Explaining Indonesia's Democratic Regression: Structure, Agency and Popular Opinion.

• Author: Warburton, Eve
• Position: Report

For much of the last two decades, comparativists and country experts have praised Indonesia's democratic progress and stability. Free, fair and competitive elections are held regularly throughout the country, ensuring that officeholders from village heads to the president are chosen directly by citizens. Indonesia boasts rich associational life and its media is largely free. Writing in 2009, noted democracy scholar Larry Diamond applauded Indonesia for achieving the status of a "stable democracy--with no obvious threats or potent anti-democratic challenges on the horizon". (1) Diamond also described Indonesia as "a relatively liberal democracy". Like Diamond, other comparativists continue to see Indonesia as a healthy democracy, where public support for democratic government remains among the highest and most stable in Asia. (2)

Events since 2014, however, have cast doubt upon this characterization of Indonesia's democracy. A new consensus is emerging that Indonesia is now in the midst of democratic regression. Analysts have documented the rise of a xenophobic brand of populist politics, an illiberal drift in the regulation of civil liberties and protection of human rights, and the government's manipulation of state institutions to entrench itself in power. These trends amount to the "relatively fine-grained degrees of change" that comparative scholars argue are symptomatic of democratic backsliding. (3)

While observers present mounting evidence that Indonesia's democracy is in decline, few have grappled with the question of why this is so. In this article, we reflect on Indonesia's evolution from democratic success to incipient regression. Specifically, we ask: Why was a decade of relative democratic stability followed by a decade of stagnation and, now, growing signs of regression? What underlying processes might account for the accumulating forces in favour of democratic illiberalism? Why has Indonesia's democracy persisted but not, it seems, consolidated?

To answer these questions, we re-examine the arc of Indonesia's democratic evolution, drawing on contemporary theories of democratic decline that emphasize interactions between structural, agential and attitudinal factors. In doing so, we reaffirm a prominent position in the Indonesia literature that emphasizes how authoritarian elites integrated into democratic institutions, embedding anti-democratic potential within the new system. We then show how the agency of specific political elites--notably of Indonesia's two most recent presidents--has contributed to democratic stagnation and then decline, in response to changing political environments. However, we also suggest greater attention should be paid to the popular context in which democratic decline is taking place. For years, analysts viewed the Indonesian public and civil society as bulwarks against undemocratic elites; we suggest this characterization needs revising. Populist and sectarian campaigns have attracted significant public support in recent years, and there has been little public backlash against what is now a well-documented deterioration in the state's protection of individual rights and freedoms. Drawing on recent polling data, we show that although public support for democracy as an abstract concept remains high, strong support does not extend to the institutions and values that underpin a liberal democratic order. The illiberal sensibilities of a large slice of the public provide a conducive context for elites to erode Indonesia's young democracy.

We develop this argument in four parts. In the first section, we set the scene by reviewing recent signs of democratic regression, notably the rise of populism, and increasing illiberalism in the regulation of individual freedoms and democratic checks and balances. In the second section, we review possible explanations for Indonesia's democratic trajectory. We first consider structural factors, revisiting Indonesia's democratic transition, and explain how that process planted the seeds for contemporary problems. We then move to consider the agency of political elites, with a particular focus on Indonesia's two directly-elected presidents--Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004-14) and Joko Widodo, or "Jokowi" (2014-present). Finally, we turn to popular opinion, and attempt to identify constituencies favouring an illiberal political order.

Signs of Democratic Regression

The Populist Challenge

One defining characteristic of the wave of democratic regression occurring worldwide over the last decade is that "most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments". (4) Events like the 2014 coup in Thailand--in which authoritarian actors move from outside a country's democratic system to overthrow it--are now relatively rare. A more common pattern occurs when an elected leader bends democratic institutions to his (or her) anti-democratic agenda, gradually creating an illiberal democracy or an electoral authoritarian regime. Such leaders often do so by promising strong and decisive leadership and presenting themselves, in populist style, as a personification of the popular will. (5) Vladimir Putin in Russia, Viktor Orban in Hungary and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey are among the most obvious recent examples.

Prabowo Subianto's presidential bids in 2014 and 2019 have shown that Indonesia, too, is vulnerable to authoritarian-populism. Prabowo, a former general, Special Forces Commander, and son-in-law of Indonesia's long-serving authoritarian leader, Suharto, was one of the few authoritarian-era political figures who became virtually a political persona-non-grata after the democratic breakthrough of 1998-99. He had been implicated in the disappearance of anti-Suharto activists, had a well-known history of personal brutality, was suspected of complicity in violent rioting that preceded Suharto's resignation in 1998, and was discharged from the military in such disgrace that he went into a period of self-imposed political exile in Jordan. (6) Yet, by 2014 his political image had been rehabilitated to such a degree that he was twice able to mount a convincing presidential campaign.

One of the authors of this article has previously characterized Prabowo's campaign as a "classically authoritarian populist challenge". (7) In both his 2014 and 2019 election bids, Prabowo condemned Indonesia's exploitation at the hands of foreigners and corrupt political elites and presented himself--and the tough leadership he offers--as the remedy to Indonesia's problems. The tone of both his campaigns was far outside emerging norms of Indonesian democracy. For example, his condemnation of Indonesia's self-interested "elite"--even its "oligarchy"--which he blames for Indonesia's subjugation to exploitative foreigners, contrasts sharply with the emphasis on elite cooperation characteristic of preceding governments. His advocacy of a return to the authoritarian 1945 Constitution also breaks with the preceding consensus that post-Suharto political and constitutional reforms had benefitted Indonesia.

In 2014, Prabowo lost by a margin of 6 per cent to Jokowi; in 2019 he lost by 11 per cent. Both elections thus brought Indonesia dangerously close to severe authoritarian regression. After his defeats, Prabowo initially refused to accept the results, demonstrating his willingness to violate core democratic norms. After his 2014 loss, his coalition was able to briefly command a majority in Indonesia's national parliament and pass a law that rolled back one of the major post-Suharto political reforms--direct elections of heads of regional governments (President Yudhoyono was so daunted by the public backlash that he quickly moved to annul this change). After his second defeat, Prabowo again rejected the official results, this time with violent consequences. He claimed the election had been stolen, the results were fraudulent and encouraged his supporters to take to the streets. On 22 May, a day after the Election Commission formally announced that Jokowi had been re-elected with 55.5 per cent of the vote, thousands of pro-Prabowo supporters organized rallies around Jakarta. While initially peaceful, the protests later turned deadly as a violent mob attacked police and government buildings, leading to seven deaths and hundreds of injuries. (8) Prabowo's sustained attacks on Indonesia's democratic process, and the violence that occurred in the wake of the 2019 elections, demonstrate the immense threat that authoritarian populism poses to Indonesian democracy. (9)

A different kind of challenge was evinced by the 2016-17 Islamist mobilizations against Jakarta's Chinese Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (also known as Ahok). The details of this case have been the focus of much scholarly and media attention, and have been documented elsewhere. (10) During his campaign for the governorship in late 2016, Ahok spoke against the misuse of a Quranic verse that allegedly prevents Muslims from supporting non-Muslim leaders, prompting charges of blasphemy. What ensued were the largest street protests of the democratic era. The protests were organized by a coalition of Islamist groups and conservative Islamic leaders and organizations, with the backing of mainstream political elites--including Prabowo, whose party sponsored one of Ahok's rivals, Anies Basweden. The sectarian campaign was successful: while over 70 per cent of Jakartans were satisfied with Ahok's performance, only 42 per cent voted for him, delivering Anies a resounding victory with 58 per cent of the vote. (11) Ahok, still a sitting governor, was then found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison.

The campaign against Ahok was not an overtly authoritarian movement: none of the key figures advocated doing away with elections or with the protection of civil liberties writ large. It did, however, indicate the limits to Indonesia's liberal democracy. The...