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Abstract
The democratization of politics has been accompanied by a rise of Islamic laws in many Muslim-majority countries. Despite a growing interest in the phenomenon, the Islamization of politics in democratizing Muslim-majority countries is rarely understood as a process that unfolds across space and time. Based on an original dataset established during years of field research in Indonesia, this article analyzes the spread of shari’a regulations across the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy since 1998. The article shows that shari’a regulations in Indonesia diffused unevenly across space and time. Explanations put forward in the literature on the diffusion of morality policies in other countries such as geographic proximity, institutions, intergovernmental relations and economic conditions did not explain the patterns in the diffusion of shari’a regulations in Indonesia well. Instead, shari’a regulations in Indonesia were most likely to spread across jurisdictions where local Islamist groups situated outside the party system had an established presence. In short, the Islamization of politics was highly contingent on local conditions. Future research will need to pay more attention to local Islamist activists and networks situated outside formal politics as potential causes for the diffusion of shari’a law in democratizing Muslim-majority countries.
Acknowledgements
This paper profited from critical discussions at the Habibie Center in Jakarta, Northwestern University, the Centre of South East Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Stanford University and UCLA. We thank all participants for their contributions. Thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Any errors that remain are our sole responsibility.
Notes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We would like to acknowledge financial support from the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and from the Buffet Institute for Equality Development and Globalization Studies at Northwestern University. Their generous contributions allowed us to conduct field research for this paper.
1. See CitationKendhammer (2013) for an overview.
2. Districts (kabupaten) and municipalities (kota) are situated below provinces in Indonesia’s administrative hierarchy. For brevity’s sake, we only refer to districts unless there are developments distinct to municipalities.
3. For a more exhaustive list of these regulations, see Pisani and Buehler (n.d.).
4. We are not explicitly addressing ‘how’ shari’a regulations diffuse. Instead, we try to isolate broad patterns in the diffusion of shari’a regulations that may become the starting point for a more detailed analysis of the mechanisms and processes through which shari’a regulations diffuse. Subsequent research will have to identify the actual mechanisms and processes through which Islamic law spreads in the context of democratization in Indonesia and other democratizing Muslim-majority countries. We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for encouraging us to be clearer on this point.
5. A similar logic is said to have led to a ‘race to the bottom’ in many American states with regard to social welfare policies. Fearful of attracting social welfare recipients from jurisdictions with lower quality social welfare regimes, many jurisdictions have cut back on social welfare provisions. In fact, US states have often pro-actively pushed citizens considered a burden to local welfare systems across state borders. The infamous ‘Greyhound therapy’ in Nevada is just one example. There, in an attempt to reduce health costs, mental health clinics were emptied in 2014 by sitting patients on an interstate Greyhound bus to California in the hope that the health system there would pick them up. Many of these patients became homeless in California instead. See CitationRather (2014).
6. There has been a long debate in political science on how to conceptualize culture. Numerous scholars have tried to identify local cultures across the USA, with varying degrees of success. For instance, Rosdil differentiates between conventional and unconventional jurisdictions in US local politics based on research that examines women’s social roles, the prevalence of tertiary education, the number of non-traditional households, including unrelated individuals living together, female-headed families and the prevalence of service-related employment in the local economy. Rosdil then argues that morality policies are more likely to spread across jurisdictions with conservative local cultures than jurisdictions with progressive local cultures. See CitationRosdil (1991).
7. Previous studies have grossly underreported the number of shari’a regulations, estimating that there are only between 78 and 169 such regulations in Indonesia. See CitationBush (2008: 174–191) and CitationBuehler (2013: 63–82) respectively.
8. For a more extensive discussion on this issue, see Pisani and Buehler (n.d.).
9. This may have to do with the fact that direct elections for local government heads were introduced in 2005. For a detailed analysis, see CitationBuehler (2016).
10. Seven shari’a regulations were adopted by caretakers that occupy office in between two elected district heads. Furthermore, in the case of three shari’a regulations, we could not establish whether they had been adopted in the first or second term as they did not include any date.
11. For a more in-depth analysis of how the adoption of shari’a regulations relates to election cycles, see Pisani and Buehler (n.d.).
12. For an analysis of the political dynamics in these shari’a clusters, see CitationBuehler (2013: 63–82).
13. There were no shari’a regulations adopted outside the shari’a clusters in 2013. It is not yet possible to say whether this is the start of a new trend, see CitationMuhtada (2014).
14. Most of these regulations outlaw the practices of Ahmadiyah, a heterodox Islamic group.
15. The appendices are available at: www.michaelbuehler.asia
16. Law No. 38/1999 on Zakat Management was the first law adopted in post-1998 Indonesia that had an explicit religious focus.
17. BAZNAS stands for Badan Amil Zakat Nasional and replaced BAZ, which stood for Badan Amil Zakat.
18. Only the provincial government in West Sumatra adopted one shari’a regulation on Islamic knowledge and skills in 2007.
19. Arguably, geographical proximity does not facilitate the diffusion of shari’a regulations because they are rarely implemented. Hence, politicians do not have to be concerned about potential spill-over effects even if neighboring districts adopt shari’a regulations against prostitution or the consumption of alcohol. Subsequent research will need to examine such hypotheses through surveys and in-depth process tracing.
20. Likewise, shari’a regulations prohibiting the religious practices of the Ahmadiyah only emerged after a national Joint Decree on Ahmadiyah was issued in 2008.
21. For an account of why shari’a regulations have spread to East Java, see CitationTurmudi (2004: 38–60).
22. Recent research suggests that many of these shari’a regulations are adopted despite a lack of popular demand. In fact, the adoption of certain shari’a regulations diminished incumbents’ chances to get re-elected. See Pisani and Buehler (n.d.). Why this is the case needs to be addressed in future research. It may be that the majority of citizens do not dare to speak out against such shari’a regulations as they fear to be seen as ‘bad Muslims.’ They may therefore openly support such regulations while in private (or in secret during the electoral process) rejecting such shari’a regulations. On ‘preference falsification’ and its political consequences, see CitationKuran (1997).
23. Mooney showed for the USA that the homogeneity of an electorate influences the probability of morality policies being adopted or rejected. See CitationMooney (2000: 179).
24. The weak Indonesian state does not have the capacity to collect taxes from most of its citizens. Only around 10 percent of Indonesians pay taxes. Consequently, most local governments have resorted to targeting bureaucrats. They are an easy target for tax collection because their salaries are controlled by the state. Governments have resorted to simply cutting bureaucrats’ salaries by the amount they are supposed to pay according to the respective shari’a regulation on zakat.
25. Of course, local elites are not only at the receiving end but may actively approach Islamist groups and networks. On how Islamic educational networks are used by elites for political ends in Indonesia, see CitationBrewis (2009).
26. In South Sulawesi, the KPPSI as well as networks of local Muhammadiyah branches organized knowledge exchange seminars and workshops on shari’a regulations. Often, local MUI branches were waiting for the national headquarters to approve their decisions, raising the question about the role national level political actors play in the diffusion of shari’a regulations. On the MUI as a crucial actor in the diffusion process, see CitationAlamsyah (n.d.: 12–32); CitationRuddy (2005: 27); CitationSuaedy (2007: 205).
27. For instance, the MUI organized a talk for a politician from Sukabumi district to brief his colleagues in Cianjur district on the shari’a economy in Sukabumi (CitationRuddy, 2005: 85–88).
28. For some initial findings, see CitationHasyim (2013: 156). On the importance of the vertical nature of ‘go-between’ organizations for the diffusion of policies, see CitationGraham et al. (2013: 20–21). Certain shari’a regulations exist only at the provincial level, as is the case in Gorontalo. However, this is a rare exception and needs further investigation.
29. A comparison between MUI and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) may yield important insights. ALEC is a non-profit organization that drafts and shares model legislations among conservative local governments across the USA. See www.alec.org for more information. For a critical assessment of ALEC, see www.alecexposed.org