Politics, Islam, and public opinion

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 109-123

  Mujani, Saiful ^a,b   William Liddle, R ^c  

^a Syarif Hidayatullah Stt Islam U

^b Freedom Institute   (Indonesia)

^c OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 1142289819     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2004.0006     Document Type: Review

References (12)

1. Jane Perlez, "Islam Lite in Indonesia Is Looking More Scary," New York Times, 3 September 2003, A6.
2. Jane Perlez, "Militant Islamic Congress Is Sparsely Attended in Indonesia," New York Times, 11 August 2003.
3. Suwarjono, "Hamzah Haz: Siapa yang Teroris? Ya Amerika Itu," Detikcom (Indonesian online news service), 3 September 2003.
4. The leader of the survey team was Saiful Mujani, coauthor of this article. The survey population included all residents of Indonesia aged 17 or older, or who were married when the survey was conducted. The 2,500 respondents were chosen in a multistage (from province to village or urban ward) random sampling procedure. Interviews were carried out face to face by trained interviewers. By design, half the respondents were female. Urban respondents represented 59.8 percent of the total. In terms of age: 9.4 percent were 20 or under; 27.2 percent between 21 and 30; 29.3 percent between 31 and 40, 17.8 percent between 41 and 50; 10.1 percent between 51 and 60; and 6.2 percent over 60. Educational levels were: 49.8 percent elementary-school graduate or lower; 39.2 percent some or completed middle school; 11 percent some university or other higher education. Ethnically: 46.8 percent were Javanese; 16.8 percent Sundanese; 3.8 percent Madurese; 2.5 percent Batak; 2.4 percent Minangkabau; and 27.7 percent Other. Our analysis focuses on the Muslim respondents, who represent 89 percent of the total sample. For further methodological details, consult the authors.
5. According to the 2000 census of the Central Bureau of Statistics, 58 percent of the Indonesian population is rural, while 42 percent is urban.
6. Figures for both Muhammadiyah and NU are from Republika, 9 January 2003, Special Tenth Anniversary Supplement. Republika is Indonesia's leading Muslim daily newspaper.
7. Clifford Geertz, Religion of Java (New York: Free Press, 1960).
8. Fachry Ali and Bahtiar Effendy, Merambah Jalan Baru Islam: Rekonstruksi Pemikiran Islam Indonesia Masa Orde Baru (Bandung: Mizan, 1996).
9. To construct our Islamism Index, the item scores for each respondent were added and divided by the number of items to produce a five-point scale of 1) strong Islamism; 2) moderate Islamism; 3) neutral; 4) moderate anti-Islamism; and 5) strong anti-Islamism. The mean of this scale is 3.07 (standard deviation .49), indicating that most Indonesian Muslims are neutral toward Islamism. For the percentages in the text and tables, strong and moderate Islamism were combined as Islamism (1-2.50), and moderate and strong opposition to Islamism were combined as anti-Islamism (3.51-5.0). Neutral, by far the largest category, remained the same (2.51-3.50).
10. Ali Said Damanik, Fenomena Partai Keadilan (Jakarta: Teraju, 2002).
11. Interview, Justice Party leaders, Jakarta, March 2003, conducted by R. William Liddle.
12. Democratic norms or values were constructed from ten items: democracy is the best political system; democracy is bad for economic development; democracy is bad for political order; democracy is indecisive; minorities are allowed to demonstrate in democracies; all citizens are equal before the law; all citizens are free to organize; the mass media must be protected by law; free elections are harmful to national unity; and competitive elections are good for governance. Each was scaled on a five-point scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. An additive scale was then constructed and simplified into two categories, pro- and antidemocracy.