Indonesia’s coastal governance shows a normative vacuum after Law 23/2014 shifted coastal resource management to provincial level without establishing coordination among field-level oversight actors. This gap has not been examined for Polsus PWP3K. The study analyzes Polsus PWP3K’s operational effectiveness post-shift and the tripartite coordination among Polsus PWP3K, the BLUD for Conservation Area Management, and Pokmaswas in Raja Ampat’s conservation governance. Employing a normative-empirical approach, it blends doctrinal analysis with field observations of coordination practices, evaluated through Soerjono Soekanto’s legal effectiveness theory. Findings reveal that the lack of an explicit tripartite coordination norm creates a legal vacuum weakening governance and enforcement capacity, worsened by institutional misalignment from the authority transfer. Field data show the Sasi customary system functioning as a de facto oversight instrument, highlighting the strength of legal culture as a key effectiveness factor in Soekanto’s framework. However, its absence of formal juridical recognition prevents it from substituting state enforcement against external violators. The article’s central contribution is to propose formalizing the Sasi system, via a Provincial Regulation of Papua Barat Daya binding all three actors, rather than creating a new bureaucratic mechanism. This article contributes to be a reference of other provinces in settling such discrepancy.
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