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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]

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]

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]

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]

For much of the 2000s, scholars and activists lauded Indonesia's surprisingly successful transition to democracy. Recent years, however, have made imperfections visible to the point where the breakdown of Indonesian democracy is imaginable if not yet under way. This article investigates the conditions under which moderate Islamic organisations support non-democratic values and actors, and by doing so contribute to Indonesia's democratic decline. Drawing on original survey data and interviews, as well as case studies in which the preferences of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah leaders have become visible, this article argues that these organisations' values are compatible with both democracy and authoritarianism. While NU and Muhammadiyah exemplify the civic associational ties and democratic culture that are necessary for making democracy work, civic pluralism is not their only value. NU and Muhammadiyah have a hierarchy of values that they promote and defend, and are willing to forgo civic pluralism in order to combat blasphemy against Islam, ensure Muslim control over overwhelmingly Muslim regions, and limit political expression concerning heterodox approaches to Islam or non-Muslim involvement in matters of aqidah (faith). NU and Muhammadiyah also operate within the country's political patronage system, and their material interests can lead them away from supporting democratic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent Indonesian elections signalled relative stability in spite of the rise of contentious politics. To explain this, the article first discusses the way the incumbent Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration has handled the rise of Muslim populism sponsored by his political opponents. This has included a reliance on illiberal measures, the political adjustment and "triangulation" of his policies, and a revival of Indonesia's socio-religious and ethnic politics. Second, the article provides a longer historical perspective to show how the failure to restore the liberal parliamentary politics of the 1950s, and the inability to sustain the popular reforms of the mid-2000s that brought Jokowi to power, constitute more fundamental explanations both for the undermining of Indonesia's democracy and for the provisional political stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Council of Indonesian Islamic Scholars (MUI) has exerted increased political influence in Indonesian politics since the fall of Suharto. Constituted by representatives from various Muslim civil society organizations, the council was originally intended by Suharto to serve as a political representative for Indonesia's two largest civil society organizations, the Muhammadiyah and the Nahdlatul Ulama. This article argues that in addition to its own non-democratic structures and its fatwas opposing democratic values, the MUI has contributed to Indonesia's democratic stagnation and decline in two ways: by undermining the authority of elected state representatives through its anti-pluralist stance and its epistocratic claims, and by imperiling the fragile but functioning balance of religion and the state through its undermining of long-established religious civil society organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A democratic national system involves a process by which national leadership is recruited. National leadership has significant authority over the formulation of governmental policies, including those concerned with sports development. Current and historical Indonesian sports policy development illustrates and enables the evaluation of how the democratic process generates national leadership. Indonesian leadership history is divided into the three following orders: (1) The Old Order (1945–1967) (led by President Soekarno), (2) the New Order (1967–1998) (led by President Soeharto), and (3) the Reform Order (1998–present) (led by five presidents, as follows: Habibie, Gus Dur, Megawati, SBY, and Joko Widodo). An assessment of relevant historical facts indicates that the government plays a perennial and strategic role in sports policy development. This study performed an analysis of Indonesian sports legislation and determined that the government supports increased control over local decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracy gives people the same right to vote and to be voted in a political position. High citizen participation in leader election is utilized as an indicator of the quality of democracy. On the other hand, citizen participation in the election in some cases in some districts of Indonesia did not run smoothly and peacefully but in the case of Medan city, the periodical election of regional heads (pilkada) did not show the social upheaval of different options as well as in the segmentation of ethnic groups as supporters of candidates competing in it. This study is aimed at discovering the interest pattern of PASTI and Joko Tingkir as ethnic groups and political compensation, which was gained by them in Pilkada of Medan city in 2015. This study employed qualitative research with case study type. The research data were obtained through in-depth interviews, library study, documentation, and focus group discussion. It is found that there is a similarity pattern of ethnic group involvement in constructing political communication with contestant but there is difference of orientation of postelection compensation expectation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Right-wing politics in Indonesia is frequently associated with Islamic populist ideas. In part this is because Islamic organisations played a major role in the army-led destruction of the Indonesian Communist Party in the 1960s. Since then Islamic populism has evolved greatly and in post-authoritarian Indonesia it includes manifestations that see no fundamental contradiction between Islam and neo-liberal market economies aswell as those that do. Significantly, like their counterparts in other countries, Indonesian Islamic populists maintain vigilance against the purveyors of class-based politics who may exert a divisive influence on the ummah. Thus, Indonesian Islamic populism shares with many of its counterparts a disdain for Leftist challenges to private property and capital accumulation besides political liberalism's affinity to the secular national state. Yet strands of Islamic populism have relegated the project of establishing a state based on sharia to the background and embraced the democratic process. But this has not translated necessarily into social pluralist positions on a range of issues because the reinforcement of cultural idioms associated with Islam is required for the mobilisation of public support in contests over power and resources based on an ummah-based political identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an intense scholarly debate about what caused the unprecedented Islamist mass demonstrations in Indonesia in late 2016. Some scholars have argued that increasing intolerance and conservatism among the Muslim population are responsible, while others have disputed such notions, claiming that there is no evidence of widespread support for an Islamist agenda. In this article, we analyse a unique set of polling data to show that a) conservative attitudes among Indonesian Muslims were declining rather than increasing prior to the mobilisation, but that b) around a quarter of Indonesian Muslims do support an Islamist sociopolitical agenda. Importantly, we demonstrate that this core constituency of conservative Muslims has grown more educated, more affluent and better connected in the last decade or so, increasing its organisational capacity. We argue that this capacity was mobilised at a time when conservative Muslims felt excluded from the current polity, following the end of a decade of accommodation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author explores the political activities and legacies of the Reformasi pro-democracy protest movement in Indonesia. Topics discussed include the support expressed by youth activists related to the Reformasi to Indonesian President Joko Widodo, significant political events in the country which contributed to the increase in student movements, and the membership of former Reformasi activists in political parties.

Democracy in post-Suharto Indonesia is dynamic, especially in terms of electoral politics. Some scholars assume that politik aliran (political streams) is still continued, but others believe it has ended. In this article, we examine the dynamic of politik aliran in the 1999, 2004 and 2009 general elections. It is widely recognised that the votes of both Nationalist and Islam political parties declined from election to election. This study aims to analyse the continuity and change both of Nationalist and Islamic parties in Indonesia. The results of the study suggest that electoral politics based on politik aliran in post-Suharto Indonesia continues, but the number of votes for neither Islamic nor for Nationalist parties have changed. The balance of power between Islamic parties and Nationalists parties is expected to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global rise of populist campaigns against democratic governments has revived the long-standing scholarly debate on how democracies can best defend themselves against anti-democratic challenges. While some view an aggressive militant democracy approach as the most effective option, others propose accommodation of populist actors and voters. Others again suggest a merging of the two paradigms. This article analyzes how the government of Indonesian President Jokowi has responded to the unprecedented Islamist-populist mobilization in the capital Jakarta in late 2016. Unsystematically mixing elements of all available options, Jokowi's administration pursued a criminalization strategy against populists that violated established legal norms, and launched vaguely targeted but patronage-oriented accommodation policies. As a result, the government's attempt to protect the democratic status quo from populist attacks turned into a threat to democracy itself. Indonesian democracy, I argue, is now in a slow but perceptible process of deconsolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the review of Indonesian Parliament's institutional history, its oversight functions existence largely determines good or poor condition of democracy and implementation of good governance principles. When it is weak or weakened, the ruling regime would tend to move away from the principles of democracy. Joko Widodo's governance conditions that tend to embrace many coalition partners in parliament, requiring revision of laws (political party and election law) in order to provide vast opportunities for the criticism measures and corrective actions from political parties, which do not collaborate with the government. Improvement of legislation should be directed to guarantee freedom of movement of political parties that do not form a coalition with the government. Therefore, those political parties can fulfill the role of a healthy opposition. Even if the parliament opposition raises have not yet to be adopted within the Indonesian governance system, at least a revision of the law aimed at guaranteeing the members of parliament (MPs) to perform their role freely according to conscience. While it cannot be separated entirely from the parties which supporting him, but the threat to be fired (recall) should be eliminated. So that MPs can still carry out the oversight role despite their political party collaborated with the government. This revision can create the oversight function of DPR as a form of real performance of a representative body to accommodate the interests of oversight of the Indonesian people, also become a reliable tool of facing the challenges of Indonesian democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores problems and options that are challenged by the actors of pro-democracy movements in Indonesia. Its aim is to seek a-well-and-measurable strategies that enable the actors to continue promoting and advancing the democracy condition. The main analytical tool used in the study is the political capacity. It is assumed that the development of democracy depends on how the actors actualize their political capacity in dealing with the obstacles and opting for possible alternatives. The study concludes that during the period of 2008-2013, the Indonesian pro-democracy actors have tendency to become populist. However, there are three groups of actor practicing populism in three different ways. The first and majority group is the actors who tend to work individually from and within parties or progressive politicians, using the charisma and popular claims, yet they are not part of the mass. The second smaller group consists of actors who associate themselves as part and work along with mass organizations, e.g. trade unions, and demand for their interests. The third is a minority group of actors who opt for building network with other equal actors and coordinating organizational based activities. This study will help the actors to optimize their capacity by creating different roles in their efforts to develop the bloc and deliver louder public voices, e.g. demanding welfare state. Such situation enables the actors to foster a common platform for the democracy movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how history is used as a source of legitimacy and a political instrument in the sectarian conflict between the Indonesian government and the West Papua nationalists. This paper explores the debate surrounding two historical aspects relevant to West Papua’s demand for independence: first, West New Guinea’s past as part of the Dutch colony and its relations with Indonesia and second, the 1969 referendum, the so-called Act of Free Choice, to decide West Papua’s fate. The Indonesian democratization in 1998 provided momentum to revise the narration of West Papua’s history. Democracy has empowered the Papuans as the victims of a power struggle to challenge the previous Indonesia’s monolithic narration of history. The Papuans’ alternative narration of history also serves as a medium of liberation from oppression by the Indonesian government. The Papuan story counters the theory that the narration of history is a privilege of the ruler and the winner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper analyzes the existence of local political parties in Aceh as a proof for the development of democracy in Indonesia after the Reformation Era. By adopting a sociohistorical method, this paper explores the roles of local political parties of Aceh. The data obtained showed that local parties play several roles in maintaining the religious values of Islam, adat, and the integration of Aceh into the entity of Republic of Indonesia. The paper concluded on the note that for Aceh people, it is believed that local political parties have the strategic ways to channel their political aspirations. Implications of the study as well as directions for future empirical research were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The praxis of political issue including voter turnout and political participation does not exist in a vacuum. Therefore, geographical and spatial issues are frequently engaged and even embedded into it. Thus, this article is written with one purpose: to investigate the spatial relationship of voter turnout and their political participation. As stated earlier, the complexity of the political analysis based on geography will take us on a multidimensional approach that includes social, cultural and economy. However, this article starts the discussion from spatial analysis by using a map that illustrates the administrative boundaries of a region, then determining whether one region is adjacent to another. In this case, Moran's I is used to determine the spatial autocorrelation of voter turnout and political participation. The result indicates that the voter turnout and political participation in one region is adjacent to each other. Possible reasons for the result are discussed in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During his second year in power, Indonesian President Joko Widodo faced contradictory yet interrelated trends: while he consolidated his grip over parliament and improved his approval ratings, the president's remaining opponents shifted the focus of political contestation from the state's institutions onto the streets. Additionally burdened by economic uncertainty and rising regional tensions over the South China Sea, Indonesian democracy thus continues to be vulnerable, its outward stability notwithstanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise to power of political dynasties in regional Indonesia has been the subject of much critical analysis by scholars and journalists, with most seeing the phenomenon as a symptom of the wider democratic shortcomings of the post-Suharto period. This article examines the successes and travails of political dynasties in regional Indonesia by focusing on the province of Central Kalimantan. It begins by defining political dynasty, differentiating it from allied terms, outlining competing scholarly explanations for dynastic formation, and noting the critical issue of inter-generational succession. The article then examines subnational dynasty formation in Central Kalimantan, where in seven out of eight districts in the relevant time period a sitting bupati (district head) attempted to engineer dynastic succession, but succeeded in only two. The examination shows that while political opportunity structure accounts emphasising state and party weakness help explain the explosion of attempts to establish political dynasties in democratic Indonesia, the failure of most such attempts to consolidate inter-generationally indicates that we must be cautious in judging how stable these new political formations will become. Would-be subnational dynasties in Indonesia continue to face formidable competing sources of political authority which make it difficult for them to establish themselves over multiple generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At all levels of politics in Indonesia today, political families have a central place. The families of previous presidents and dynasties in regional and local politics have all been central to Indonesia's decentralised and increasingly personality-driven democracy. This article presents preliminary work on a biographical study of one of Indonesia's most prominent and enduring political dynasties, the Djojohadikusumo family, who have held positions of power in key national institutions across four generations. The study aims to improve our understanding of how this family has conceived itself within political structures as they have shifted over four generations. What characteristics of the dynasty can be identified as enabling its adaptability? How much do external and structural forces sustain the dynasty as a central player? And how much is it sustained by characteristics that are internal, historical, psychological and culturally specific to the family unit? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars suggest that Indonesian decentralization and electoral democracy has facilitated the emergence of new elites and their families at both the national and local levels (Agustinus, 2010; Eriyanto, 2012; Hadiz, 2004). These families are loosely labeled political dynasties. There are indeed many cases of political dynasties emerging in democratic Indonesia or of older dynastic families strengthening their powers, however these stories of success are not always straightforward. This article explores the case of a political family in Pekalongan, Central Java. It argues that local political dynasties are highly adaptable, shown by their shifting and changing strategies. This adaptability is a response to opportunities and threats created by other external factors within the political system (i.e. decentralization policies, and popular opinion), political competitors, as well as internal factors (family). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the 20th century, judicial expansion has been observed around the globe to such an extent that the judicialization of politics is now commonplace in both established and nascent democracies. Conventional wisdom holds that political fragmentation is a critical factor that contributes to judicial expansion. However, political fragmentation is not the only factor, especially since the development of judicialization varies widely across different countries with equally unstable political environments. This Article endeavors to fill this academic lacuna by comparing the judicialization of politics in Indonesia and Korea. While these two young democracies share many institutional and political similarities, the judicialization of politics in Korea is more pronounced than it is in Indonesia in terms of the scope and depth of judicial review. By applying the “most-similar-cases” approach, this Article suggests that the judicialization of politics will be more intense when the pace of constitutional transition is faster after democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of coalitional presidentialism have focused on the question of how presidents in multi-party systems manage to establish stable governments. Some authors have argued that in the case of Indonesia, post-authoritarian presidents have prioritized inclusivist alliance building, with all parties offered cabinet seats and other rewards in exchange for loyalty. However, as this article demonstrates, President Joko Widodo has opted for a more coercive approach: reactivating power tools not used since the days of Suharto's autocracy, he intervened in the internal affairs of at least two opposition parties and eventually forced them to declare their support for his administration. This method, while designed to obstruct the anti-democratic agenda of the opposition, has in itself had detrimental effects on Indonesia's democratic quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not long after the 1998 political reform (reformasi), there was a high hope that Indonesia would become a model of democracy for the non-western world. Time and again, however, Indonesia has made a series of regressive decisions. Supposedly, the focus of any genuinely new efforts of reform must be aimed toward a liberal democracy, but Indonesia's reformasi has moved erratically without any overarching goals. As far as Indonesia is concerned, it has pursued an unusual trajectory in its democracy-building enterprise. Aside from the fact that this model is inherently flawed, it is, in fact, praised as successful in sustaining nominal democracy. As it stands, Indonesia's erratic pursuit of democracy has introduced many illiberal elements into its new legal structure, albeit in a democratic way. As a response, this article attempts to unravel some of the most salient features of Indonesia's current legal discourse. In the process, it critically examines the Indonesian model of constitutionalism and situates it in the international legal context. This way of seeing is aimed at disentangling the exceptionality of Indonesia's democratic legal system from the traditional insular model that pre-dominates Indonesian legal scholarship. Against all odds, this article finds that this legal confusion can scarcely be separated from the lack of discussion at the domestic level about international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Indonesia's President Suharto was forced to resign in 1998, the accompanying uncertainty triggered serious communal violence in five regions. As the nation's politics and economy stabilized from 2002, so did those provinces. Identity-based conflict is now the rare exception rather than the rule in democratic Indonesia. Yet puzzlingly, despite the consolidation of democracy, ethnic clashes and mob violence against religious minorities continue to occur. While such events are now far smaller than those in the first years of democratization and occur only occasionally, their persistence requires analysis given the potential for escalation and what it tells us about Indonesia's reform process. In this article I compare recent incidents with that of the initial post-authoritarian era, and find that identity-based collective violence persists because many important causes of conflict have not been removed by democratic consolidation. As found by numerous scholars, many illiberal characteristics of the authoritarian state have segued neatly into democratic Indonesia. I assert that this has left several main causes of group violence firmly in place. I further contend that the failure to remove these phenomena partly has its origins in the order of democratic reforms chosen in the years after Suharto's resignation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three articles in this themed collection investigate the interplay between political finance regimes and the quality of democracy in Southeast Asia. Andreas Ufen's piece on political finance in Malaysia and Singapore argues that the semi-authoritarian regimes in both states have blocked the reform of campaign and party funding regulations in order to keep their opposition in check. The article on Indonesia, authored by Marcus Mietzner, showcases the country's dysfunctional political finance system as a major hurdle toward further democratization. In their contribution on Thailand, Napisa Waitoolkiat and Paul Chambers show that weak political finance regulations have contributed significantly to the shallowness of Thai parties. Overall, the collection demonstrates that without meaningful political finance reforms, Southeast Asia's democratic stagnation is likely to persist for many years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Unusually for a political documentary, The Act of Killing provides its audiences with little information, no overarching argument, nor a call-to-action. Instead, director Joshua Oppenheimer uses two unconventional investigative strategies--reenactment and an examination of media affect--to uncover the 1965 Indonesian genocide and the shadow it casts over present-day Indonesia. Although these techniques have been used previously in documentary cinema, Oppenheimer employs them in innovative ways to dig under Indonesia's social unconscious and expose the artifice of the 'official' history of the genocide. This article provides a close analyses of The Act of Killing's use of these strategies. It argues that they are not only integral to the documentary's political success in the Indonesian context, but can also be used by political documentarists and committed journalists to mobilise otherwise disengaged audiences in our 'non-ideological' and 'post-political' age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How democratic is contemporary Indonesia? While analysts differ, Indonesian citizens, when asked in systematic public opinion surveys conducted regularly by the authors since 1999, consistently express strong support for democratic principles and also believe that their country's democratic performance is high. Support for democratic performance is highly correlated with support for government performance, as measured by perceptions of the condition of the national economy and political system. At the same time, higher levels of education and income, in Indonesia as in other countries, have created a considerable number of critical citizens, that is, citizens who value democracy but are critical of its performance. On our evidence for Indonesia, it is members of this group who are the most motivated and best prepared to demand a higher level of democratic performance from their elected officials. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses transformations in local politics in Indonesia after the Reformasi 1998, focusing on the situation in Banten province. It describes how one family, that of Chasan Sochib, has utilized strong kinship networks, exploited state resources, and captured the local bureaucracy to strengthen its political machinery and consolidate political power in the local arena. It shows the rise of family domination in local politics and over economic resources, especially when public policy is crafted to reflect the interests of the family rather than those of the people. It suggests that despite the rhetoric of good governance at the national level, local politics is an important locus to analyze the unequal distribution of power and resources in Indonesia during the last 14 years of efforts to democratize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that the same factors (strategic and principled) that motivated Catholicism to champion liberal democracy are the same that motivate twenty-first-century Islam to do the same. I defend this claim by linking political liberalism to democratic secularism. Distinguishing institutional, political, and epistemic dimensions of democratic secularism, I show that moderate forms of political and epistemic secularism are most conducive to fostering the kind of public reasoning essential to democratic legitimacy. This demonstration draws upon the ambivalent impact of Indonesia's Islamic parties in advancing universal social justice aims as against more sectarian policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political blocs and cleavages do not emerge and endure unless political parties construct and cultivate them. When Indonesia democratized in the late 1990s, it appeared that party competition would be characterized by two primary cleavages that had been incubated under Suharto's “New Order”: a regime cleavage pitting reformist opponents of the fallen dictatorship against its holdovers, and a religious cleavage distinguishing parties by their views on the proper political role for Islam. Some fifteen years after Suharto's departure, neither a reformist nor a religious bloc exists in Indonesian politics. This is not because reformist and religious themes lack resonance among voters, but because party elites have effectively abandoned cleavage politics by promiscuously sharing power in an all-encompassing party cartel. Party leaders have behaved as if they are more accountable to each other than to their presumptive support blocs, leaving reformist and religious social forces without reliable party champions in national politics. This article traces the origins of Indonesia's “accountability deficit” to the elite deal making that accompanied the formation of the country's first democratic governing coalitions in 1999 and 2001. By promiscuously sharing power across cleavage lines, party leaders fostered voter de-alignment in the 2004 and 2009 elections. This de-alignment has left Indonesian democracy vulnerable to the highly unpredictable politics of individuals rather than the more predictable politics of institutions as the 2014 elections approach, ominously opening the door to populist and anti-system challengers striving to rebuild the political blocs that party elites have recently unbuilt. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Joko Widodo's victory in the 2012 Jakarta Gubernatorial Election could be seen as a populist phenomenon. An outsider to Jakarta politics, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) beat the incumbent, Fauzi Bowo (Foke), who had received strong support from political parties. Using populism as an analytical tool, this paper argues that the following four factors enabled Jokowi to emerge as an alternative leader in Indonesia's capital: (1) social breakdown and declining capability of the government; (2) corrupt, draining political traditions and a negative image of political parties; (3) societal changes; and (4) the emergence of forms of political representation outside of traditional political institutions. Those situations led Jakarta voters to more easily accept Jokowi's offer - "New Jakarta" (Jakarta Baru) - as a new identity against the established regime. Populism can help explain Jokowi's victory in the election, but also the leadership of his administration after he was elected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an examination of ambivalent negotiations of Indonesia in independent Timor-Leste. Post-independence engagements with and longings for Indonesia have rarely been treated in analyses of Timor-Leste. The article takes as its starting point the inscription of difference between Indonesia and what was then known as East Timor during the resistance years, before moving on to analyse how Indonesian discourses and imaginaries of politics and democracy came to acquire new meaning in the context of Timorese democratic politics and political crisis. It is suggested that Indonesia remains an influential but ambivalent reference point in the independent nation. It is the shadow from which Timor-Leste's nascent democracy is constantly required to distance itself and, simultaneously, an object of longing. Hence, Indonesia figures as an ambivalent model of modernity and of potent state power that inspires political visions of improved futures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1945 Indonesian politicians endeavouring to create a constitution for their hoped-for Indonesian state engaged in heated debate about the place of Islam in that state. However, the compromise at which they arrived, the famous "seven words" of the Jakarta Charter, was abruptly erased on 18 August, the day after the independence proclamation, by the committee charged with finalizing and validating the Constitution. Subsequently, there have been two further formal efforts to Islamize the Indonesian Constitution, the first in the late 1950s in the Konstituante (Constituent Assembly) and the second during the constitutional amendment process at the turn of the twenty-first century. Both failed. A comparative analysis of these latter efforts -- with a particular focus on the nature and changing content of Islamist thinking on the Constitution and its relation to Islam -- and on the differing contexts on which the debates took place, informs explanation of the dismal failure of both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the question of what role formal constitutions play in mitigating intense conflicts over the religious character of the state. In contrast to common views in constitutional and political scholarship, it demonstrates that the ideal of liberal constitutionalism is not compatible with the political reality and types of conflicts that characterize religiously divided societies. Analyzing four processes of constitution drafting in which issues of religious law and religious identity were at the heart of the debate--India, Indonesia, Israel, and Turkey--it argues that under deep disagreement over the state's religious character, the drafters adopt either a permissive or a restrictive constitutional approach. While the former implies strategies of constitutional ambiguity, ambivalence, and avoidance in order to allow the political system greater flexibility in future decision making on religion-state relations, the latter approach uses repressive constitutional constraints designed to limit the range of possibilities available to future decision makers. The article further explores the long-term consequences of the two approaches and argues that (1) permissive constitutional arrangements, more than restrictive arrangements, are likely to promote the democratic functioning of future governments; and that (2) permissive constitutional arrangements may facilitate greater freedom 0freligion, but they are also likely to lead to greater restrictions on freedomfr0m religion, compared with restrictive constitutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Indonesian politics as of September 2013. Particular focus is given to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), his role in boosting the country’s global image and the economic, social, and security challenges he faced when he first took office as president in 2004. Religious tensions and democracy in Indonesia are also discussed.