Religion in Indonesia's Elections: An Implementation of a Populist Strategy?

In Indonesia's political strategic environment, Islamic narratives have been among the main narratives, but have not always been dominant. The 2014 presidential election displayed the beginning of a rising trend of Islamic narratives within the political context in Indonesia. Since then Islamic narratives influenced the strategy of Indonesia's populist leaders, as particularly seen during the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election and 2019 presidential election. This paper analyzes how populism as a strategy was used in recent Indonesian elections. For this purpose, it uses the conception of populism as a political strategy proposed by Weyland. Building on this approach, the paper explains the strategic adjustments made in the use of populism from 2014, 2017, and 2019 in Indonesian political events. It argues that the strategic environment faced by populist actors in Indonesia's 2019 election affected their decision to choose Islamic narratives as an instrument for mass mobilization.

Economic voting in the Philippines

The article wanted to find out if elections in the Philippines are economically motivated. Using 2019 gubernatorial election results, a logit model with inflation rate, unemployment rate, provincial revenue, and poverty incidence for the economic variables and party affiliation with the President and membership in a political family as the political variables was tested to explain the probability of an incumbent governor to be re-elected. The marginal effects tell us that a change in the unemployment rate decreases the predicted probability of a governor being reelected but interestingly, a change in the poverty incidence rates has the opposite effect.

Policy Networks: Actors, Interests, and Power Relations in the Jakarta Bay Reclamation Project

This case study seeks to understand the policy-making of the Jakarta bay reclamation project through the analytical lens of the policy networks. It posits that different policy networks would possibly produce or condition different policy outcomes in the project. The study uses a qualitative secondary data analysis. The study found: First, policy changes in the project, from initiation to implementation and finally termination, might be explained through the formation and transformation of different types of policy networks. Overall, the networks were characterized by fluctuating interactions among actors and the persistent power struggle between economic, environmental, and societal interests. Second, the networks’ type changes were possible due to two factors: (1) the political context of the 2017 gubernatorial election; and (2) the influences of environmental and societal ideas. Studi kasus ini berupaya untuk memahami pembuatan kebijakan proyek reklamasi teluk Jakarta melalui lensa analitik policy networks. Studiiniberasumsi bahwa jenis policy networksyang berbeda mungkin akan menghasilkan atau mengkondisikan hasil kebijakan yang berbeda dalam proyektersebut. Hasil studi ini menemukanbeberapatemuan. Pertama, perubahan kebijakan dalam proyek, dari inisiasi hingga implementasi dan akhirnya penghentian, dapat dijelaskan melalui pembentukan dan transformasi berbagai jenis policy networks. Secara keseluruhan, networkstersebutditandai oleh interaksi yang berfluktuasi di antara para aktor dan perebutan kekuasaan yang terus-menerus antara kepentingan ekonomi dan lingkungan dan masyarakat. Kedua, perubahan jenis networks tersebut kemungkinan disebabkan oleh dua faktor: (1) konteks politik Pilgub 2017; dan (2) pengaruh gerakanpemikiran lingkungan dan sosial.

Gubernatorial Elections Change Demand for Local Newspapers

How do partisans react when their candidate wins or loses a gubernatorial election? Previous work shows that when parties win presidential elections, demand for their affiliated local newspapers decreases relative to the losing party’s newspapers. However, it is unclear if this negative link extends beyond presidential races into state-level elections. To test this relationship, we analyze demand for partisan and non-partisan newspapers in Virginia and New Jersey—two states that hold off-cycle gubernatorial elections with no competition from federal elections—from 1933 to 2005. We find demand for local newspapers associated with the winning party declines after gubernatorial elections compared to demand for other newspapers. The results also shed light on whether (and which) winning partisans are disengaging completely or shifting their consumption to independent newspapers. Taken together, our study suggests that state-level elections significantly influence local newspaper consumption and adds valuable local context to our understanding of the political dynamics of news demand.

Thailand’s Prayut will push through obstacles

Significance Prayut had the second-fewest votes cast for him and the most against him. The opposition probably did not expect to succeed with its censure motion, given the government’s comfortable house majority, but used the related debate to air discontent over matters such as the administration’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Impacts Next month’s reopening of certain parts of the country to international tourism should help support economic recovery. The upcoming Bangkok gubernatorial election will provide a fresh opportunity for the opposition to mobilise. Prayut will allow parliament to press on with plans to amend the constitution but frustrate attempts at substantive change.

Pandering Politicians? Targeted Economic Development Incentives and Voter Response

Empirical evidence largely suggests that the billions of dollars state and local governments spend on targeted economic development incentive (EDI) programs are typically ineffective at stimulating broad economic activity. The continued use of EDIs by public officials has thus led scholars to investigate the role of these programs in political pandering. In this paper, we explore the relationship between EDIs and gubernatorial elections in Arkansas. Specifically, we investigate whether officials strategically allocate discretionary EDIs based on previous county-level gubernatorial election outcomes. We subsequently explore the impact of discretionary EDIs on an incumbent party’s bid for gubernatorial reelection at the county level. Our results largely suggest that public officials do not allocate EDIs based on previous election outcomes. Moreover, our results indicate that voters are unresponsive to both the quantity and magnitude of credit claiming messages.

ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS IN INDONESIAN POLITICS: EVIDENCE FROM THE 2017 JAKARTA GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION

Studies have documented how ethnic and religious sentiments shape the voting behavior of Indonesian Muslims. However, to date no studies have carefully measured the relative influence of these sentiments. I fill this gap in the literature by taking advantage of the candidacy of a Christian, ethnic Chinese candidate in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election in Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok). Employing an original survey of Jakartan Muslims, I show through experimental and correlational analyses that Muslim voters are more opposed to Ahok than non-Muslim voters are and that this opposition is driven more by Ahok's ethnicity, as opposed to his religion. I also show that Muslim voters’ feelings toward ethnic Chinese shape their support for Ahok more than their feelings toward Christians. I discuss how these findings inform our understanding of the limits and extent of religious influence on Muslim voting behavior.

Indonesian Civil War: Comparing Discourse In the Campaign of Jakarta’s 2017 Gubernatorial Election

Political discourse today is no longer dependent on the performance of the political elite; however, it has shifted to active participation of their supporters. This phenomenon is widely recorded in social media as the background event. Without exception to Jakarta’s 2017 Gubernatorial Election that received an international spotlight because the roar is so massive in the universe of cyberspace. This qualitative descriptive study examined the pattern of campaign movements as a political discourse conducted by the public in supporters community account as a form of public participation in the politics of free-active democracy. It aimed to map out the pattern of discourse movements arising from the supporter community accounts of one of the candidate through the perspective of the discourse comparison offered by Sawirman (2014). The findings show that there are three supporting accounts of candidates which posited as primary, secondary and tertiary discourse. For the configuration of the discourse, gradable adjectives are used as a linguistic strategy to weaken and to dispel sympathy for opposing factions. It is based on the spirit that speakers are superior to their rivals. In general, the pattern of discourse movements identified is synergistic and mutual in order to demonstrate the superiority of their group by degrading the opposing side.

Tokyo Gubernatorial Election During Pandemic: Democracy VS "Demo" Crazy

COVID-19 has plunged the world into chaos. Global cases increase every day, impacting economic, social and political sectors. Japan is among the impacted countries. How does it deal with the pandemic? The aim of this article is to examine the election in the Tokyo Prefecture area during the pandemic. It is a gubernatorial election that was held on July 5, 2020. The election was held when a seat vacancy occurred as demanded by democratic processes. At the same time, the election was held while the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading across the country, which included Tokyo. Therefore, this article juxtaposes the term democracy against "demo"crazy (you crazy) to show the conflict of norms between the demands of democracy and the madness of holding elections when the situation is considered inappropriate. The term “demo”crazy is a mix of Kelantan Malay words representing you and crazy (madness). The combination of the words translates as "you are crazy." It also reflects that holding elections at the wrong time is considered to be madness. How did the candidates conduct their campaigns and the voting? What was the content of the campaigns during the pandemic? What was the effect of the elections? This study uses the library research methodology to answer these questions. This study found that the demand for democracy was more important than waiting for a possible recovery in the situation. Although holding an election was considered a crazy move, as a supporter of democracy, an election was still considered to be a priority.