Analysis On The Political Mobilization Mode And Dilemma Of Indonesian Islamic Parties Since The Reformation

Islam parties play an important role in Indonesia politic since the foundation of this country.After 1998,Indonesia embarked for a new phase called Reformation.Since then,legal provisions reflecting the spirit of Islamic Sharia law have been increasing,Islam religion’s "politically correct" status in ideology area has also been consolidated.At the same time,however,Islam parties ’ share of vote in successive parliamentary elections is gradually declining.In view of this contradiction,most of existed articles focus on election laws,ideological pluralism and rational voter hypothesis,which can not explain the problem quiet well.In view of shortcomings of previous research,to better explain the ungear between political election and Islam ideology,this paper takes the practical interests and ideological differentiation as factors,and choose the political mobilization perspective to explore.Using elements of political mobilization theory,this paper defines political mobilization under election politics context as: the process in which political parties propose / provide attractive policy programs / practical interests at ideology and material level to strive voters ’ empowerment in elections.After that,this paper summarizes two mobilization modes of Indonesian Islamic parties: in ideology ground,Islamic political parties ’ policy preference became pragmatic,strive to moderate the Islamic label and shape a mild image;In material ground,Islamic parties establish their own social networks and provide public services to people in target communities to attract voters’ support.However,Islamic parties also face competition from secular parties and Islamic organizations in previous two levels,consequently they failed to fully transform Islamic politic influence into polls.This paper is divided into six parts: introduction and literature review;the first chapter briefly introduces the development and classification of Islamic parties from Indonesia’s independence to 1998 and discuss the difference between Islam politics and Islamic political parties;the second chapter discusses the contradictory performance of Islamic politic and lists several insufficient explanations through real cases and election data;the third chapter constructs a political mobilization model based on classical literature;the fourth and fifth chapters try to summarize the dual challenges of political mobilization of Indonesian Islamic parties;in the end,based on the recent developments in Indonesia,this paper looks forward the potential development space and direction of Islam parties.