Institutional Transformation Of The Indonesian National Police

This study examines the institutional transformation of the Indonesian National Police (Polri) within the framework of democratic governance and public sector reform. Employing a qualitative, document-based research design, the study analyses publicly available policy documents, regulatory frameworks, institutional reports, and peer-reviewed scholarship to assess how Polri’s declared reform agenda contributes to governance improvement and public service delivery in a democratic transition context.  The analysis is organised around three reform dimensions: organisational reform, governance reform, and public service transformation. Findings indicate that while Polri’s reform trajectory reflects a meaningful shift in formal institutional priorities, the depth of substantive transformation remains limited. Persistent implementation gaps, incomplete external oversight mechanisms, and the influence of oligarchic political arrangements constrain the translation of reform declarations into durable institutional change.  The study further argues that dominant democratic policing theories, developed primarily in Western contexts, are insufficient to fully explain reform dynamics in developing democracies, where political constraints, institutional resistance, and path-dependent organisational logics mediate reform outcomes. Three analytical dimensions are proposed to extend existing frameworks: political constraint, institutional resistance, and service-mediated legitimacy. The study contributes to the comparative literature on police reform by situating the Indonesian case within its specific democratic transition trajectory and highlighting the contingent, context-dependent nature of institutional transformation in policing. Policy implications address the strengthening of external oversight, the development of inclusive digital service systems, and the embedding of institutional evaluation within the reform process itself.