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This article analyses the implementation of the New Developmental State in Indonesian politics and development as the realisation of the increasing authoritarianism of President Joko Widodo's administration. Rather than focusing on the national level, as other studies do, this article focuses on sub-national contexts, particularly at the village level, and the implementation, since 2014, of the world's largest participatory village governance experiment. Data were collected during three years of longitudinal monitoring and additional ethnographic fieldwork in different parts of Indonesia. Framed in the New Developmental State perspective, this article characterises New Developmental governance in Joko Widodo's regime as a pragmatic and hybrid approach to village development and governance with roots in New Order developmentalism. Of special importance is the transmission of authoritarian ways from the national to village level through village institutional arrangements. Notably, this new approach to village governance has failed to encourage creative and innovative village governments and has made village democracy vulnerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Indonesian government promotes Indonesia as the center of the Halal Industry Nation, numerous strategies are being implemented across every sector, including Islamic Financial Institutions. This research focuses on investigating factors that can influence customer loyalty. The study aims to create a model for increasing customer loyalty based on the Halal Brand Personality approach by exploring competitive advantage as a mediating variable to bridge this gap. This research is important due to the relatively small market share of Islamic banking in Indonesia, which faces intense competition. This explanatory research with a quantitative approach employs a survey method to collect 225 data points. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to analyze each variable's direct and indirect relationship. It was found that of all the hypotheses, six were rejected, and the model was validated. The result delineated that the model proposed in this research can assist branch managers in maximizing and strengthening Islamic banking's distinctive products and sophisticated technology, which are its primary competitive advantages when competing with other banking sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the strategic partnership between the United States and Indonesia, focusing on their air force relations in the context of China's territorial claims in the South China Sea and Indonesia's Natuna Sea. The author assesses Indonesia's security challenges, military capabilities, and the country's expectations from the US and its air force in terms of capacity-building and capability development. The article also evaluates the potential scenarios for the future of the US-Indonesian engagement with a focus on the need for balancing regional security and internal stability. Drawing on a decade of research, the author concludes that the US partnership with Indonesia is crucial for maintaining regional stability, promoting diplomacy, and advancing self-defense capabilities. The US can continue to build partnerships with other Southeast Asian countries to prevent disputes with China from escalating into a war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What caused the surprising electoral success of an Islamist party in one of Indonesia's most Catholic regions, and why was this success short-lived? This article argues that in Ngada district on Flores Island in 2014 the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) deftly mobilised local voters not because of its own organisational and programmatic discipline but because of its "project of commonness", or adaptation to prevailing local patterns of personalistic local electoral competition. The party's growing popularity in Ngada, however, paradoxically fell after it sought to build solid and coherent relations with the electorate in preparation for the subsequent election. The case of the PKS in Flores thus suggests that under certain conditions, in which voter–party linkages are highly fragmented and cleavage-based politics remain undeveloped, party institutionalisation can harm electoral performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are seven clauses regarding Aceh's economic rights regulated in the Helsinki Agreement. Firstly, Aceh has the right to obtain funds through foreign loans and to set interest rates. Secondly, Aceh has the right to establish and collect taxes as well as to conduct trade and business internally and internationally. Third, Aceh will have authority over living natural resources in the territorial sea. Fourth, Aceh will have the right to control 70% of revenues from hydrocarbon reserves. Fifth, Aceh will conduct the development and management of all seaports and airports. Sixth, Aceh will enjoy free trade. Finally, seventh, Aceh will enjoy direct and unhindered access to foreign countries by sea and air. From all the above clauses, only part of it was adopted by Act No. 11/2006 regarding Aceh Administration. This condition demonstrates the exclusion of Aceh's economic rights, which were mandated by the 1945 Constitution. There are two issues addressed in this paper, i.e., the legal perspective of Aceh's economic rights as mandated in the Helsinki Agreement with regards to Act No. 11/2006 and the sociological viewpoint of Aceh's economic rights as mandated in the Helsinki Agreement with regards to Act No. 11/2006. The four approaches employed to review the Helsinki Agreement and the Aceh Administration Act in this paper are the legislative approach, the analytical approach, the philosophical approach, and the legal sociology approach. Firstly, based on a legal perspective, Aceh's economic rights in the Helsinki Agreement generated legal certainty and must be implemented by the central government because the Aceh Administration Act has partly adopted these rights. The economic rights are constitutional rights of the Acehnese people that must be fulfilled by the central government. Failure to fulfill these rights is a violation of the provisions in the 1945 Constitution. Secondly, based on the sociological perspective, the Aceh's economic rights in the Helsinki Agreement impact the people of Aceh as social institutions. Therefore, all economic rights should immediately be carried out by the authorities, including the central government, the Government of Aceh, and the Aceh Parliament as legal functionaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the world, legislatures are dominated by politicians who are wealthier and more educated than their constituents. This is particularly so in developing democracies, where clientelist politics and wealth inequalities make it difficult for lower-class citizens to run for office. We contribute to scholarly debates about the substantive consequences of descriptive inequality by analysing a new and important case – Indonesia, the world's third most populous democracy. Indonesian politicians have much higher levels of education and income than citizens, and they are more likely to have professional backgrounds. To explore the implications of these inequalities, we survey and compare politicians' and voters' positions on a range of economic policy issues. We find the views of Indonesian politicians are generally more congruent with those of upper-class voters. However, we also find variation across policy areas. There is much cross-class agreement on statist interventions like price controls – in part reflecting politicians' dependence upon the state; however, the gap between voters and politicians widens substantially on the issue of economic redistribution. Upper-class biases within Indonesian legislatures thus obscure a large lower-class constituency in favour of a more redistributive economic regime, a consituency largely unrepresented by Indonesia's parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While democratization is regularly associated with elite renewal, established elites often succeed in maintaining their dominance after the fall of the authoritarian regime that fostered them. This constitutes a relatively understudied challenge facing democratization processes: when and how do democratic reforms succeed in fostering the emergence of new elites? This paper addresses this question through a study of village head elections in three rural districts around Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Comparing older studies of village head elections with ten in-depth studies of recent village head elections as well as assessments of the backgrounds of eighty village heads (kepala desa), this paper shows that a remarkable change has taken place. Whereas up to ten years ago many villages were still ruled by leaders from established families with a quasi-hereditary grip on power, in recent years such leaders are rapidly being replaced by village heads with more modest family backgrounds and a different style of leadership. This important change has resulted from a combination of democratic reforms, the diversification of rural economies, and the particularly competitive character of village head elections. Elite renewal is possible when open and information-dense elections coincide with a process of economic diversification undercutting the economic dominance of established elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1945 until 1965, virtually all Indonesian political parties claimed to follow some version of socialism. What did 'socialism' mean in this context, though? In economics, party platforms promoted aspects of redistribution and collective ownership, but the application of such ideologies was limited. In international relations, Indonesia was dedicated to a third way between the capitalist and communist superpowers, meaning 'socialism' was not generally invoked for foreign policy. Where many Asian and African Marxist experiments have been characterised by utopian visions, in Indonesia the future was framed in more nativist than socialist terms. In the end, the fact that socialism had such a diverse spectrum of understandings in Indonesian politics allowed different political streams to claim the term for highly different purposes, and eventually President Sukarno claimed the mantle of 'Indonesian Socialism' for his personalistic regime from the late 1950s. After 'socialism' was rendered virtually meaningless, it was easy for the leaders of an army-backed coup in 1965–1966 to paint it as dangerous in the wake of their anti-Communist campaign. Thus, within a decade 'socialism' went from ubiquitous engagement with collectivist economic principles to meaningless rhetorical device to political pariah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demise of Leftist political traditions in Indonesia has come to facilitate newer Islamic expressions of socio-political discontent accompanying socio-economic modernisation in localities that used to be dominated by communist and radical nationalist organisations. Because social grievances related to endemic issues like social injustice are increasingly being framed through Islamic cultural references, there will be implications for the workings of Indonesian democracy, premised on secular state institutions. But this does not lead to the sort of post-Islamism associated by Bayat with Iran, where the imperatives of running a modern state and economy once purportedly enabled pluralist social inclinations, albeit within an Islamised polity. Nor does it lead to the generalised 'Islamisation of radicalism' envisaged by Roy. Rather, what is witnessed is the substantial, though by no means uncontested, mainstreaming of social grievances through the lexicon of Islamic politics within Indonesian democracy even if there has been no take-over of the state by Islamic forces. The adoption of such framings even in the former bastions of the Indonesian Communist Party, once the third largest in the world, provides important insights into how hegemonic contests have taken place in the Muslim world after the end of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia's One Map Policy aims to produce a standardized and single map which can clarify and provide a consistent record of land tenure with a view to resolving land-use conflicts in the forestry sector. The implementation of this policy has faced many challenges, including contestations over land ownership, uncertainty over the status of indigenous customary lands and other procedural obstacles associated with generating a single master map. While significant parts of Indonesia's forests are owned and managed by indigenous peoples, this has not always been uniformly recognized across different legal jurisdictions. This is slowly changing following a 2012 Constitutional Court decision to formally recognize customary indigenous lands and forests. Despite this ruling, obstacles remain in rectifying past practices and decisions as well as streamlining the complex array of forestry governance arrangements currently applied throughout Indonesia. This article suggests the resolution of land-use conflicts within the forestry sector must be premised on principles of forest sustainability, which must include addressing the social justice concerns of indigenous peoples and local communities as well as improving their capacity to manage customary forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discusses competing nationalisms in post-New Order Indonesia, drawn from the official discourses of the nation in the educational arena during the transition to and consolidation of democracy since 1998. Despite government guidelines seeking to homogenize the content of citizenship education textbooks, three official narratives of the nation have emerged. This article demonstrates that competing official narratives of the nation—the state-centered, citizen-centered, and ummah-centered narratives—signify not only tensions in national citizenship education but they also mark the emergence of competing nationalisms in post-New Order Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motherhood identity was intensively deployed during campaigns for the 2019 Indonesian presidential elections. Based on interviews conducted with women’s activists in Jakarta and surrounding areas from September 2018 to April 2019, this article analyses the contestation of ideas about motherhood identity expressed in the campaign rhetoric of the “power of emak-emak” (ordinary, working-class mothers) and “Ibu Bangsa” (Mothers of the Nation). It argues that the “power of emak-emak”, used by the Prabowo-Sandi campaign, is a populist narrative that sought to empower ordinary mothers and was similar to the use of motherhood identity as a populist narrative in Latin America. Meanwhile, the Jokowi-Ma’ruf slate advanced the idea of Ibu Bangsa, which is less related to ordinary women’s daily problems. This article reveals how the debate among women’s activists over the two contending terms signifies the political division of the women’s movement, including in its support for the two presidential candidates. This article not only seeks to enrich the discourse on gender and populism in Indonesia, but also provides a current portrait of the Indonesian women’s movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What determines the election of mayors? The extent to which pre-electoral coalitions (PECs) influence mayoral election outcomes has not yet been subject to empirical analysis, despite the question's fundamental theoretical and practical relevance. This note uses regression discontinuity methods to identify the causal effects of PECs on mayoral election results in Indonesia. The study finds that candidates backed by PECs comprising political parties that control council seat shares exceeding first-round mayoral electoral vote thresholds are 14–18 percentage points more likely to win those elections than their counterparts supported by smaller-sized PECs. The analysis determines that PECs are especially helpful in getting non-incumbent candidates elected, although they have no apparent impact on incumbents' electoral success. PECs can assist candidates in gaining office, therefore, but they are established under corrupt conditions. Ultimately, governance issues surrounding the formation and functioning of PECs impose significant constraints on the development of local democracy in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current worldwide democratic regression has prompted debate about the drivers of democratic decline. One country experiencing decline is Indonesia, where most analysts blame the shift on actions of illiberal elites, casting the public as a democratic bulwark. Yet, as in other fragile democracies, regression in Indonesia has come at the hands of politicians enjoying popular support. To investigate drivers of democratic decline we ask: How democratic are Indonesian citizens when compared to the politicians they elect? We answer this question using an original, representative survey of provincial legislators, which we compare to a general survey of the Indonesian population. While both populations express overwhelming support for democratic government, we find significant differences between how elites and masses conceive of democracy, and in their commitment to liberal norms. Though neither group is a bulwark of liberal values, we find the legislators are systematically more liberal than voters. These findings challenge widely held assumptions about Indonesia's political class, and suggest a public that is either indifferent to, or supportive of, an increasingly illiberal democratic order. Our study demonstrates that comparing elite and mass attitudes to democracy and liberalism is one fruitful technique for investigating sources of democratic resilience and fragility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PLTU-XYZ construction project is a part of the accelerated development of a 10,000- MW power-generation program first-phase which is being launched by the Indonesian government. To handle large projects that have a high level of complexity requires a leader or a project manager who has expertise in the field of power plant construction, has good leadership skills, and who is expected to be able to overcome the difficulties faced during the process of the project. This research was conducted using a qualitative method to analyze the leadership style of the project managers who had led the PLTU-XYZ project and also to investigate their leadership influence on the project management's team performance. Data were collected by using in-depth interviews, which were then analyzed by using thematic-data analysis. The study discovered that the first project manager had an 'affiliative' leadership style, the second had a 'pacesetting' leadership style while the third had a 'democratic' leadership style. The affiliative leadership style and democratic leadership style brought positive effects to the project management team's performance while the pacesetting leadership style brought negative effects to the project management team's performance. This research also found that the leadership style of the project manager was not a factor that could cause delays in the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the connection between the activity of Catholic Church and the COVID-19 pandemic through the case of a bishop ordination held in Ruteng, Indonesia. The ordination Mass took place on March 19, 2020, against the background rising numbers of COVID-19 cases globally and in Indonesia. The Mass, which was attended by four thousand participants, led to criticisms of the Catholic Church in Ruteng. The Church was accused of jeopardizing the health of the community and failing to adhere to government advisories. It was labeled as selfish and stubborn. This paper discusses the urgency of both the COVID-19 situation in Indonesia and of the bishop ordination in Ruteng. Ordination of a new bishop symbolizes a climax in the journey of the Catholic Church in Ruteng. It is a resolution of past conflicts and controversies in the history of the Church in the region. The Church needed ordination as a way of gaining power and legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to analyze religious responses to the policy of Indonesian government in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Article 4 of Government Regulation (PP) No. 21/2020 mentions restrictions on religious activities. The response of the religious community to this government policy was varied. The Council of Indonesian Ulama, Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), issued several fatwas containing a ban on worship involving large numbers of people. A small group of fanatic Muslims initially opposed the policy, but eventually followed it. Among Protestants, the mainstream and Pentecostal churches under the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI) are highly coordinated with government regulations. Some Pentecostal churches attempted to continue holding worship together for reasons of holy communion, but eventually they followed government regulations. The Catholic church followed government regulations consistently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Reform Era began in 1998, a democratization process has taken place in Indonesia. By assessing the three elements of state, economy, and society, and the evolution of their interactions, this study concludes that Indonesia's contemporary political condition has been shaped by a continuously strong and dominant state, increased participation of society, and the adoption of the developmental state model. The state remains a dominant actor since a strong presence and role of the state continues to be sustained by the elites to maintain power. Society's demands to receive government assistance have deepened the state's role. While in the past the state was heavily supported by the military, today, the presence of the military within the democratic system has significantly diminished and been replaced by different economic actors. The elites are more dependent on support from society to remain in power and to implement policies that are generally achieved through economic incentives. Public participation appears in a majority of social, economic, and even political affairs, mainly to fulfill the requirement of being democratic. As for the economy, its role is becoming larger and has increasingly been used to replace the coercive power approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Indonesia's governmental and civil society Islamic organizations are trying to rebrand the world's largest Muslim-majority country through combined efforts of bilateral, multi-lateral, and Track II diplomacy. This research explores the multiple sites, discourses, and actors involved in the constitution – and contestation – of the claim that Indonesia is the exemplar of 'moderate Islam'. In doing so, the article contributes to a burgeoning academic literature about religion, diplomacy, and soft power. Understanding such soft power strategies – originating both within and beyond the state – can shed light on the cleavages, conflicts, and coalitions of religious authority, community, and identity both in Indonesia and on the global stage. Grand projects of diplomacy inevitably have unintended consequences, and the afterlives of public diplomacy are always played out in local, on-the-ground contexts. The article suggests that an ethnographic approach to the study of religion and diplomacy affords a unique understanding of Track II public diplomacy on the ground, providing understandings from the elite meeting rooms of foreign ministries to the basement gatherings of Indonesian Muslims near Washington DC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the competing political styles of the two presidential candidates in the 2014 and 2019 Indonesian national elections: current Indonesian President Joko Widodo (better known as Jokowi) and his challenger Prabowo Subianto. While both have been described as populists, we draw on the most recent ideational approach to the concept of populism to argue that only one of these political figures (Prabowo) should be defined as a populist. Jokowi's political style, on the other hand, is better understood by applying the concept of technocracy. In identifying the competition between Jokowi's technocratic style and Prabowo's populist style, we argue that this case study from Indonesia points to the potential for the concept of populism to be misapplied where other concepts such as technocracy are more appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work proposes a theory of 'celebritisation of politics'. It assumes that celebritisation of politics takes shape once politics and political affairs are celebritised. It argues that in democratic countries, not merely individual celebrity turns into politician (celebrification of celebrity-politician), but also individual politician transmutes into celebrity (celebrification of celebrity-politician). The degree to which these celebrifications take place is likely determined by the country-, the media-, celebrity- and audiences-related factors. The first includes political party, government, media and election systems. The second incorporates mediatisation, representation and commodification of celebrity politician by the media and political economic structures of the media and cultural industries. The third consist of diversification and migration of celebrity politician and his/her personal and professional backgrounds. The fourth is connected with characteristics of the audiences addressed by the media and cultural industries, celebrity politician and political actor and organisation s/he associated with. Focusing on Indonesia's democracy, this work reveals that establishments of the democratic political, media and election systems lead to celebrification of celebrity-politicians taking place in this country. In facing the parliamentary and local government elections, political parties recruited and commoditised substantial number of celebrities as candidates and represented them as political leaders to captivate the electorates and seek either parliamentary or local government offices. Some of them succeeded in such elections. They were migrating not merely across political parties, but also across the election arenas. Total number of those who turned into celebrity-politicians increased substantially, but none of them successfully came up as prominent politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia has taken a leadership role within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in drafting a common outlook on the Indo-Pacific concept. The widening of Indonesia's geostrategic canvas from the Asia–Pacific to the Indo-Pacific is in line with President Joko Widodo's intent to make Indonesia a Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF). In view of the rivalry between the US and China and the emergence of various Indo-Pacific initiatives from other countries, Indonesia believes that ASEAN must try to maintain its centrality. The draft of Indonesia's perspective for an ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific: towards a peaceful, prosperous, and inclusive region was submitted for considerations by ASEAN, and after 18 months of intensive lobbying by Indonesia the concept was finally adopted at the ASEAN Summit in June 2019. The ASEAN outlook promotes the principles of openness, inclusiveness, transparency, respect for international law and ASEAN centrality in the Indo-Pacific region. It proposes a building-block approach, seeking commonalities between existing regional initiatives in which ASEAN-led mechanisms will act as a fulcrum for both norm-setting and concrete cooperation. Rather than creating a new regional architecture, the East Asia Summit (EAS) is proposed as the platform for advancing the Indo-Pacific discourse and cooperation. Indonesia's ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific marks its renewed foreign policy activism as a middle power and underlines the continuing importance that Indonesia places on ASEAN as the cornerstone of its foreign policy, emphasising ASEAN's centrality as the primary vehicle for managing relations with the major powers in the Indo-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the realizations of the implementation of local autonomy is the authority to establish a local regulation. The establishment process should involve the community to provide inputs both in oral and written form in order to obtain an aspirational local regulation. However, in its implementation, the establishment of local regulation that ignores community participation is often found. This is contrary to the principle of democracy in the rule of law. This research used a normative legal method and analytical prescriptive approach. The theory employed to answer the research problems was the theory of democracy. Community participation in the establishment of local regulation is not fulfilled because of the community's ignorance of the mechanisms and the forms to participate. As a result, the local regulation produced does not represent local people's aspirations. A local regulation which is not aspirational is difficult to implement and is potential to be cancelled through a judicial review. The purpose of this study is to see the importance of community participation in making local regulations. Since one of the good ways of producing a Local Regulation is through the involvement of the community in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication in political marketing plays an important role in political mobilization, building trust both in political actors and the government. Politicians construct their messages through careful branding as the power of the cultural symbols and signs conveyed through the brand are potent heuristic devices. This is particularly important in emerging democracies, where there is limited political knowledge and understanding. Therefore, this research explores how young voters understand the symbolic communication fashioned by political actors in Indonesia and how it relates to their brand. Indonesia is an interesting area for study; it is both secular and the world's largest Muslim democracy. Using a phenomenological approach, a total of 19 in-depth interviews with young voters were conducted to gain rich insight into perceptions of the complexity of political symbolism, and trust among young voters. This study conceptualized political communication as a dual approach. The political brand promise is intrinsically linked to cultural references and conveyed through symbolic communication combined with a distinctive brand message. This builds trust, which then affects political participation. This conceptual framework provides insights into the importance of culture in branding which has implications for policy makers and actors in emerging and established democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collapse of the New Order ushered in what many had hoped would be a new era of openness and transparency for Indonesia. The loosening of laws pertaining to broadcast and print publication gave rise to a proliferation of new media and cultural production. This had a profound effect on everything, from politics, religion, and the economy to popular conceptions of romantic intimacy and personal accomplishment. The question is whether prevailing approaches to media and popular culture are adequate to the task of accounting for these oft-cited transformations in Indonesian public life. Focusing on issues of piety, class, and romance, this article examines a sequence of films, pop songs, and YouTube parody videos to offer a presuppositional critique of the current scholarship. Its central contention is that closer attention to pop culture as a form of 'argument' offers an important corrective to the reifying tendencies of prevailing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Queer films are largely absent from Indonesian cinema and television screens due to the country's current climate of LGBT 'moral panic'. This article examines how, two decades after the reformation, Indonesian film practitioners are forced to navigate complex configurations of power and knowledge—negotiating social, political, and religious entanglements through their cinematic practices. My analysis is focused on komunitas film (film community/ies) and, more specifically, events and activities surrounding Luhki Herwanayogi's short film On Friday Noon (2016), which chronicles the emotionally and physically fraught journey of a transgender Muslim woman as she seeks to perform Friday prayers. Drawing on this example, the article explores the disruptive potential of cinematic practice to challenge and nullify the ostensible binary between Islam and queerness, showing alternative ways of being Muslim in contemporary Indonesia, where piety and sexual identity often come together in unexpected ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dangdut , Indonesia's most popular music genre, is a realm of gender contestation. Since the 1990s, the role of professional dangdut singer—once equally filled by men and women—has been dominated by women. In an atmosphere of increasing Islamic fervour, pious consumption, and moral panic, the public perception of gender and sexuality has serious implications for men who sing dangdut on television. Regardless of their gender identity and sexual orientation, male singers must prove themselves to be properly gendered to maintain their positions as entertainers. However, proper masculinity is a difficult target to hit, especially considering the gender diversity of off-air and backstage realities. Men use several tactics to boost perceptions of masculinity and acceptability. One way in which men who sing dangdut endeavour to prove themselves cowok banget , or super manly, is by employing symbols of Islam and the Middle East—filtered through an Indonesian lens—to communicate masculinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]