Decentralised administrative reform without authority redistribution: Pseudo-collaborative governance and public service innovation in subnational Indonesia

Decentralised administrative reform is expected to strengthen collaboration and public service innovation, yet less is known about what happens when collaborative arrangements expand without a corresponding redistribution of strategic authority. This study examines this problem through a comparative qualitative analysis of flood governance in three subnational jurisdictions in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, using documentary evidence and 45 semi-structured interviews. Across the three cases, reform expanded cross-sector coordination, participation, and adaptive administrative practices, while authority over priorities, resources, and consequential decisions remained comparatively concentrated. This configuration is conceptualised as pseudo-collaborative governance, in which collaboration becomes operationally consequential without corresponding authority redistribution. One consequence is politically bounded public service innovation: meaningful administrative innovation whose transformative reach remains constrained by comparatively stable strategic authority relations. By separating innovation from governance transformation, the study identifies authority configuration as a political-institutional condition shaping how far decentralised reform can transform underlying governance relations.