symbolic norms that established weaker and traditionally less organized groups as capable of challenging the dominance of sub-district authorities around a certain issue. It would be unwarranted to suggest an indisputable causal link between KDP processes in the village and the development of a new politics of symbolic conjecture, critique, and challenge. Nevertheless, multiple villager accounts of Biting suggest that its thick associational networks—of the kind that KDP’s forums aims to create in optimal circumstances—cut across villagers from different socio-economic backgrounds and were more easily mobilized than in comparable, non-KDP villages with an apparent lower capacity for conflict management and relative dearth of such networks.

# _3.2 KDP in Kecamatan Proppo, Kabupatan Pamekasan, East Java_<sup>58</sup>

In another case from the village of Tattangoh in the East Java district of Pamekasan, researchers tracked the evolution of a conflict between elites and community members regarding the management of KDP itself. The improvement in the management of KDP in Tattangoh was quite noticeable over its three-year life there. An important piece of this improvement includes the routines In the first year, nearly all of the most important participatory components of the program failed. Village representation on the _kecamatan_ councils responsible for selecting project proposals was nonexistent, no kecamatan forum was ever held, and villages failed to create even one proposal. Additionally, the _kecamatan_ head appointed a family member as kecamatan facilitator (FK) instead of opening the selection to a transparent election (as mandated by program rules). This FK, in turn, appointed the Tattangoh village-level facilitator for the program (FD), who is responsible for “socializing” villagers into the program, inviting the entire village to meetings, and proactively identifying neighborhood groups to develop proposals. This selection also broke the KDP rule that the FD be elected. Not surprisingly, interviews and focus groups targeted at a broad cross-section of villagers reveal that few even knew the program existed, much less participated in the series of deliberative and planning meetings required by the program. In addition to these miscarried processes, the program’s outcomes also revealed a familiar pattern of elite capture in the village: the 750 million rupiah (about $85,000) allocated to the program flowed directly to drains in a market owned by the village head of Tattangoh. Amidst this overall failure, the use of an anonymous complaints mechanism by an unknown informant led to the FK’s dismissal by National Management Consultants, the firm who monitor program implementation and performance.

This last twist in Year 1 epitomizes the turn taken by the program in several KDP villages across Proppo over the next two years. While the routines by which villagers managed the program did not become dramatically more collaborative, incremental improvements in countervailing power began to emerge. As mandated by KDP, villagers held elections for the program’s project implementation team (TPK), financial team (UPK), and technical facilitator (TTD). Although not without flaws, villagers also held elections for FD, proposal competitions broadened in their range of participants, and neighborhood-level brainstorming meetings began to convene. Villagers also began participating in the program’s consultative meetings (m _usyawarah)_ . At a minimum, one could safely say that the associational interactions generated within these new

> 58 Discussion of this case draws heavily on Diprose (2004) and of course, Ashari (2003), the original case study.

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