Silent Expansion of Oil Palm Plantation: The Tragedy of Access Between Bundle of Right and Power

Abstract

The Expansion of oil palm plantations is often performed on a large scale of the state front stage, carried out through the operation of big capital, supported by licensing documents and using the legal basis of the state law in the form of land cultivation right (hak guna usaha). This phenomenon is an expansion of oil palm plantations which have been understood by the public as a form of open expansion. This research is using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods which have found that there had been an expansion practice in other form, namely the silent expansion. This silent expansion is a form of tragedy of access where actors can establish oil palm plantations without the bundle of rights that are legal, but using a bundle of power behind the failure of state control over state property right. The expansion is done quietly, under-the-table, within a small area, without legal permit documents. In the final section, this paper describes the institutional response to the problem of silent expansion using formal policy instrument approach.

Keywords: Bundle of power, bundle of right, silent expansion, state failure, tragedy of access

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-6-08

Publication date:March 31^st 2020