When Subsidies Are Misused: A Social Psychology Perspective on the Misuse of Subsidized Fuel in Indonesia

Abstract

The misuse of subsidized diesel fuel presents an energy governance challenge involving individual decisions, social influence, moral considerations, and distribution conditions. This article develops a psychosocial explanation of such behavior and examines its implications for distributive justice and energy resilience. A critical narrative literature review was combined with an examination of scientific, regulatory, and institutional documents. Police disclosures cited in the review reported 658 cases of subsidized fuel and liquefied petroleum gas misuse involving 583 suspects in 2025, followed by 97 cases involving 89 suspects through April 2026. These figures contextualize reported enforcement activity and do not estimate prevalence. The synthesis identifies attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions within the Theory of Planned Behavior as relevant explanatory constructs. To address moral justification and enabling conditions more explicitly, the review integrates descriptive and injunctive norms, moral norms, moral disengagement, techniques of neutralization, regulatory legitimacy, procedural justice, and opportunity structure. The resulting Psychosocial Model of Subsidized-Fuel Misuse conceptualizes misconduct as a possible outcome of interactions among perceived benefits, social influence, moral rationalization, actual opportunities, and perceived certainty of detection. Subsidy misuse may compromise distributional targeting, increase inefficiency, generate potential fiscal burdens, and weaken equitable access to energy. The proposed model provides a conceptual framework for examining subsidized diesel misuse and connecting psychosocial processes with broader energy governance concerns. It requires empirical testing and does not establish causal relationships or demonstrate individual perpetrators’ motives.