Authenticity, Trust, and Legitimacy in Southeast Asian Governmental Branding

This study examines governmental branding through a comparative case study of Malang Creative City (Indonesia) and the Malaysia Madani initiative (Malaysia) applying Wijaya’s eight-dimensional framework. Data was collected between May 2025 and July 2026 through document analysis, public communication materials, and eight semi-structured interviews with government officials (n = 3), creative community leaders (n = 1), communication strategists (n = 1), and community members/local residents (n = 3). Data was analyzed using deductive coding against the eight dimensions, followed by inductive thematic development, with triangulation and member checking used to establish credibility. The study found that Malang’s branding exemplifies sociocultural–collaborative governance, characterized by citizen co-creation, community empowerment, and cultural authenticity, while Malaysia’s Madani branding demonstrates political representational governance, in which leadership persona and moral narratives embody the nation’s ideological identity. Both cases reveal that governmental branding constitutes a multidimensional form of governance, integrating symbolic communication with institutional performance. The study contributes to expanding the theoretical discourse on public sector branding in Southeast Asia, offering insights into how authenticity, trust, and legitimacy can humanize governance in diverse sociopolitical environments. To illustrate how these three principles of governmental branding work, we provide a simple analysis of the performance of two governments—the Joko Widodo and Mahathir Mohamad administrations, in Indonesia and Malaysia, respectively—that previously had high approval ratings