innovation [4, 7]. Certain types of crisis, especially ones of local magnitude, require adaptation or contextualization. Decentralization enables such adaptation, through which, crisis responses adjust to local conditions, utilize local knowledge, and maximize local potential.

Decentralized crisis governance can also provide a strong avenue for coordination, provided that there is a free flow of communication among actors [21]. The reason why coordination is difficult under decentralized governance is because of the self-centered orientation among actors, but this can be addressed by developing several channels of communication. This communication will reduce uncertainty as each actor may internalize the risk his/her decision poses to others. When information is important and uncertainty is high, as is typical in many crisis circumstances, actors will communicate more. As a result, decentralization does not have to mean sacrificing a quick and decisive policymaking process. On the contrary, it improves the quality of the policymaking process on the one hand and enhances effective policy implementation on the other hand, making decentralized governance a key benefit for effectively dealing with crises. Under such an arrangement, the central unit may still exist, but it functions more as an information aggregator and communicator.

Decentralized crisis governance also has the benefit of putting the control of crisis management in the hands of those closest to society. Following the subsidiarity or delegation principle, the local managers assume more responsibility, a sense of crisis, and the capacity to adapt to new developments [7]. As they are front-liners, working closely and directly with the people, they are under constant pressure to perform their best. This requires discretion and flexibility as well, and decentralization provides just that [32]. The opposite is also true: local managers are highly frustrated when confronted with pressing issues such as crises right in front of them without sufficient power delegation. This may lead to strategic evasion when actors are pointing fingers at each other in an unfriendly situation [33].

Finally, decentralized crisis governance is preferable when there is strong organizational commitment. As discussed previously, centralization is frequently triggered by—and triggers—distrust. When there is a strong commitment toward a common goal that leads to mutual trust, decentralization may prevail [34]. The other situation would be when there is visionary leadership and active citizenry [35].

These dichotomous perspectives have still provoked lasting debates among scholars. One of the immediate outcomes of such debates is the development of a new perspective trying to combine both perspectives. The two perspectives are not mutually exclusive, and they have both advantages and disadvantages [34]. Hlepas [35], for example, maintains that crisis governance, just like many other types of governance, must be able to strike a balance between responsiveness and responsibility, between democratic legitimacy and social acceptability. Crises indeed require a prompt and decisive response. However, given its irreversible nature, there has to be a mechanism to ensure the quality of the response, and this may lead to the need for more consultation or participation. Moreover, participation and decisive response may go together and are mutually reinforcing. This progression resulted in the introduction of a third approach known as “collaborative crisis management,” “joint crisis management,” or simply partnership. The following section will discuss this approach.

2.2 Toward collaborative crisis governance

Reflecting on the merits and perils of both centralized and decentralized modes of crisis governance, some experts called for a complementary, if not a supplementary, mode of crisis management. Simply defined, CCM is “the joint efforts of multiple autonomous actors to work across organizational borders, levels of authority, and sectors to prepare for, respond to, and learn from risks and extreme events that disrupt our modern society” ([8], p. 1). It refers to “the collective efforts of multiple autonomous actors working across organizational boundaries, levels of authority, and sectors to prepare for, respond to, and learn from risks and extreme events that disrupt our modern society” ([9], p. 512). This implies an integration of knowledge, information, and experiences, which are then transformed into collective actions.

The introduction of CCM is in line with the development of an enormous literature on collaborative governance. Defined as an administrative or political arrangement that directly and actively engages non-state actors, especially in a collective decision-making process based on the principles of consensus and deliberation to achieve specific collective goals [36], collaborative governance has been introduced extensively on many policy fronts at local, national, and global levels. The new arrangement is deemed important not only for technical purposes but also for more fundamental goals that deal with the principles of democracy. Collaboration, at the very least, increases policy, government, and state legitimacy [37]. CCM is then a mix of collaborative public management and crisis management [38].

CCM comes in different manifestations. One would be where several national government agencies form a joint crisis management unit, normally by putting their representatives into an ad hoc or permanent body. The second form would be the establishment of a joint unit consisting of both national and subnational representatives or where different levels of government are assigned different types of responsibilities. This type of CCM is known as concurrency [17]. The last type of CCM is the involvement of various government and nongovernment actors from different backgrounds in a loosely knit, function-based arrangement. They may have different types and degrees of contribution, but all are oriented toward the same goals. In some cases, as crises move beyond national jurisdiction, a collaborative arrangement at the regional or global level is sometimes called for, implying a regional or global collaborative crisis management [7].

The introduction of collaborative crisis management is in line with the nature of crises and the development of modern society in general. Bynander and Nohrstedt ([8], p. 1) maintain that modern society is facing complex and uncertain risks and hazards and that there needs to be an institutional arrangement and governance approach that “enables flexible solutions and responses based on capacities to innovate, improvise, and adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and complex problems.” They call for the “mobilization of more diverse networks of organizations that pool different mandates, resources, skills, and capabilities,” something the traditional hierarchical bureaucracy cannot do. This implies a paradigm shift from a simple dichotomous approach of decentralized-centralized arrangement to a more complex arrangement. Moreover, crises are sometimes too complex to be managed by one single actor. Therefore, managing crises in an increasingly complex world requires a radical shift from the whole-of-government or whole-of-society paradigm toward the whole-of-nation paradigm [15].

In its application, CCM may come in different forms. The ideal situation is one in which all stakeholders from the government, private sector, and civil society collaborate in formal or mostly informal arrangements. In several cases, the government only collaborates with the private sector because it has more resources, such as supplies, and the capacity to produce better results [39, 40]. The last form of CCM is when the government collaborates with civil society actors such as NGOs. They work closely and more effectively with the most vulnerable groups, as they have a strong line of communication and respect, which can reduce distrust [41]. Civil society can also coproduce responses to a crisis, either directly by supplying needed resources or by simply complying with crisis countermeasures [42].

Popular as it is, CCM requires careful arrangement as there are several points of concern. A more collaborative mode of crisis governance must also be arranged in such a way as to avoid a strong disposition toward a joint decision trap or institutional rigidity [12]. Bringing more people implies more views and interests, and they may run against each other. If such a propensity cannot be managed effectively, then institutional paralysis—or at least policy paralysis—may develop. This concern has become the subject of intricate debates among scholars. Parker and Sundelius [9], for example, maintain that despite its popularity, collaborative crisis management needs to address five common failures: imagination, initiative, coordination and cooperation, credibility, and learning. To avoid this, there has to be “the mobilization of critical knowledge and scientific advice to improve planning, training, preparedness, capacity building, and, when needed, the effective management of crises.”

A similar concern is also raised by Larsson [43]. He maintains that the emergence and presence of collaborative crisis management networks involving public and private actors imply a major managerial challenge for public authorities. In a formal sense, public authorities must initiate and maintain various organizational architectures and technical systems to facilitate functional collaboration in loosely and temporarily composed arrangements. The collaborating actors from different backgrounds must communicate effectively to reach an informed decision under pressing and uncertain conditions. He argues that for a collaborative crisis arrangement to be effective, managers or people in charge must attend closely to the nature of relationships and the potential deadlocks of such a system.

To address this concern, CCM requires strong and effective leadership as it must bring together different, sometimes opposing, views and interests into a single direction [44]. There is ample evidence that the lack of leadership led to poor crisis handling, which caused loss of life and property [45, 46]. Using the case of Turkey, Kapucu and Ustun [47] show that core leadership competencies have a significant effect on the effectiveness of crisis management. They categorized leadership competencies into three types—task-oriented, people-oriented, and organization-oriented—and found that task-oriented competencies have the most significant positive effect on the effectiveness of crisis leadership. This deals with the problem-solving and innovation and creativity management competencies. The other types of competencies have more moderate yet positive effects.

Moving beyond leadership and other technical or managerial concerns, CCM needs to be approached critically. Persson and Granberg [38] expressed concern about the scope of collaboration, which they believe will limit its capacity. Cristofoli et al. [48] maintain the importance of legitimacy and accountability. Similarly, Parker and Sendelius [9] revisited core assumptions of CCM by focusing on several areas such as starting points, level of collaboration, goal formulation, adaptation, involvement, role of non-state actors, and the prevalence and impact of political fighting. For example, whether a crisis management unit should rely strictly on previous arrangements with familiar partners or whether a new scheme of collaboration should be introduced to involve more partners. This deals with the question of the stability and flexibility of CCM, and the answer to this question may be contingent upon the type and scale of the crisis. Also important is whether a CCM adopts a bottom-up or a top-down process. There is also a question of the nature of non-state actor involvement, should it be formally institutionalized or be arranged informally on an ad hoc basis? The most intricate question is political infighting. As crises create tension, conflict among collaborators may emerge, and there needs to be a ready mechanism for conflict resolution and management, such as a conflict management plan, clear participation channels, and transparency mechanisms. Addressing these and other questions is key to effective collaborative crisis management. The authors remind us that while crisis management requires certainty and stability, there is also a need for adaptation, adjustment, and innovation. Striking a balance among these values would be a daunting challenge, and this epitomizes effective collaborative crisis management as well.

This section concludes that the crises we are facing now and then are more complex than before. They are more turbulent and characterized by surprising, inconsistent, unpredictable, and uncertain features ([49], p. 949). Dealing with this new, more turbulent problem cannot rely on a predefined plan or system, especially that of bureaucratic mechanisms and some form of adhocracy. Turbulent crises require “cross-border collaboration, public innovation, and, perhaps most importantly, the development of robust governance strategies that facilitate and support adaptive and flexible adjustment and entrepreneurial exploration and the exploitation of emerging options and opportunities” ([49], pp. 949-950). CCM has to be arranged in such a way as to realize robust crisis governance.

3. The case of Indonesia: from centralization to collaboration

To illustrate the move from a dichotomous crisis arrangement to a more collaborative one, this section will use Indonesia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a showcase. Indonesia is among the countries most hit by this pandemic. As of May 2022, it had confirmed 6,052,764 confirmed cases, with 156,534 deaths, or 2.6% [50]. Since the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in March 2020, Indonesia has undertaken several policy changes that reflect the fragility of its crisis governance.

Legally speaking, Indonesia has no specific mechanism for dealing with a crisis. The effective law closest to crisis management is Law 24/2007 on Disaster Countermeasures. The law sets some key principles in disaster management by stipulating the principles of togetherness, synergy, and partnership. The main responsibilities for disaster management rest with the national government and subnational governments. The law also stipulates the role and function of civil society and the private sector, the concrete implementation of which must accord with government policy. While this legal framework aspires to collaborative management, its real implementation confirms the superiority of government.

3.1 From centralization to decentralization

In the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic (March 2020), the Indonesian government employed highly centralized pandemic management by establishing the Covid-19 Task Force led by the head of the National Disaster Countermeasure Agency. The agency is responsible for coordinating all other ministries and agencies and, to a very limited extent, provincial governments concerning decision-making and implementation. The arrangement confirms the centralist nature of CCM. By law, this is because of the nature of the pandemic, which is national and even global. This approach has provoked negative regional sentiment and several regions took different measures from what Jakarta decided. When the president declared Covid-19 as a national emergency in late March 2020, there were strong regional calls for the introduction of quarantine or lockdown. However, the president decided to instead implement the large-scale social restriction, arguing that Indonesia has learned from other countries’ bitter experiences with quarantine and there has to be room for economic activities and people’s mobility. Such preference provoked an even stronger regional opposition and several subnational governments take opposing measures to contain the virus. This is evident in local policy measures such as local lockdown, partial lockdown, and regional quarantine as shown in Table 1. This intergovernmental tension pinpoints the institutional root of crisis management paralysis when centralized directives were introduced under a highly decentralized arrangement [51].

Initiatives	Meaning	Subnational governments
Temporary lockdown	Closing two main streets to limit citizen activities	Surabaya City
Regional quarantine	Limiting access to and from the city in 19 strategic points	Surabaya City
Regional isolation	Isolating only regions with infected cases	East Java Province
Extended social restriction	Limiting people’s mobility to and from Papua by closing the airport and seaport while applying social distancing	Papua Province
Humanitarian isolation	Requesting the citizens to undertake self-isolation by staying at home and limiting travel activities	Bekasi City
Local lockdown	Restricting people’s mobility to and from the region	Sorong City; Mamberamo Municipality; Tasikmalaya Municipality
Semi-lockdown	Closing schools and tourism objects as well as restricting religious activities	Solo City
Full local lockdown	Restricting all incoming and outgoing cars and passengers	Tegal City
Territorial quarantine	Restricting people’s mobility to the region by reducing the operation of ships and planes while strictly inspecting cars	Toli-Toli Municipality
Partial lockdown	Restricting people’s mobility to and from the infected community	Banda Aceh City
Local isolation	Isolating several villages with infected cases	Magetan Municipality
Cluster isolation	Isolating the infected and patients under supervision in hospitals and isolating people without symptoms in their community	Medan City

Table 1.

Variations in subnational policy responses (March–April 2020).

Source: Author’s analysis from various sources.

The way the government responded to the pandemic in this initial phase has led to public confusion, frustration, and distrust [52]. As the pandemic has spread nationally, there have been strong calls for better and stronger inter-organizational and inter-jurisdictional collaboration [53]. This includes the involvement of the local government in both the decision-making and implementation process. For this reason, the national government changed its policy course. On April 13th, 2020, President Jokowi Widodo made a radical change. After promulgating COVID-19 as a national disaster, he extended the scope of the crisis management response team by incorporating governors, mayors, and regents. The president also ordered the establishment of the COVID-19 Task Force at each level of government. At the same time, the national government developed several guiding principles for subnational governments to follow through on. Through the Minister of Finance, the national government even tightened the conditions for budget disbursement, focusing local spending on the COVID-19 handling. At this stage, the national government introduced a combination of centralized decision-making with decentralized implementation, leading to a concurrent arrangement [17]. The arrangement is partly collaborative in the sense that it involves both national and subnational governments. The arrangement has eased the intergovernmental tension and led to a more effective response than before. There has been no further tension since then, marking more concerted action and certain policy direction once lost in the initial period of the pandemic. This arrangement holds up to the time when the chapter is written.

While government response to the pandemic has become much more effective as a result of the crisis governance change, many scholars and practitioners deem it insufficient. Some call for a more community-based system. Dewi and Setyaningsih [54] show the importance of government-private sector collaboration in dealing with patient handling. Similarly, Yuda et al. [55] call for the development of a community-based support system to help people, especially vulnerable groups, better cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Such a call is important, but it is insufficient. Dealing with a crisis of a turbulent type such as COVID-19 requires more collaborative efforts, and though Indonesia has no formal mechanism yet, there are examples to support the call. SONJO is a case in point.

3.2 SONJO: a collaborative arrangement

SONJO—a traditional form of a communal initiative based on Javanese values, which transforms time and labor to counterweigh the dearth of capital—was established on March 24th, 2020, by some NGO activists and academia in Yogyakarta. The reason behind the initiative was the slow and erratic response of the government in the face of rapid COVID spread. The organizers argued that Indonesia cannot rely solely on the government and that additional initiatives are urgently needed. SONJO ran its campaign through simple WhatsApp groups, given the fact that Indonesians spend an average of 3.5 h per day accessing social media on various platforms. Since its establishment, SONJO has had 2300 members from different backgrounds and institutional affiliations—medical doctors, nurses, hospital managers, researchers, academia, NGO activists, religious leaders, public figures, donors, government officers, and army and police officers—spread throughout 29 WhatsApp groups. Each group dealt with different concerns such as care logistics, supporting facilities (ambulances, tents, and self-isolation shelters), empowerment of small and medium-scale enterprises, exports, transportation, vaccination, and even policy. The group also launched a voluntary scheme of social bidding whereby anyone may take part in responding to the needs shared through the groups. For example, when the vaccination program was first launched, SONJO offered vaccine bidding to its members, and the members may have donated some amount of money to purchase the vaccines and distribute them to the most needy groups [56].

SONJO uses integrity, transparency, empathy, and synergy as its working values. This is due to the nature of the initiatives, which are entirely voluntary and rely on Javanese social capital. All information regarding the development of the COVID cases, logistical needs and conditions, and government policy were shared, discussed, and responded to through the groups that linked to different sectors. Some decisions were not binding but rather an offer that is adjustable. Its commitment is to let no one despair. To monitor the progress and plan for further action, a weekly webinar was held, involving resource persons from various backgrounds. The webinar was a platform for information exchange and the formulation of concrete agendas, focusing on practicality and efficiency.

Given the complexity of the crisis and the paucity of government policy responses, SONJO launched several schemes (Table 2). In the health aspect, the SONJO Husada provided hospitals with necessary logistics that the government could not provide, assisted innovators to develop new health equipment, arranged for plasma donors, arranged for referral systems across hospitals, undertook collaborative and voluntary fundraising to support shelters and volunteers, offered teleconsultation, launched a pilot project for medical waste management in shelters, handled dead body treatment and funerals, and sponsored mass vaccination. Concerning mass vaccination, the crowdfunding managed to provide 563,085 doses for communities in Yogyakarta and Central Java. The total value of the donation was USD 81,761 [56].

Cluster of activities	Description
SONJO Angkringan	Regular online sharing sessions involving policy makers, politicians, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, practitioners, NGO activist, and academia, dealing with the effects of the pandemic and how to respond to them
SONJO Husada	Online sharing sessions and response management in health sector covering logistical supplies, referral system, vaccine provision for vulnerable groups, shelter management, death handling, and teleconsultations
SONJO Pangan	Organizing catering services for isolated patients and online food promotion and trading
SONJO Migunani	Supporting and organizing crowdfunding for social protection, online education such as online business tutorials, and food processing, fashion show, and online trading
SONJO Solidarity Journey	Comparative knowledge and experience sharing with global partners

Table 2.

Summary of SONJO’s activities.

Source: author’s analysis from http://sonjo.id.

In terms of the economic aspect, the SONJO Pangan started by developing a food database containing information on groceries, traditional markets, and restaurants. It also promoted culinary products, especially during the holy month of Ramadhan, followed by promoting hampers on certain occasions. SONJO also promoted wedding and event organizations using the COVID-19 protocol while simultaneously promoting the export of SME products. It also supported the distribution of logistics to patients in shelters by collaborating with traditional merchants. The isolated patients were also provided with catering services. Of these economic initiatives, SONJO Pangan (Food 1 and Food 2) is the most notable one as it offers a digital platform for SME business transactions at the local, regional, and national levels. SMEs’ turnover has declined by no less than 70% during the pandemic, so SONJO initiated the platform to boost SMEs’ economic resilience and help them survive the pandemic. In total, SONJO connected 726 food-based SMEs, 37 mini markets, 216 traditional markets, and culinary stalls with buyers nationwide [57].

SONJO has received national and international recognition for its performance. At the national level, SONJO was made a best practice for a bottom-up and collaborative initiative with significant impacts. Initially developed in Jogyakarta, SONJO was then replicated by other local governments such as West Java Province, Magelang Municipality, OKU Timur Municipality, and Lingkar Muria Municipality. While SONJO offered limited schemes of crisis management, it illustrates several important lessons. First, it manages to bring together multiple actors with various backgrounds, all sharing the same concern about dealing with the pandemic. When the new crisis management system was in place and the pandemic had stabilized, President Jokowi was quoted repeatedly expressing his concern about the importance of building and strengthening collaboration. This includes not only collaboration between levels of government, but also collaboration between government, the private sector, and civil society [58, 59]. He maintained it not only for stronger domestic collaboration but also for better international cooperation. Such insistence is in line with the most current research. Thielsch et al. [60], for example, propose that a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic is a very complex emergency that cannot be handled by individuals, an organization, or even a country. Instead, it requires multidisciplinary crisis management teams at different levels and sectors, highlighting the importance of a collaborative arrangement. Experiences from China, for example, reveal that “good governance requires more than an executive capacity based on command-and-control. It is necessary to develop the ability to work with stakeholders outside the bureaucratic system” [61].

SONJO’s experience also confirms that multi-actor collaboration can be established informally based on the principles of voluntariness and solidarity. Such an arrangement presumes the presence and functionality of social capital. Most current research shows that social capital contributes positively and significantly to the control of the pandemic, the absence of which will lead to adverse outcomes [62, 63, 64]. The remaining concern for such an arrangement is to apply effective management to avoid conflict among actors by, among others, developing incentives, mutual interdependence, and trust [65]. There were some occasions in SONJO when differences among members led to conflict and actions were delayed since each member is an equal partner. The positive side of such conflict, however, is that SONJO can come up with more informed and well-calculated decisions. What sustained SONJO is the presence of trust, transparency, and integrity.

The next lesson is that, while informal collaborative initiatives are important, they have to improve their scale and sustainability. SONJO relies on social solidarity, but it is contingent upon the presence of social capital, which may be absent elsewhere. With such a distinctive feature, a small-scale initiative needs adaptation before it can be replicated elsewhere. There is also a question of sustainability as such an arrangement is ad hoc and short-term [42]. While adhocracy is commonly found under crisis circumstances, it needs careful management to sustain its operation.

The final point we can draw from the SONJO case study is that crisis responses cannot rely solely on the government. Instead, they may be developed or come from the community or civil society’s approach, which is more bottom-up. Complementing government initiatives, the bottom-up initiatives confirm the limitation of more top-down intervention in crisis circumstances that fail to invoke genuine public participation, leading to ineffective pandemic responses [66]. However, for a bottom-up approach to be more effective, the government needs to be involved as it will define the scale and legality of such an initiative. This is critical when a legally binding decision or support beyond voluntary initiatives is needed.

4. Concluding remarks

This chapter reviews the existing debates on crisis governance. Current literature points to a decentralized and centralized mode of crisis governance as the two main modes of crisis governance. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Moving beyond this dichotomy, this chapter offers collaborative crisis management as a supplementary, if not an alternative, mode of crisis governance. Collaborative crisis management provides a more effective response to a crisis as it accumulates knowledge and resources from multiple stakeholders.

Using the case of Indonesia in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, this chapter illustrates how these modes of crisis governance were used in combination. Indonesia starts with more centralized governance, then moves toward decentralized crisis management. Since the two modes focus exclusively on government sectors with some limitations, more collaborative initiatives develop, with SONJO as the case in point. The case study shows that the collaborative initiative comes informally from the bottom and its members are only loosely connected through functional bases. While presenting significant contributions to crisis management, a bottom-up collaborative initiative such as SONJO has several limitations. It has limited scale, may create internal conflict, lacks sustainability, and has a nonbinding character. The case of Indonesia is not typical, as some scholars have raised similar concerns [38, 48].

While CCM is commonly practiced, there is no single one-fits-all arrangement, and this is explained by the different sociopolitical contexts and capacities. Different countries may have different models of CCM. Dinan et al. [33], for example, identified different crisis systems across European countries in terms of administrative responsibilities, legal frameworks, and operational practices owing to different national contexts and historical experiences. Similarly, reflecting on the experiences of East Asian countries in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Mao [67] proposes three models of collaborative crisis governance: the Chinese-state-led cooperation; South Korea’s state-society synergy; and Japan’s social voluntary cooperation model. Despite its differences, there is almost a consensus that collaborative crisis management is more preferable than a dichotomous decentralized and centralized arrangement. The remaining concern is to develop a careful arrangement to make it a robust crisis governance system, such as stipulating clear frameworks for the division of roles and responsibilities and relationships among members.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to extend his gratitude to anonymous reviewers of the early draft of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.