Political Science

In response to ballooning oil prices immediately after the 2004 inauguration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla as President and Vice-President respectively of Indonesia, there was an unprecedented crises sparked by the rapid rise in global oil prices which eventually led to divisive debate about whether the government's fuel subsidy should be reduced or not. There was also public public controversy involving a significant number of interest groups, politicians, and intellectuals alike. This article will describe the differences in style reflected in the differing attitudes of President Yudhoyono and Vice-President Kalla in responding to the issue. It will argue that Yudhoyono inclined to use an incremental adjustment process, whereas Kalla displayed a more radical and rational style. Results of this study suggest that this difference was more or less triggered by the differing background and personalities of Yudhoyono and Kalla. Besides, the tendency of multiparty system--adopted by Indonesia's post Suharto regimes since 1999--to bring instability and executive and legislative deadlock, pushed Yudhoyono to use partisan mutual adjusment in launching the policy.

The virulent strain of anti-Jewish attitudes and the belief in Jewish conspiracies has been widespread among Islamic community in Indonesia. In fact, in this country, such anti-Semitic attitudes are neither new nor Islamic in origin. In order to understand how this developed, I examine the Islamic-based magazine Media Dakwah as a case study on how Islamic print media responds to issues related or unrelated to Jewish issues. My aim is to explore the use of the media as a means of propaganda for demonizing both the real and so-called virtual Jews. My method is to seek clarity by employing a literature review as well as print media review. Results of this study suggest that virtual Jews are constructed enemies acting as a metaphor for other real forces. Likewise, the idea of "Jew" is more often than not projected onto those people or a person or a collective identity who disagree with Media Dakwah's political and religious stance. In addition, I use contemporary postcolonial theory to see how relevant the notions of stereotype and representation are in analyzing the magazine's coverage on Jews. Finally, I found that the magazine is obsessed with Jewish conspiracy theory, as not only a product of its paranoid mindset, but also a tool for mobilizing support against its "enemies".

"This article describes the nature of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) in the post-Suharto era and its views on the resurrection of the global Islamic caliphate, its opposition to the notions of democracy and nation-state. In the aftermath of Suharto’s fall in 1998, HTI has seized the opportunity to promise the establishment of a fair society under a global Islamic caliphate. The rapid rise of HTI has, more so than most other Islamist groups, been accentuated by the growing public dissatisfaction with the post-Suharto or reformasi period. There is an increasing perception in larger society that political, economic, and law reforms introduced in the reformasi era has had no significant impact to improve people’s daily lives. This deteriorating condition under post-Suharto regimes has successfully justified the HTI’s claims that Indonesia needs a radical and comprehensive system, or what HTI coined as al-khalifah al-Islamiyyah (Islamic caliphate). Looking at HTI’s grand narrative of the global Islamic caliphate and its refutation of the ideas of democracy and nation-state, it is clear that HTI has taken a number of negative steps in the direction of democratic consolidation in Indonesia."

When President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) took office in October 2014, he promised to usher in a new style of politics, generating optimism among many Indonesians that his government would enthusiastically promote reform. Yet Jokowi has since placed greater value on realpolitik than on reform, as evidenced by his choice of cabinet members, his response to the controversy surrounding senior police officer Budi Gunawan, and his handling of attempts by the police and others to weaken Indonesia’s respected Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). This article shows that Jokowi failed to deliver on his promises of reform largely owing to a combination of personal and external factors. He failed to show leadership on anti-corruption and human-rights issues, for example—in part because he prefers economic development over democratic reform, but also because he is not immune to the oligarchic politics that dominate Indonesia’s political life and promote the interests of Indonesia’s elite.

This might be true, but it ignores important facts about HTI. Of the many Indonesian Islamist movements inspired by organisations in the Middle East, HTI is the only one that is fully controlled by a foreign leadership – a leadership that publicly rejects the idea of democracy and perceives elections as un-Islamic. Like other Hizbut Tahrir chapters elsewhere, HTI urges non-participation (golput) in elections for all of its followers. What does Bima Arya get out of approaching a radical organisation whose ideological framework explicitly denounces elections as the system of infidels?

Along with the rise o f democratic regimes in the third world, vote buying—the exchange o f material benefits fo r votes—has become a key component o f electoral mobilization in many young democracies. Is that true that the patronage and clientelism are the only determinant factor fo r explaining the widespread o f vote buying activities in the less developed countries? Scholarly literature on clientelism can be divided into three categories. Thefirst is a determinist view o f clientelism that is congruent with modernization theory ' s argument. The second camp is the essentialist argument. Clientelism is viewed as a product o f social and cultural proclivity. The third academic tradition on clientelism is the institutionalist camp. This intellectual strand emphasizes political and institutional designs implicating to the widespread o f clientelism such as competitive elections and multiparty system, electoral rules, and decentralization. Students ofpolitical science gave added weight to the prevalence o f vote buying in relation to clientelism and patronage, but little attention has been giveh to the relationship o f vote buying and party identiflcation. Referring to empirical data gathered from Indonesian case, this article shows that the decreasing trend o f party identiflcation among Indonesian voters has signiftcantly contributed fo r the widespread o f vote buying activities. The public s tolerance towards such election-related bribery can be reduced by the increase o f party identiflcation. Voters who identify themselves with any political parties tend to reject vote buying practices. In contrast, those who are not afflliated with any political parties are more likely to accept vote buying. The general decline in party identiflcation in Indonesia is largely caused by politicalparties ' poorperformance. Parties are in crisis because they fa il to perform the functions considered essential to political parties in a demo­ cratic polity. Surveys consistently reveal that compared to other democratic institutions, trust in political parties is the lowest. Ifthis trend continues to rise, voters tend to be less attached to their political party and political cost will be much more expensive because they will utilize transactional relationship with political parties. It is clear that vote-buying has and continues to be pervasive in Indonesia today d u e to th e b ig fa ilu r e o f political p a rtie s to increase their credibility among voters. Abstrak Seiring dengan penyebaran rezim demokrasi di negara-negara berkembang, politik uang ternyata menjadi elemen kunci mobilisasi elektoral di banyak demokrasi gelombang ketiga. Benarkah patron-klien menjadi satu-satunya faktor determinan maraknya politik uang? Literatur kesarjanaan mengenai klientelisme dapat dibagi menjadi tiga aliran: Pertama, aliran determinis yang paralel dengan teori modernisasi. Kubu kedua adalah argumen kebu­

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.

Are Indonesia’s political parties all alike? Are some more in favour of political reform than others? Do some favour business interests while others see themselves as siding with the poor? And does it make sense to think of some parties as left-wing and others as right-wing?

Much of the debate on Jakarta’s recent gubernatorial elections, in which the Chinese-Christian incumbent Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (or ‘Ahok’) was defeated in a landslide, has focused on the role of religion (and, interrelatedly, ethnicity) in sealing Ahok’s fate. While some observers have viewed religious identity politics as the most decisive factor in the elections, others have pointed to class differences and Ahok’s unpopular policies as equally significant.

President Joko Widodo added nine new ministers to his cabinet on 27 July, including a number of " old " faces, such as former ministers Sri Mulyani and Wiranto (fifth and sixth from left). Photo by Cabinet Secretary. Burhanuddin Muhtadi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political and Social Change at the Australian National University (ANU) and a lecturer at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN). He is also an executive director of Indikator Politik Indonesia. He has published his work in the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (BIES), Asian Journal of Social Sciences, and the Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies. Jokowi's reshuffle: playing it safe, again? When he was inaugurated in October 2014, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) was a " triple minority " president: he was relatively new to the national stage, did not control his own party, and relied on a thin coalition in the legislature. During his campaign, Jokowi promised he would avoid the political horse-trading that usually decides ministerial appointments in Indonesia. Unfortunately, he ended up shackled by the oligarchies that dominate Indonesian politics. This was largely because he was dependent on just four parties – the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Nasdem, the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the People's Conscience Party (Hanura), together comprising 37 per cent of the seats in the National Legislature (DPR).

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. Keywords Islam – democracy – Indonesia – political attitudes – public opinion