Balancing autonomy and the government representation roles: institutional change of Indonesia’s provincial government

Decentralization has become a defining reform across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, linked to democratization and economic liberalization. Much of the literature focuses on regional autonomy, local democracy, elite competition, territorial proliferation, or local self-government, but less on how these processes reshape power and institutions across levels of government. This article examines Indonesia’s provincial governments. Frustration with centralization, limited political voice, and unequal resource distribution triggered the 1999 ‘Big Bang’ decentralization, which answered demands for autonomy, federalism, and even secession. The reform granted broad autonomy to local governments while preserving limited provincial autonomy. Provinces later shifted from autonomy-seeking to endorsing their representative function, reflecting how social and political contexts interact with institutional arrangements to shape provincial strategies. Using qualitative methods, case studies, and historical institutionalism, this article shows how critical junctures, ambiguous authority structures, and asymmetric power relations redefined the provincial role, revealing institutions as dynamic arenas of contestation where rules are continuously reinterpreted and reshaped. By situating provinces at the center of analysis, the study contributes to scholarship on local government and theories of institutional change. It offers a nuanced perspective on power distribution in multilevel government and extends comparative debates beyond local democracy to the institutional evolution of intermediate governance.