“QUO VADIS CIVIL SOCIETY? CIVIL SOCIETY AND DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING IN INDONESIA”
Eunsook Jung
Assistant Dean in the College of Letters and Science
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Why would a democratically elected leader repress civil society? Repression is considered to be an autocratic strategy, yet Joko Widodo (popularly known as Jokowi), once a symbol of Indonesian democracy, repressed civil society during his two-term presidency (2014 —2024). Although Indonesian civil society had brought Indonesia to democracy, it did not fare well under repression.
This paper delves into the Jokowi presidency to investigate why a democratic leader would repress civil society, arguing that Jokowi’s government engaged in repression because of the perceived threat to his government posed by the actions of Islamists. To quash dissent and consolidate the president’s power, Jokowi’s government employed three illiberal strategies over civil society: criminalizing dissent, organizational closure, and favoritism.
Jokowi’s illiberal policies to support pluralism backfired on civil society. His repression of Islamism and favoritism to promote pluralism have perversely strengthened conservative Islamic civil society. Rebranding itself, conservative Islamic society has capitalized on the issues of morality and family values to build their presence and propagate their ideas. As a result, Indonesian civil society is not highly vulnerable in an era of democratic backsliding. Indonesian civil society is divided, and Islamist-pluralist cleavages are widening. This paper concludes by suggesting that a civil society that nurtures cross-cutting connections and mends cleavages is a necessary condition for the authentic growth of Indonesia’s democracy.
Professional profile: https://eunsookjung.com/