Power Rescaled, Futures Drowned? Rethinking Coastal Governance in Sinking Semarang
This paper analyzes the shift towards the centralization of power within coastal governance in Semarang, Indonesia, through a political ecology perspective. In the context of escalating sea-level rise, governance reforms—such as the implementation of Law No. 23 of 2014, which transfers coastal management authority from municipal to provincial levels—have not merely reorganized institutional duties but also rescaled power in ways that critically shape local adaptive capacity. Here, political ecology offers a framework to unpack these transformations, positioning climate change-related disasters not as purely biophysical challenges, but as socio-political outcomes rooted in historical and institutional asymmetries. Guided by this perspective, this research addresses two central questions: (1) How does political ecology explain power relations in the rescaling of coastal governance under the local autonomy framework? and (2) What are the implications of this rescaling for responsibilities, adaptive responses, and climate justice at the city level, particularly in Semarang? Methodologically, this study adopts a socio-legal approach and seeks to offer a trajectory in juridical research that engages with political ecology to examine how authority over coastal zones is redistributed and what this means for governance and justice. The analysis highlights a scalar mismatch: provinces now govern up to 12 nautical miles offshore, while nearby city authorities are structurally sidelined. This reconfiguration erodes local agency and restricts community-based adaptation initiatives. The paper argues that the centralization of authority, under the guise of administrative efficiency, conceals deeper political struggles over whose knowledge counts and whose interests prevail. It hypothesizes that governance rescaling exacerbates vulnerability and undermines inclusive adaptation by privileging technocratic and donor-driven priorities over local needs. In the context of Semarang’s sinking coastline, this represents not only a governance gap but a governance failure—one that urgently demands critical rethinking.