Indonesian Studies Programme

"Islam is often perceived as a religion that is not receptive, even hostile, against liberal Enlightenment values such as democracy, religion-state separation, and religious tolerance/pluralism. However, several Islamic organizations have underwent major theological change away from fundamentalist and revivalist theology to one that embraces a “progressive”
Islamic theology that accepts and in some cases even helps to propagate these values.

What are the factors that explain these theological changes? What are the causal mechanisms that help to promote them? Using insights from constructivist international relations theory, I argue that culturalist and rationalist explanations are insufficient to answer this question. Instead, the answer lies on the role of religious leaders acting as 'moral authority' figures, who are promoting a given political theology that is either complementary to liberalism and democracy or is working against it. The success or failure of these “moral authority” figures in changing the their organizations is attributed to the existence of a rival theology that contest the premises of the theology promoted by these “moral authority” figures, as well as the historical relationship between these religious groups and the state in which they operate.

This study employs comparative historical analysis and structured focused comparison of three
Islamic groups: two from Indonesia (Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah) and one  from Turkey (the Fethullah Gulen Movement). The analysis serves as a theory development
exercise on the role of 'moral authority' leadership that can be used by other scholars who wish to conduct a comparative analysis of Islamic groups in other Muslim-majority countries or a cross-regional analysis of numerous Islamic movements that are generalizable across the Islamic world.
"

"Much of the current scholarships on globalization and Islam in Muslim-majority countries focus on the political discourses of conservative/fundamentalist Islamic groups such as Al Qaeda and Hamas. Fewer scholarships have examined the role of globalization of ideas in influencing the political discourse of progressive/liberal leaning Islamic groups such as the Gulen Movement (GM) from Turkey and the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) from Indonesia. Virtually none of the scholarships on these two movements have examined them from a comparative historical perspective. Utilizing constructivist international relations theory, this study attempts to make a theoretically informed cross-regional comparison between these two groups. It analyzes similar and different strategies utilize by these groups to promote and institutionalize progressive Islamic ideas - defined in this study as theological support toward democracy, state-religion separation, and religious tolerance/pluralism -- within their respective societies.

By conducting comparative historical, cross-regional study of these two Islamic movements, I hope that my project can serve as a theory development exercise of the role of moral authority leadership and its role in disseminating new theological ideas beyond the artificial regional boundaries that has historically made scholarship on political Islam and Islamic social movements in the Middle East and Southeast Asia to exist largely separately, with little dialogue and collaboration with one another. I hope this study will bring together existing knowledge about Islamic social movements from these two regions in order to develop a new theory on the role of theological change within Islamic social movements that is generalizable across the Islamic world. The data of this research consist of historical documents, secondary studies, and in-depth interviews with officials and activists from these movements."

"Several Islamic organizations have experience major changes in their theological frames and political identities away from fundamentalist and revivalist theological orientation to one that embraces a progressive Islamic theology that synthesizes these norms with classical Islamic teachings. What are the factors that explain these theological changes? What are the causal mechanisms that help to promote them?

This article attempts to answer these questions through a comparative historical analysis of two Indonesian Islamic groups: the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and the Muhammadiyah. It concludes that the NU was able to successfully change its theological positions due to the presence of a charismatic moral authority leader, the tolerant institutional culture within the organization, and the ability of the organization to ally with the Suharto regime, allowing the reform to be institutionalized with little intervention from the regime. However, theological reform within the Muhammadiyah was not successful due to the lack of a leader with moral authority status who could have led the reforms within the organization, as well as to the dominance of a revivalist institutional culture that does not tolerate any challenges to their interpretation of Islamic theology.

The analysis makes theoretical contributions on the role of religious leadership within Islamic movements and the likelihood of Islamic groups to adopt liberal political norms such as democracy, religion-state separation, and tolerance toward religious minorities. It identifies the mechanisms in which theological change within Islamic group becomes possible."

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the politics of religious freedom in non-Western societies, particularly in Muslim-majority countries. Many of these countries such as Indonesia and Egypt have established religious freedom clauses in their constitutions that protects the rights of religious minorities to establish places of worship and practice their religion without any interference from both the state and from other religious groups. However, despite these constitutional guarantees, there has been a rise of incidents of inter-religious conflicts in the two countries within the past decade, affecting Christians and members of the Ahmadiyah minority sects in Indonesia and the Coptic Christian community in Egypt. The rise of these incidents has often been attributed to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and revivalist Islamic social movements in the political realm of these countries.

This paper argues that Islamic fundamentalism is not sufficient in explaining the rise of inter-religious conflict in Indonesia and Egypt. Instead, they occurred due to the coalitional pacts and alliances between Christian minorities to support authoritarian rulers (Indonesia’s Suharto and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak) that suppressed Muslim political activists in both countries. The tacit supports of Christian political and economic elites in both societies, whom backed the oppressive ruling regimes in their respective societies, along with the lack of support they have given to Islamic pro-democracy activists, have caused alienation between Muslims and Christians in both societies. These helped to fuel the call from revivalist Muslims to curb the religious privileges (e.g., the right to establish houses of worships) of Christians in both Indonesia and Egypt, and in-turn increased the incidents of conflicts and violence between the two religious groups.

This study uses comparative historical methodology to find the empirical data to support its theoretical arguments. First, it outlines the history of the establishments of Indonesian and Egypt constitutions and how both Muslims and Christians agreed to the religious freedom clauses in the constitutions of these societies. Second, it explores why Christians decided to form an alliance with the authoritarian regimes in both societies in order to retain their political and economic privileges, while alienating the Muslim-majority groups in the process.  Third, it shows how these alliances helped to contribute to the inter-religious conflicts between the two religious groups that increased after the transition that ended the Suharto and Mubarak regimes.

In my visiting fellowship with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), I am working to analyze the 2014 Indonesian legislative and presidential elections. In this study, I seek to discover how the campaigns for these elections are being received by potential voters, especially by young Indonesian Muslim voters, specifically on how they are using social media to receive information about the parties and politicians contesting the election, how the voters react to the campaign information, on the wide practice of "vote-buying" conducted by most politicians during the election, and what are the political aspirations and expectations of voters for the winning parties and politicians. In another related project, I also study how Islamic parties and social movements played a role in the Indonesian elections, tracing their support for the different political parties and presidential candidates, and the ideational and interest-based factors that determine their support for these parties and candidates. From this research I have produced two sole-authored policy briefs, three co-authored policy briefs, and an entry in a Southeast Asian politics blog site. I also contribute on an edited volume on the election that is scheduled to be published by ISEAS in early 2015.

Course Description: This is an introductory course in comparative politics, broadly defined as the comparative study of politics and government of different societies in the world and how their respective culture, history, socio-economic conditions, and ethnic makeup, are shaping these societies' political systems and institutions. As our world has become more integrated and intertwined with one another within the past three decades, it becomes more important than ever for students to gain an understanding of the history, political culture, and political institutions of other countries in the world, both advanced developed nations (primarily countries located in Western Europe and North America) as well as developing nations (including the "rising" stars of today's contemporary geo-politics such as China and India).

This course is an advanced graduate-level survey of the history, political development, and political institutions of the eleven countries that make up the Southeast Asian region, including Burma/Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. In this course, we will examine political economy, authoritarianism and democratization, and the relationship between ethnicity, religion, and politics within each of these countries. It takes a comparative historical approach and traces how the political and economic institutions that were developed in these countries' colonial and early independence period has helped to influence contemporary political institutions in these states. After tracing these historical legacies, we will relate how these legacies help to create or contribute the major socio-political problems facing Southeast Asian states them today, including: the prevalence of authoritarian rule, weak state institutions, rampant corruption/lack of political accountability, high incidence of ethnic conflicts, and the rise of religious fundamentalism (Islamic, Christian, and Buddhist fundamentalisms) in these countries. At the same time, it also highlights the accomplishments of these Southeast Asian states in generating high economic growth, industrialization, and prosperity for their people, establishing democracy and democratic political institutions, as well as promoting sustainable human development within these states.

Muhammadiyah’s 47th congress was marked by a fierce theological debate between its moderate and conservative members. While a moderate candidate was eventually elected as its new chairman, the conservative contender came very close to taking over the organisation.

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, has sponsored an international conference as part of its strategy to promote Islam Nusantara worldwide. However, the  concept remains deeply contested, even within the NU itself.

RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical issues and contemporary developments. The views of the authors are their own and do not represent the official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced electronically or in print with prior permission from RSIS and due recognition to the author(s) and RSIS. Please email: RSISPublications@ntu.edu.sg for feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentary, Yang Razali Kassim. Synopsis Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has just reshuffled his cabinet for the second time in a year, replacing a number of allegedly troubled ministers, but also some reform-minded professionals. Commentary PRESIDENT JOKO Widodo has just reshuffled his cabinet again – the second time within a year, dropping ministers who were either troubled or not carrying out his plans, but also replacing some reform-minded professionals.

The increasing number of violent incidents against religious minorities in recent years is a growing concern in Indonesia. A workshop was recently held in Jakarta to discuss the challenges of rising religious intolerance in Indonesia and recommended some remedies to address it.

Since 2001, Indonesia’s political decentralisation has opened fresh avenues for a new generation of local government executives to be elected. These new local leaders tend to promote novel styles of political leadership that are can transform how public policy and services are delivered at the local level. This report profiles a number of Indonesian local transformative leaders, most notably Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini and Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil. The report finds a number of characteristics that helped them to become transformative local leaders, including: an ability to develop popular legitimacy among their citizens, independence from political parties, ability to promote innovative policy to reform local public services, having strong political networks with senior politicians and other stakeholders, an ability to handle setbacks, and having political pragmatism. It is not yet known if these local “transformative leaders” can change the nature of national-level politics in Indonesia that is often characterised to be dominated by “oligarchic” party leaders. Nonetheless, they certainly have changed how politics and public policy are being done within their respective localities.

Synopsis Two years after it was first introduced, the Islam Nusantara theology of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest Indonesian Islamic organisation, continues to face opposition from more conservative factions. This is casting a shadow over NU's effort to promote the middle ground and toleration in Indonesia. Commentary TWO YEARS after the idea of Islam Nusantara was first introduced as a reinterpretation of the Nahdhlatul Ulama's basic theological tenets, it continues to face opposition from conservative factions. Backing the resistance are theological critiques from younger clerics who seek to eradicate liberal influences from the organisation, the largest in Indonesia. The rift between the factions of NU current chairman Said Aqil Siradj and former general chairman Hasyim Muzadi can be seen in the East Java strongholds of NU. The opposition by NU Garis Lurus (NU True Path), consisting of influential young clerics, constitutes a serious challenge to NU's theological frame that had been instituted by former President Abdurrahman Wahid and his followers over three decades. These popular young clerics argue that Islam Nusantara is an invention of " liberal " thinkers while there is only one universal Islam for all Muslims that does not require " localised " intepretations such as Islam Nusantara.