Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2022-3
Populist political ideation and communication of gubernatorial candidates in Indonesia’s 2018 gubernatorial elections: Anti-establishment views,secular nationalism and Islamism as ideational-populist elements
Populism has been evolving across the globe. Knowledge of the ways and degree to which political actors in Asian democracy exploited anti-establishment views, secular nationalism and Islamism as ideational elements when they established populist political communication strategies for local elections has, however, been under-developed. Focusing on such issues, this work selects gubernatorial candidates who ran in Indonesia’s 2018 gubernatorial elections as cases, using extracts from materials they posted on their Facebook pages. The findings are as follows. Candidates did not merely advocate anti-establishment views, but also adopted secular nationalism and Islamism as ideational-populist elements for developing populist political communication strategies. Those who exploited anti-economic elites favoured establishing secular nationalist and Islamic-based populist political communication strategies inclusively. Those who propagated anti-economic, anti-political and anti-bureaucratic elites instead greatly preferred advancing an Islamic populist political communication strategy. However, through employing such efforts, only few succeeded in these elections.
AlbertazziDMcDonnellD (2008) Introduction: The sceptre and the spectre. In: AlbertazziDMcDonnellD (eds) Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–11.
2.
AmbardiK (2008) The Making of the Indonesian Multiparty System: A Cartelized Party System and Its Origin. Dissertation presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University, The Ohio State University.
3.
AspinallE (2015) Oligarchic populism: Prabowo Subiantos’ challenge to Indonesian democracy. Indonesia99: 1–28.
4.
BarrR (2009) Populists, outsiders and anti-establishment politics. Party Politics15(1): 29–48.
5.
BlockENegrineR (2017) The populist communication style: Toward a critical framework. International Journal of Communication11: 178–197.
6.
BrownAHewisonK (2005) Economics is the deciding factor: Labour politics in Thaksin’s Thailand. Pacific Affairs78(3): 353–375.
7.
BuehlerM (2009) Islam and democracy in Indonesia. Insight Turkey11(4): 51–63.
8.
BuehlerM (2013) Subnational Islamization through secular parties: Comparing Shari’a politics in two Indonesian provinces. Comparative Politics46(1): 63–82.
9.
BuehlerMMuhtadaD (2016) Democratization and the diffusion of shari’a law: Comparative insights from Indonesia. Southeast Asia Research24(2): 261–282.
10.
Casero-RipollésASintes-OlivellaMFranch-PuigP (2017) The populist political communication style in action: Podemos’s issues and functions on Twitter during the 2016 Spanish general election. American Behavioral Scientist61(9): 986–1001.
11.
CuratoN (2016) Politics of anxiety, politics of hope: Penal populism and Duterte’s rise to power. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs35(3): 91–109.
12.
CuratoN (2017) Flirting with authoritarian fantasies? Rodrigo Duterte and the new terms of Philippine populism. Journal of Contemporary Asia47(1): 142–153.
13.
De VreeseCEsserFAalbergTReinemannCStanyerJ. (2018) Populism as an Expression of Political Communication Content and Style: A New Perspective. International Journal of Press/Politics23(4): 423–438.
14.
EngesserSErnstNEsserF, et al. (2017) Populism and social media: How politicians spread a fragmented ideology. Information, Communication and Society20(8): 1109–1126.
15.
EpleyJJungE (2016) Vertically disconnected: The politics of Islam in democratic Indonesia. Asian Journal of Social Science44(1/2): 54–77.
16.
ErnstNEngesserSBüchelF, et al. (2017) Extreme parties and populism: An analysis of Facebook and Twitter across six countries. Information, Communication and Society20(9): 1347–1364.
17.
FilcD (2015) Latin American inclusive and European exclusionary populism: Colonialism as an explanation. Journal of Political Ideologies20(3): 263–283.
18.
FionnaUTomsaD (2017) Parties and Fractions in Indonesia: The Effects of Historical Legacies and Institutional Engineering. The ISEAS Working Paper Series1: 1–26.
19.
FossatiD (2019) The resurgence of ideology in Indonesia: Political Islam, Aliran and political behaviour. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs38(2): 119–148.
20.
HadizVR (2016) Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
21.
HadizVR (2017) Indonesia’s year of democratic setbacks: Towards a new phase of deepening illiberalism?Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies53(3): 261–278.
22.
HadizVR (2018) Imagine all the people? Mobilising Islamic populism for right-wing politics in Indonesia. Journal of Contemporary Asia48(4): 566–583.
23.
HadizVRRobisonR (2017) Competing populisms in post-authoritarian Indonesia. International Political Science Review38(4): 488–502.
24.
HamidA (2014) Jokowi’s populism in the 2012 Jakarta gubernatorial election. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs33(1): 85–109.
25.
HamidA (2019) Populism in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election. Journal of Governance4(1): 1–15.
26.
HawkinsKARovira KaltwasserC (2017) What the (ideational) study of populism can teach us, and what it can’t. Swiss Political Science Review23(4): 526–542.
27.
HedmanE-LE (2001) The spectre of populism in Philippine politics and society: Artista, masa, eraption!South East Asia Research9(1): 5–44.
28.
HefnerRW (2002) Global violence and Indonesian Muslim politics. American Anthropologist104(3): 754–765.
29.
JagersJWalgraveS (2007) Populism as political communication style: An empirical study of political parties’ discourse in Belgium. European Journal of Political Research46(3): 319–345.
30.
LaclauE (2005) On Populist Reason. London: Verso.
31.
LiddleR WilliamMujaniS (2007) Leadership, party, and religion: Explaining voting behavior in Indonesia. Comparative Political Studies40(7): 832–857.
32.
LimM (2017) Freedom to hate: Social media, algorithmic enclaves, and the rise of tribal nationalism in Indonesia. Critical Asian Studies49(3): 411–427.
33.
MenchikJ (2016) Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
34.
MenchikJ (2019) Moderate Muslims and democratic breakdown in Indonesia. Asian Studies Review43(1): 1–19.
35.
MenchikJTrostK (2018) A “tolerant” Indonesia? Indonesian Muslims in comparative perspective. In: HefnerR (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Indonesia. New York: Routledge, pp. 390–405.
36.
MietznerM (2015) Reinventing Asian populism: Jokowi’s rise, democracy, and political contestation in Indonesia. Policy Studies No 72. East West Center, Honolulu.
37.
MietznerMMuhtadiB (2018)Explaining the 2016 Islamist mobilisation in Indonesia: Religious intolerance, militant groups and the politics of accommodation. Asian Studies Review42(3): 479–497.
38.
MoffittBTormeyS (2014) Rethinking populism: Politics, mediatisation and political style. Political Studies62(2): 381–397.
39.
MuddeC (2004) The populist zeitgeist. Government and Opposition39(4): 542–563.
40.
MuddeC (2010) The populist radical right: A pathological normalcy. West European Politics33(6): 1167–1186.
41.
MuddeC (2016) The Study of Populist Radical Right Parties: Towards a Fourth Wave. Centre for Research on Extremism, the Extreme Right, Hate Crime and Political Violence, University of Oslo. Working Paper, No. 1, pp. 1–23.
42.
MuddeCRovira KaltwasserC (2013) Exclusionary vs. inclusionary populism: Comparing contemporary Europe and Latin America. Government and Opposition48: 147–174.
43.
MuddeCRovira KaltwasserC (2018) Studying populism in comparative perspective: Reflections on the contemporary and future research agenda. Comparative Political Studies51(13): 1667–1693.
44.
MullaA (2017) Broadcasting the Dharna: Mediating “contained” populism in contemporary Pakistan. International Journal of Communication11: 4181–4196.
45.
PanizzaF (2005) Introduction: Populism and the mirror of democracy. In: PanizzaF (ed.) Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. London: Verso, pp. 1–31.
46.
PowerThomas P (2018) Jokowi’s authoritarian turn and Indonesia’s democratic decline. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies54(3): 307–338.
47.
RooduijnM (2019) State of the field: How to study populism and adjacent topics? A plea for both more and less focus. European Journal of Political Research58: 362–372.
48.
RooduijnMPauwelsT (2011) Measuring populism: Comparing two methods of content analysis. West European Politics34(6): 1272–1283.
49.
SchedlerA (1996) Anti-political-establishment parties. Party Politics2(3): 291–312.
50.
StanyerJSalgadoSStrömbäckJ (2016) Populist actors as communicators or political actors as populist communicators: Cross-national findings and perspectives. In: AalbergT (ed.) Populist Political Communication in Europe. New York: Routledge, pp. 353–364.
51.
TanuwidjajaS (2010) Political Islam and Islamic parties in Indonesia: Critically assessing the evidence of Islam’s political decline. Contemporary Southeast Asia32(1): 29–49.
52.
ThompsonMR (2010) Populism and the revival of reform: Competing political narratives in the Philippines. Contemporary Southeast Asia32(1): 1–28.
53.
UcenP (2007) Parties, populism, and anti-establishment politics in East Central Europe. SAIS ReviewXXVII(1): 49–62.
54.
Van BruinessenM (2002) Genealogies of Islamic radicalism in post-Suharto Indonesia. Southeast Asia Research10(2): 117–154.
55.
Van BruinessenM (2013) Introduction: Contemporary developments in Indonesian Islam and the “conservative turn” of the early twenty-first century. In: Van BruinessenM (ed.) Contemporary Developments in Indonesian Islam: Explaining the ‘Conservative Turn’. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, pp. 1–20.
56.
WarburtonESimandjutakDSetijadiC (2018) Indonesia’s 2018 regional elections: Between local and national politics. Perspective31: 1–9.
57.
ZivD (2001) Populist perceptions and perceptions of populism in Indonesia: The case of Megawati Soekarnoputri. South East Asia Research9(1): 73–88.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
