Advancing gender equality in Indonesia: Public policy challenges in a developing democracy

This study examines gender equality advancement in Indonesia through a public policy systems perspective. Although Indonesia has adopted extensive reforms, such as ratifying CEDAW, institutionalising gender mainstreaming, introducing electoral quotas, integrating gender indicators into national development plans, and strengthening legal protections against sexual violence, equality outcomes remain uneven across regions and sectors. Using qualitative document analysis of national legislation, development plans, institutional reports, and scholarly literature, the study explores how institutional design, decentralisation, policy capacity, and resource–enforcement alignment shape implementation outcomes. Findings reveal that Indonesia’s gender governance architecture is formally comprehensive but operationally inconsistent. Decentralised governance mediates reform effectiveness by amplifying disparities in administrative capacity, fiscal resources, and political commitment across subnational governments. Policy success depends on the alignment of analytical, operational, and political capacities, supported by credible fiscal integration and enforcement readiness. The study argues that constraints to gender equality stem less from a lack of formal commitments and more from systemic governance incoherence. By integrating feminist institutionalism with policy capacity theory in a decentralised democratic context, this research contributes to comparative debates on gender governance and positions gender equality as an indicator of institutional alignment and state capability in developing democracies.