Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-jnbmb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-02T10:12:43.391Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Competition and Ethnic Riots in Democratic Transition: A Lesson from Indonesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2015

Risa J. Toha
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Conventional wisdom recognizes the prevalence of intergroup clashes during political transition. Most explanations of ethnic riots, however, are based on clashes in mature democracies, and are therefore silent on the dynamics at work during democratic transition. Using district-level data in Indonesia from 1990 through 2005, this article argues that riots tend to occur in ethnically divided districts with low electoral competition because uncompetitiveness in the first democratic elections signals continued regime entrenchment and local political exclusion. As such, riots often follow uncompetitive elections, and dissipate after elections become more competitive and opposition candidates secure electoral victory.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 47 , Supplement 3 , July 2017 , pp. 631 - 651
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Yale-NUS College, Singapore (email: risa.toha@yale-nus.edu.sg). I would like to thank Ashutosh Varshney, Patrick Barron, Sana Jaffrey and Blair Palmer for sharing the UNSFIR data. This research has been supported by the Mustard Seed Foundation, UCLA Institute for Social Research and the Pacific Rim Research Grant. A visiting fellowship at APARC, Stanford University, allowed the completion of this manuscript. Stephen Worthington at IQSS at Harvard University provided excellent technical help. My special thanks go to Merry Alianti, for diligent research assistance. I am grateful to Barbara Geddes, Michael Ross, Daniel Posner, Daniel Treisman, Andreas Wimmer, Don Emmerson, Michael Buehler, Dan Slater, Tom Pepinsky, Eddie Malesky, Allen Hicken, Joel Selway, S.P. Harish, and participants of seminars at Northern Illinois University, UCSD IRPS, SEAREG, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, the editor and four anonymous reviewers at the British Journal of Political Science for their comments. All errors are mine. Online appendices are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0007123415000423 and replication files are stored at http://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/BJPolS.

References

Aditjondro, George. 2001. Guns, Pamphlets, and Handie-Talkies: How the Military Exploited Local Ethno-Religious Tensions in Maluku to Preserve Their Political and Economic Privileges. In Violence in Indonesia, edited by Ingrid Wessel and Georgia Wimhofer, 100–128. Hamburg: Abera-Verl.Google Scholar
Albertus, Michael, and Menaldo, Victor. 2013. Gaming Democracy: Elite Dominance During Transition to Democracy. British Journal of Political Science 44:575–603.Google Scholar
Amin, Ash. 2003. Unruly Strangers? The 2001 Urban Riots in Britain. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27:460–463.Google Scholar
Aragon, Lorraine. 2001. Communal Violence in Poso, Central Sulawesi: Where People Eat Fish and Fish Eat People. Indonesia 72:45–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aspinall, Edward. 2011. Democratization and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia: Nine Theses. Journal of East Asian Studies 11:289–319.Google Scholar
Beittinger-Lee, Verena. 2010. (Un)Civil Society and Political Change in Indonesia: A Contested Arena. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bertrand, Jacques. 2004. Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bohlken, Anjali, and Sergenti, Ernest. 2010. Economic Growth and Ethnic Violence: An Empirical Investigation of Hindu-Muslim Riots in India. Journal of Peace Research 47:589–600.Google Scholar
Brass, Paul. 1997. Theft of an Idol: Text and Context of Representation of Collective Violence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Graham, and Diprose, Rachael. 2009. Bare-Chested Politics in Central Sulawesi: The Dynamics of Local Elections in a Post-Conflict Region. In Deepening Democracy in Indonesia? Direct Elections for Local Leaders (Pilkada), edited by Maribeth Erb and Priyambudi Sulistiyanto, 352–373. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2015. Religious Dimensions of Political Conflict and Violence. Sociological Theory 33:1–19.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Smith, Alastair, Siverson, Randolph, and Morrow, James. 2003. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Min, Brian, and Wimmer, Andreas. 2010. Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel: New Data and Analysis. World Politics 62:87–119.Google Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2004. Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crescenzi, Mark. 1999. Violence and Uncertainty in Transitions. The Journal of Conflict Resolution 43:192–212.Google Scholar
Damanik, Rynaldi. 2003. Tragedi Kemanusiaan Poso: Menggapai Surya Pagi Melalui Kegelapan Malam [Humanitarian Tragedy in Poso: Reaching for the Light of Dawn after the Darkness of Night ]. Jakarta: Yakoma PGI.Google Scholar
Davidson, Jamie. 2008. From Rebellion to Riots: Collective Violence in Indonesian Borneo. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Dunning, Thad. 2011. Fighting and Voting: Violent Conflict and Electoral Politics. Journal of Conflict Resolution 55:327–339.Google Scholar
Eifert, Benn, Miguel, Edward, and Posner, Daniel. 2010. Political Competition and Ethnic Identification in Africa. American Journal of Political Science 54:494–510.Google Scholar
Fearon, James, and Laitin, David. 2003. Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. American Political Science Review 97 (1):75–90.Google Scholar
Feith, Herbert. 1962. The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Colm. 2009. Campaign Appeals: Identity and Competition in Nine Indonesian District Elections. Paper presented at the UCLA Indonesian Studies Graduate Student Conference, Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
Hadiz, Vedi. 2010. Localising Power in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia: A Southeast Asia Perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan, and Kaufman, Robert. 1995. The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hamayotsu, Kikue. 2015. Indonesia 2014: The Year of Electing the ‘People’s President’. Asian Survey 55:174–183.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald. 2001. The Deadly Ethnic Riots. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janowitz, Morritz. 1969. Patterns of Collective Racial Violence. In The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Gurr, 393–422. New York: Praeger Publishers.Google Scholar
Karapin, Roger. 2002. Antiminority Riots in Unified Germany: Cultural Conflicts and Mischanneled Political Participation. Comparative Politics 34:147–167.Google Scholar
King, Dwight. 2003. Half-Hearted Reform: Electoral Institutions and the Struggle for Democracy in Indonesia. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
King, Gary. 1998. Unifying Political Methodology: The Likelihood Theory of Statistica Inference. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Levitsky, Steven, and Way, Lucan. 2009. The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism. In Democracy: A Reader, edited by Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner, 289–303. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Liddle, William. 1978. The 1977 Indonesian Election and New Order Legitimacy. Southeast Asian Affairs 5:122–138.Google Scholar
Liddle, William, and Mujani, Saiful. 2007. Leadership, Party, and Religion: Explaining Voting Behavior in Indonesia. Comparative Political Studies 40:832–857.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linz, Juan, and Stepan, Alfred. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Machado, Fabiana, Scartascini, Carlos, and Tomassi, Mariano. 2011. Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America. Journal of Conflict Resolution 55:340–365.Google Scholar
Mancini, Luca. 2008. Horizontal Inequality and Communal Violence: Evidence from Indonesian Districts. In Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies, edited by Frances Stewart, 106–135. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Marks, Garry. 1992. Rational Sources of Chaos in Democratic Transition. American Behavioral Scientist 35 (4/5):397–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murchu, Niall. 2007. Split Labor Markets and Ethnic Violence After World War I: A Comparison of Belfast, Chicago, and Johannesburg. Comparative Politics 39:379–400.Google Scholar
Olzak, Susan. 1992. The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pepinsky, Thomas, Liddle, Bill, and Mujani, Saiful. 2012. Testing Islam’s Political Advantage: Evidence from Indonesia. American Journal of Political Science 56:584–600.Google Scholar
Posen, Barry. 1993. The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict. Survival 35 (1):27–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, Daniel. 2005. Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scacco, Alexandra. 2010. Who Riots? Explaining Individual Participation in Ethnic Violence. Doctoral dissertation. New York: Columbia University.Google Scholar
Schwarz, Adam. 1999. A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia’s Search for Stability. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Selway, Joel, and Templeman, Kharis. 2012. The Myth of Consociationalism? Conflict Reduction in Divided Societies. Comparative Political Studies 45:1542–1571.Google Scholar
Sidel, John. 2006. Riots, Pogroms, and Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Spilerman, Seymour. 1970. The Causes of Racial Disturbances: A Comparison of Alternative Explanations. American Sociological Review 35:627–649.Google Scholar
Subramanian, Dilip. 2005. France: Riots and the Immigrant Community. Economic and Political Weekly 40:5156–5158.Google Scholar
Tadjoeddin, Zulfan. 2011. The Economic Origins of Indonesia’s Secessionist Conflicts. Civil War 13:312–332.Google Scholar
Tadjoeddin, Zulfan. 2013. Educated but Poor: Explaining Localized Ethnic Violence During Indonesia’s Democratic Transition. International Area Studies Review 16:24–49.Google Scholar
Tajima, Yuhki. 2013. The Institutional Basis of Intercommunal Order: Evidence from Indonesia’s Democratic Transition. American Journal of Political Science 57:104–119.Google Scholar
Tambiah, Stanley. 1996. Leveling Crowds: Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tandjung, Akbar. 2007. The Golkar Way: Survival Partai Golkar di Tengah Turbulensi Politik Era Transisi. Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama.Google Scholar
Tomsa, Dirk. 2008. Party Politics and Democratization in Indonesia: Golkar in the Post-Suharto Era. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Turchin, Peter. 2012. Dynamics of Political Instability in the United States, 1780–2010. Journal of Peace Research 49:577–591.Google Scholar
van Klinken, Gerry. 2006. The Maluku Wars: ‘Communal Contenders’ in a Failing State. In Violent Conflicts in Indonesia: Analysis, Representation, Resolution, edited by Charles Coppel, 129–143. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
van Klinken, Gerry. 2007. Communal Violence and Democratization in Indonesia: Small Town Wars. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh. 2002. Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh, Tadjoeddin, Muhammad Zulfan, and Panggabean, Rizal. 2008. Creating Datasets in Information-Poor Environments: Patterns of Collective Violence in Indonesia, 1990–2003. Journal of East Asian Studies 8:361–394.Google Scholar
Weidmann, Nils, and Callen, Michael. 2013. Violence and Election Fraud: Evidence from Afghanistan. British Journal of Political Science 43:53–75.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Steven. 2004. Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Steven, and Haid, Chris. 2009. Ethnic Violence as Campaign Expenditure: Riots, Competition, and Vote Swings in India. Working paper, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas. 2002. Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflicts: Shadows of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wright, Joseph. 2008. Political Competition and Democratic Stability in New Democracies. British Journal of Political Science 38:221–245.Google Scholar
Ziblatt, Daniel. 2006. How did Europe Democratize? World Politics 58:11–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Toha supplementary material

Appendix

Download Toha supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 8.6 MB