Toward a psychosocial theory of regional development: humanising the future of Indonesian decentralisation

In a world of administratively perfect yet emotionally exhausted development, this study introduces the Theory of Psychosocial Regional Development to rehumanise Indonesia’s post-decentralisation landscape. Beyond economic and institutional lenses, it frames regional development as a psychosocial ecology, a dynamic interplay of emotion, legitimacy and imagination. Using qualitative interpretive analysis of governance indices, the study reads these as moral texts revealing affective resonance. Findings show regions vary not only in performance but in felt dignity: empathic, participatory governance fosters belonging; proceduralism breeds alienation. The Theory of Psychosocial Regional Development integrates affect theory, interpretive institutionalism and post-development critique via three logics: psychosocial, institutional and cultural, positioning emotion as reform’s epistemic core. Practically, it reframes decentralisation as moral-affective co-creation of meaning and hope. Humanising development means restoring feeling to governance.