Legislative Strengthening and Empowerment: Efforts to Strengthen Local Governance and Accountability through Provincial Parliaments in Indonesia

This paper is about the performance of legislators at the provincial level in Indonesia. The study was conducted in the West Java Province to establish efforts made to strengthen local governments and improve accountability through provincial parliaments. There are several socio-polictical factors which make this research essential, among them include corruption, transparency and accountability, intellectual abilities and the legislature's responsibilities towards the communities represented by the different members of the assembly. To establish how empowerment influences the legislatures' performances, a survey method was used with a asystematic sampling technique. The data comprized of both the primary and secondary data which were collected through the study of documents, interviews, observations and with the use of questionnaires. The results revealed that the legislators of the West Java Parliament have different abilities. It was also established that legislature empowerment affects performance of individual legislators. In order to improve their performance, it is suggested that mobilization and cooperation can help.