Performance Optimization of Civil Servant Investigators at the Civil Service Police Unit: Evidence from Indonesian Local Government
Keywords:
Civil servant investigator, Enforcement performance, Inter-agency coordination, Local governance, Supervisory dependencyAbstract
Civil servant investigators represent a formally empowered yet structurally constrained enforcement institution within Indonesia’s local governance system, where performance failures persist despite adequate legal mandates. This study examines PPNS performance in Gorontalo City Civil Service Police Unit through three analytical dimensions: inter-agency coordination, work productivity, and work quality. Using a qualitative descriptive design, data were obtained from direct observation, semi-structured interviews with twelve purposively selected informants spanning institutional leadership, PPNS officers, a National Police investigator, civil servants, and community members, and document analysis, with thematic interpretation. Findings demonstrate that performance failure is not individual but structural, produced by three interlocking governance mechanisms: absence of institutionalized PPNS–Polri coordination that weakens procedural legitimacy, supervisory dependency that restricts autonomous enforcement judgment, and selective enforcement driven by patronage-based relational proximity. These mechanisms form a self-reinforcing equilibrium that stabilizes low enforcement effectiveness as an organizational norm rather than deviation. Theoretically, the study advances public sector performance literature by reframing enforcement failure as a structural interaction problem in which legal authority becomes decoupled from operational execution in hybrid administrative–law enforcement institutions, while identifying supervisory dependency and selective enforcement as distinct explanatory mechanisms.
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