Assessing organizational legitimacy of multi stakeholder initiatives in the forest governance policy in Indonesia: Insights from the Indonesian National Forestry Council

National Forestry Council (DKN) is a multi-stakeholder initiative organization (MSI) that was established as a collaborative
forum for parties to contribute to Indonesia's forestry governance policy process. As MSI, DKN aims to become a
collaborative forum for forestry stakeholders in the policy-making process. The dilemma between institutional status and the
ability of constituent representatives is a factor in the decline of their performance and credibility. This research aims to
empirically examine the legitimacy of DKN as an MSI using the input and output legitimacy approach. Using semi-structured
interviews, snowball sampling, and triangulation approaches, information regarding organizational dynamics was obtained.
Based on our empirical findings, we conclude that DKN satisfies all of the criteria for an institution with relatively high input
legitimacy and low output legitimacy. DKN involves many stakeholders affected by forestry policies and is able to cooperate
successfully in every decision-making process while preserving the rights of each constituent. In particular, DKN does not
meet the criteria for output legitimacy in carrying out its role as an MSI by offering policy-adopted recommendations or
suggestions.