Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: A Social Movement Theory Approach of The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Its Islamist Transnational Framing

Over the last five years, there is evidence of an emerging interest in the application of theories and approaches from social movement perspectives to Islamic movements in a broad sense. Such emerging research has mostly been undertaken in the Middle East and North Africa, but not in Southeast Asia. By applying the fundamentals of social movement theory i.e., political opportunity structure (POS), resource mobilisation theory and collective action frames, I will examine the emergence and the rise of the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) in Indonesian politics. PKS emerged from quiet conversations among students in secular universities who subsequently transformed their activism into a political movement. PKS attracted public and scholarly attention since its success in increasing vote in by six hundred percent, from 1.4 percent in 1999 to 7.3% in 2004. I demonstrate that social movement approach can shed important light on the dynamics of PKS. Results of this study suggest that PKS: (1) emerged from an array of tumultuous social and political conditions that gave rise a favourable political opportunity structure; (2) took advantage of expanding political opportunities by enhancing its resource mobilisation, including its organisational structures, cadres and recruitment, financial assets, and communication networks; and (3) consciously responded to the significant increase in political opportunities and its organisational capacities to mobilise supporters with shared ideas, beliefs and values. In addition, I argue that PKS cannot be seen as merely a political party which only articulates its political agenda within the framework of institutionalised politics, but it also acts as a SMO, which vigorously engages in collective action. No other party is so active in mobilising their supporters on the streets. In this sub-thesis, I will examine the behaviour of PKS by employing protest-event analysis, which is commonly used in the tradition of social movement research. My study captured 225 PKS collective events as reported by Kompas, Republika, and the results suggest that PKS' collective actions have been driven by a strong sense of anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism as well as support for the Palestine cause. This indicates PKS' preoccupation with distant but religiously charged issues. It is true that anti-Israeli and America sentiments are widespread in Indonesian Muslim circles. Unlike PKS, however, other Muslim organisations' anti Israeli and America stance does not manifest in direct actions. By using timing and sequence indicators, I found that during election time in 1999 and 2004, the number of PKS’ predecessor, PK and PKS collective actions declined significantly. Aside from the increasing participation of PKS in election process, this decrease of PKS actions at election time can be seen as a wish to avoid alienating voters by appearing militantly Islamic

Buying Votes in Indonesia: Partisans, Personal Networks, and Winning Margins

How many voters sell their votes in Indonesia? My PhD research starts with this question that has haunted scholars for the last 15 years. Using data from a nationally representative survey, which included an experimental survey, my study demonstrates that vote buying has become central to electoral mobilisation in Indonesia. If we use the highest estimate, one out of three Indonesians was personally exposed to vote buying in Indonesia’s most recent national election, making the country the site of the third-largest reported sum of exchange of money for votes in the world, as indicated by voter surveys taken over the last decade. My nationwide survey and massive dataset of local election surveys also show that, among other things, partisanship is a significant predictor of vote buying. The closer the ties of a voter to a political party, the more likely that voter is to receive offers of vote buying (or to be accepting of the practice). Puzzlingly, however, the number of partisan voters in Indonesia is comparatively small. Only 15 percent of my national survey respondents admitted being close to any political party and this limited number of party loyalist are highly contested among candidates from the same party in the context of Indonesia’s open-list proportional systems. When we connect partisanship and distributive politics, we arrive at the centre of a lively scholarly debate that involves two competing camps: the so-called core- versus swing-voter models. The former says vote buying when parties or candidates try to mobilise their core supporters, viewing the practice as being above all about increasing turnout. The latter interprets vote buying as an electoral strategy to sway uncommitted voters. What types of voters do Indonesian politicians target? At first glance, the data I collected from low-level candidates and brokers provide more proof in support of the core-voter strategy than in support of the swing-voter strategy. My in-depth interviews with high-level politicians also reinforce the notion that they prefer to target partisan voters in their vote buying operations. Yet my voter surveys clearly showed that although in relative terms such voters are more likely to be targeted, in absolute numbers vote buying mostly happens among non-partisans. How do we explain this combination of features —actors’ insistence that they are targeting partisan voters with the reality that they are mostly providing cash and gifts to non-partisans? This study proposes an addition to the scholarly debate between the core- versus swing-voter models by combining an emphasis on the core-voter strategy and reliance on personal networks. It argues that in Indonesia, candidates and brokers actually intend to target partisan voters, but in reality they mostly distribute benefits to voters who are politically rather indifferent, but who are embedded in personal networks through which they are connected to the candidate and their brokers. This study offers the concept of ‘personal loyalist’ strategy, which targets people identified through personal networks. While the personal loyalist model still recognises the importance of partisan voters, it highlights that candidates seek voters who are not only loyal to the party, but who are also, or instead, loyal to the individual candidate within that party. However, given that partisan voters are not only limited in number but also highly contested among competing co-partisan candidates in the context of the open-list system, politicians seek to expand their electoral base by making use of personal connections mediated by non-party brokers. Given their reliance on personal networks, most candidates and brokers typically misidentify non-partisans as loyalists because they misinterpret personal connections as partisan leanings. In addition, many of the people who are identified through personal networks mediated by brokers are in fact not even loyal to the candidate. Indeed, some of the brokers are themselves not particularly loyal. These two factors– confusion of personal connections with loyalty, and agency loss– in combination contribute to another element of vote buying in Indonesia which I identify in this study: the provision of payments to large numbers of uncommitted voters who receive benefits yet do not reciprocate with their votes. If vote buying is tremendously inefficient, how can vote buying have an effect on electoral behaviour? Why do candidates still do it? Utilising multiple data sources and various methods, I provide strong empirical evidence that gifts of money ‘only’ influenced the vote choice of roughly 10 percent to 11 percent of the total electorate. In these seemingly low numbers, however, lie the key to understanding vote buying’s attractiveness. Across Indonesia, the average margin of victory for successful candidates in legislative elections when defeating their party peers (i.e. candidates who were on the same party list) was only 1.65 percent. In this context of such highly competitive elections, candidates therefore enthusiastically pursued vote buying because they see that it can be critical for determining electoral outcomes. By showing that vote buying helps generate narrow but sufficient victory margins, my study explains how and why vote buying is so prevalent in Indonesia

Vote Buying in Indonesia

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book investigates the impact of vote buying on the accountability of democratic institutions and policy representation in newly democratic countries, with a focus on Indonesia. In doing so, the book presents a wide-ranging study of the dynamics of vote buying in Indonesia’s young democracy, exploring the nature, extent, determinants, targeting and effectiveness of this practice. It addresses these central issues in the context of comparative studies of vote buying, arguing that although party loyalists are disproportionately targeted in vote buying efforts, in total numbers —given the relatively small number of party loyalists in Indonesia— vote buying hits more uncommitted voters. It also demonstrates that the effectiveness of vote buying on vote choice is in the 10 percent range, which is sufficient for many candidates to secure a seat and thus explains why they still engage in vote buying despite high levels of leakage

Entrepreneurs of Grievance. Drivers and Effects of Indonesia's Islamist Mobilization

There has been much scholarly debate on the causes and effects of Islamist mobilizations. As some authors involved in this debate have identified rising Islamist attitudes among Muslims as a main cause of Islamist mobilizations, our study advances detailed research of opinion survey data as the best methodology to verify or falsify this assertion. Discussing the case of Indonesia, we use original survey data sets to show that prior to the 2016 Islamist mobilization there, Islamist attitudes were in fact moderating. This means that hardening Islamist views in the Muslim population could not have caused the mobilization. Importantly, however, we can demonstrate that Islamist political attitudes increased after the mobilization, and they did so consistently around the themes propagated by its organizers. This supports theories of religio-political entrepreneurs being the main drivers of Islamist mobilizations. Grievances and religious beliefs, on the other hand, are necessary yet insufficient conditions for such actions

Ideological representation in clientelistic democracies: The Indonesian case

Do parties represent the ideological preferences of voters in clientelistic political systems? We answer this question by studying the case of Indonesia, whose politics analysts usually describe as being based on patronage. We reassess this proposition using an original survey of over 500 Indonesian legislators. We show that, while party positions are similar on economic policy, they are differentiated on religious issues. To explore the implications of this cleavage, we develop a new measure of policy preferences about state-Islam relations, and match survey responses from legislators and citizens. Our analysis shows a high degree of congruence in party dyads of voters and politicians, which indicates that ideology is more salient than existing research suggests. We further suggest that clientelistic networks may have been pivotal in ensuring the survival of this religious-based ideological cleavage through decades of authoritarianism and democratic politics characterized by ideological moderation.Funding for the public opinion survey was provided by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. The elite survey was funded by the Australian Research Council (grant number FT120100742)

Vote Buying in Indonesia

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book investigates the impact of vote buying on the accountability of democratic institutions and policy representation in newly democratic countries, with a focus on Indonesia. In doing so, the book presents a wide-ranging study of the dynamics of vote buying in Indonesia’s young democracy, exploring the nature, extent, determinants, targeting and effectiveness of this practice. It addresses these central issues in the context of comparative studies of vote buying, arguing that although party loyalists are disproportionately targeted in vote buying efforts, in total numbers —given the relatively small number of party loyalists in Indonesia— vote buying hits more uncommitted voters. It also demonstrates that the effectiveness of vote buying on vote choice is in the 10 percent range, which is sufficient for many candidates to secure a seat and thus explains why they still engage in vote buying despite high levels of leakage

Perang bintang 2014 : konstelasi dan prediksi pemilu dan pilpres

Pemilu 2014 sudah di depan mata. Genderang perang telah ditabuh. Dana triliunan rupiah dipertaruhkan. Inilah pertandingan politik yang paling seru. Kemunculan sejumlah gejala elektoral baru: merebaknya fenomena emoh partai atau deparpolisasi, semakin kencangnya perang media, dan semakin besarnya proporsi pemilih mengambang (swing voters) menjadikan pertandingan politik ini semakin ditunggu, terlebih dengan tampilnya bintang-bintang baru calon presiden nonpartai yang diharapkan membawa harapan baru. Lalu, bagaimana akhir dari pertarungan politik ini? Adakah bintang politik baru yang bersinar di tengah iklim kepartaian yang bernuansa oligarki dan transaksional? Buku ini memberikan prediksi pemenang perang bintang politik 2014 melalui analisis dan data-data akurat yang bisa dipertanggungjawabkan