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Democratic governance has become a popular term to influence public sector reform in many countries. As a new governance theory, democratic governance has also gained significant interest from scholarly circles. Scholars had different perspectives when discussing the topic of democratic governance. Political perspectives examined democratic governance, especially in terms of states, regime, election and democracy. Technological perspective saw the importance of ICTs, social media, artificial intelligence and big data. The public administration perspective studied the importance of public policy, public management and local government institutions. There were rarely scholars who mapped the ideas about democratic governance. The study tries to fill this gap in thinking about democratic governance by reviewing the journal articles on democratic governance published in Scopus data based. Via NVivo analysis tools, this study showed five pivotal issues, including “government,” “public,” “policy,” “political,’ and ‘institutional.’ Besides, this study revealed some important sub-issues of the pivotal issues, covered ‘responsible government,” “representative government,” “government policy,” “public participation,” “public affairs,” “public interest,” “public policy,” “policy formulation,” “policy implementation,” “political participation,” “political actors,” “political authority,” “institutional change,” “institutional capacity,” “state institutions.’ This study also developed propositions from the pivotal issues and sub-issues. Furthermore, this study proposed a new theoretical model based on the propositions. Finally, this study acknowledges the weaknesses and suggests future research.

This article attempts to map out the current situation of democracy in Indonesia, especially at local levels. This map is based on a simple question: the extent to which 10 years of the democratization process in Indonesia has led the country closer towards effective democratic governance. It concludes that an effective democratic government is far from being realized. Moreover, this article shows a paradox in the development of local politics in Indonesia, on the one hand there has been political liberalization which is assumed as a prerequisite for the realization of democratic governance, but on the other hand, the development of local democracy in Indonesia seemed to stop at its infancy stage. The reasons behind this failure are vary, but in principle related to the symptoms that some scientists called as a "broken linkage" a syndrome in which the forces of modern intermediary fails to perform its functions in linking demos with public affairs.

The transformation of government from centralized toward decentralized system also should be followed by social reforms so that life in public spaces more conducive to the realization of civil society. Building civil society is basically the reverse mainstream policy processes that had been top-down nature of state power to the citizens, transformed in order to create process flows are sharing from the residents as actors who take an active part in public spaces to the policies issued by state power. It’s required the participation of citizens in public life with reference to shared values on the basis of freedom of the press. This paper discusses how the meaning of freedom of the press in the regional autonomy.

Tourism is a public sector that should be operated by stakeholders: government, industry and the public itself in the way of a collaborative management. Appropriateness of the public policy ought to be seen from the planning process which involves the local community and takes their interests into account. This article argues that tourism has been developed through a strong control of government and based on the growth paradigm. This has distorted the role of the government which should be a facilitator to be a single player of tourism development. The industry and public itself are alienated from the decision making processes in tourism. The case of tourism shows that democratic governance has not been implemented well and it is a challenge for the future tourism development.

Democratic governance requires the existence of good governance, human rights and democracy. Obtaining the standards of democratic governance is needed by Indonesia to be internationally accepted. Nonetheless, Indonesia's record on human rights leads to the understanding that this country has to pay highly attention on human rights, Five elements can be contested to evaluate the position of Indonesia in achieving the democratic governance.

The article endeavors to trace the outset of governance concept, its dominant meanings and discourse, and its implication towards governability. The central role of government in the governing processes has predominantly been adopted. The concept of governance was emerged precisely in the context of the failure of government as key player in regulation, economic redistribution and political participation. Governance is therefore aimed to emphasize pattern of governing which are based both on democratic mechanism and sound development management. However, practices of such good governance concept –which are mainly adopted and promoted by donor states and agencies– tend to degrade state and/or government authority and legitimacy. Traditional function of the state as sole facilitator of equal societal, political and legal membership among citizens has been diminished. The logic of fair competition has been substituted almost completely by the logic of free competition in nearly all sectors of public life. The concept and practices of good governance have resulted in decayed state authority and failed state which in turn created a condition for "ungovernability". By promoting democratic and humane governance, the article accordingly encourages discourse to reinstall and bring the idea of accountable state back in.