Revisiting the inclusion-moderation thesis in the context of decentralized institutions

Abstract

Institutions figure prominently in explanations for why radical parties forego their agendas and subject themselves to democratic principles when included in politics. Analyzing the Prosperous Justice Party’s political trajectory across Indonesia’s multi-level government structures between 1999 and 2009, I show that the Islamist party has gradually adopted more moderate behavior not only in national politics, where institutional incentives are conducive to moderation, but also in local politics, where institutional incentives for moderation are weaker. The absence of a strong pattern of invariant association between institutional incentives and the moderation of party behavior points to the importance of party internal mechanisms in moderation processes. Based on primary sources and in-depth interviews with party members, I argue that socio-structural factors shape a party's internal power dynamics and thereby its long-term capacity to adopt more moderate behavior.

Keywords

Decentralization democratization Islamic Law Indonesia party formation party institutionalization Prosperous Justice Party PKS religious parties shari'a

Introduction

Institutions figure prominently in explanations for why radical parties successfully integrate into the mainstream when included in politics. In a system in which one needs a majority (or a certain proportion) of the votes to realize political goals, electoral institutions encourage radical parties to adjust their agendas to broaden the range of supporters. This was argued for socialist parties in Western Europe (Przeworski, 1980: 40–44), workers’ parties in Latin America (Keck, 1992: 154–166) and religious parties, including Catholic (Kalyvas, 1998, 2000) and Islamist parties (Tezcur, 2010), all competing in democratic elections. Institutional features said to nudge parties in more moderate directions are, among others, a political context that favors political insiders over outsiders (Kalyvas, 1998: 309), and a high electoral threshold (Tezcur and Kunkler, 2010: 2). Arguably, the degree of institutional discretion over policy formulation also influences whether parties become more moderate when included in politics. The main idea encapsulated in this literature is summarized by Kalyvas (1998: 296), who argued that parties abandon radical agendas because of the ‘the strategic pursuit of their interests under certain institutional conditions’.¹ Radical parties, in other words, may not necessarily become more moderate ideologically, but will adjust their behavior in accordance with institutional incentives (Kalyvas, 2000; Share and Mainwaring, 1986: 175).

In the following paragraphs, I question the strong role assigned to institutions in moderation processes. A structured comparison of the Prosperous Justice Party’s (PKS – Partai Keadilan Sejahtera) behavior across Indonesia’s multi-level government system shows that the party has gradually adopted more moderate behavior between 1999 and 2009 not only in national politics, where institutional incentives are conducive to moderation, but also in local politics, where institutional incentives for moderation are weaker. This raises the question why the PKS has become more moderate at the local level too, despite the fact that subnational institutional incentives are less encouraging of behavioral moderation?

In the second part of the article I argue that the absence of a strong pattern of invariant association between institutional incentives and the moderation of party behavior is the result of party internal dynamics. The party became more moderate across different institutional layers because the national leadership has the capacity to impose its moderate course on local branches using rigid vertical structures tilted in favor of the party leadership. These structures have their origins in the party’s formative years. Due to the PKS’s distinct class roots and its unique religious doctrine, disgruntled rank-and-file members have few political alternatives. This lack of options keeps lower party rungs in place and strengthens the party leadership. The case of the PKS shows that socio-structural factors influence a party’s capacity to moderate, a cause that only a cause that no study has explicitly identified so far.

Different approaches to studying moderation

A major point of discussion in the literature is the differentiation between behavioral and ideological moderation. Adherents of the former concept understand moderation as the calculated behavior radical parties show to gain access to power (Huntington, 1991: 165–172; Kalyvas, 2000: 379–398; Share and Mainwaring, 1986: 175–215; Tezcur, 2010: 69–88). These studies ‘measure’ moderation by looking at changes in party documents and official guidelines, political pragmatism as shown by the willingness to enter political coalitions with parties across the political spectrum and change in a party’s policy programmes.

Critics of this approach highlighted that a focus on behavior might be insufficient. Party members might only pretend to be more moderate and revert to illiberal politics once in power (Schwedler, 2011: 358). To detect wolves in sheep’s clothing, these scholars search for manifestations of ideological moderation in party internal documents or the unofficial stance of party cadre on so-called red-line issues (Clark, 2005a, b; Schwedler, 2006, 2007; Wickham, 2004).

I focus on the behavior of the PKS for practical and theoretical reasons. It proved difficult to access PKS internal documents and estimate the ideological stance of thousands of party cadres with a satisfactory degree of certainty. These difficulties are, arguably, a result of the ongoing debate about behavioral and ideological moderation within the party itself and the secretiveness that comes with it (Fealy, 2010: 5). Furthermore, studies that emphasize the crucial role of institutions in moderation processes primarily focus on behavioral moderation. As I want to critically examine the argument that it is, above all, institutional incentives that lead to moderation, it is sufficient to concentrate on behavioral moderation.

The reference point for what constitutes behavioral moderation is context specific. The PKS was always committed to changing politics through electoral means and never rejected democracy as the legitimate political order for Indonesia (Damanik, 2002: 251; Hilmy, 2010; Kompas, 2001a: 6).² The following paragraphs therefore analyze PKS’s moderation over the past decade relative to the party’s behavior when it entered politics in 1998. To this end, I trace coalition-building patterns and shifts in the party’s policy agenda in national and local politics.

Party behavior in multi-level institutional systems

Scholars focusing on the inclusion–moderation nexus have usually equated democracy with the presence of free and fair elections. However, the decentralization of political institutions and the denationalization of electoral politics has become a core characteristic of recent waves of democratization (Crook and Manor, 1998). This devolution of power has created local political dynamics that often differ from national politics. Most immediately important for the purpose of this article is the finding that decentralized institutions can affect the way nationwide parties organize and strategize in local politics (Hopkin and van Houten, 2009: 131–135). For instance, voters going to the polls in decentralized democracies consider local races no longer second-order elections, and issues that garner votes at the local level may differ considerably from national politics. Hence, local branches of nationwide parties have frequently supported platforms that differ from the views of the national party leadership. Over time, these differences may become so pronounced that regional party systems emerge (Bardi and Mair, 2008: 154–157).

The decentralization of institutions in Indonesia has created different opportunity structures for parties in national and local politics, including distinct incentives for coalition-building and different dynamics regarding the formulation and implementation of policies. In national politics, for instance, there are strong institutional incentives for entering coalitions across the ideological spectrum. One is the presence of the cabinet. National politicians are eager to obtain a cabinet post because it provides their party with access to the patronage-rich executive and the opportunity to manipulate regulations and laws in their favor. The prospect of obtaining a cabinet post encourages parties to join coalitions across the political spectrum because it is usually the parties that supported the successful presidential candidate that are awarded a cabinet post. In short, institutional dynamics in Indonesian national politics reward insiders over outsiders.

Centripetal forces that steer parties towards coalition-building are less pronounced in local politics. For once, there is no cabinet. At the same time, candidates that successfully win executive posts in provincial, district and municipality elections are mostly bureaucrats that are prohibited by law to be party members. This has certain implications for party behavior at the local level. The Law on Regional Government 32/2004 ruled that candidates in local executive head elections have to be nominated through a party or a coalition of parties that had earned at least 15 percent of the vote in the most recent legislative election at the respective level of government, or that controlled at least 15 percent of the seats in the local parliament (Art. 59).³ Seemingly, this acts as a considerable institutional incentive for Islamic parties to enter broad coalitions. However, since the majority of candidates are bureaucrats with only weak bonds to parties, candidate–party relationships are fragile and often collapse soon after elections. Candidates also use personal networks to campaign in subnational elections rather than the apparatus of the parties that nominated them. Due to the weak role of parties prior to elections, post-election bureaucratic appointments are usually made from within personal networks rather than party coalitions (Buehler and Tan, 2007). Overall, pressure on local executive heads to reward party politicians is lower at the local level than at the national level. Said differently, being part of a local party coalition does not automatically guarantee material rewards or access to power. Hence, incentives for Islamic parties to moderate behavior with regard to coalition-building is less immediately obvious at the local level.⁴

The presence of an electoral threshold is another institutional incentive for party moderation mentioned in the literature. Regulations stipulating that a party must receive a minimum percentage of votes to obtain a seat in the legislative are said to moderate (the usually small) radical parties by bringing their behavior in line with the preferences of voters with more mainstream views. In Indonesia, the Legislative Election Law 10/2008 amended a threshold rule according to which parties that failed to win 2 percent of the vote obtained a seat in the national parliament but were not allowed to contest future elections. The new regulations stipulated that only parties that win 2.5 percent of the national vote may occupy a parliamentary seat, while those failing to meet the threshold are free to contest future polls. There are no such de jure thresholds for local legislative elections in Indonesia.⁵ Parties receive seats in local parliaments based on how many votes they manage to collect in each of several electoral areas per province, district or municipality. The number of seats that can be won differs from one electoral area to another and with it the de facto threshold for parties competing in local elections. Overall, however, institutional incentives to pursue agendas that are popular with median voters are less pronounced in most subnational political entities in Indonesia.

Finally, executive discretion over policy formulation and implementation is smaller in national politics than in local politics. While the national parliament in Indonesia lacks a convincing track record of effectively monitoring the administration and little real political opposition is in place, national legislators have nevertheless become more assertive in criticizing the executive branch of government since the demise of the New Order (Baird and Wihardja, 2010: 144–146).

The development has gone in the other direction in local politics. The decentralization of institutions created an imbalance between executive and legislative powers, especially after 2005 when various new regulations and laws were implemented that cut back the oversight functions of local parliaments (Aspinall, 2006: 194). In addition, far-reaching powers were given to local executives to issue local regulations that supplement national laws. Experience of past years shows that local parliaments rarely initiate such regulations, and that the local executive dominates this process (Ibrahim et al., 2009: 1–42; Kristiansen et al., 2008: 70). Again, institutional constraints for parties that control the executive government are less developed at the local level.

‘Institutions define the realm of what is possible, [and therefore]… shape political strategy’ Kalyvas wrote (1998: 311). In Indonesian national politics, the centripetal forces towards broad coalition-building; an electoral threshold encouraging small parties to cater to the beliefs of median voters; and a certain degree of checks-and-balances, all act as institutional incentives for parties to pursue moderate politics. Incentives to adopt more moderate behavior are less pronounced in subnational politics. Local politicians have to accommodate fewer interests when implementing policies, and meaningful checks-and-balances on agendas are largely absent, as summarized in Table 1.

Table 1.

Different institutional incentives for moderation in national and local politics.

	National politics	Local politics
Incentives for entering broad coalitions	High	Medium
Electoral threshold (2008–2014)	2.5%	0%
Parliamentary threshold (1999–2008)	2%	0%
Executive government discretion over policy agenda	Medium	High

Democratization, decentralization and the moderation of the Prosperous Justice Party

After the collapse of the New Order regime in May 1998, free and competitive elections were introduced. At the same time, the devolution of power to provinces, districts and municipalities replaced the highly centralized administrative structures of the dictatorship. Elections for local executive and legislative bodies were introduced, while various laws provided these newly empowered entities with access to government revenues.

Government institutions were decentralized but the party system was not. The Party Law 31/2002 specified that parties needed branches in half of the provinces, half of the districts and municipalities within these provinces and 25 percent of the sub-districts within these districts and municipalities (Art. 2, Clause 3). As a result, Indonesia only knows nationwide parties with the exception of Aceh province.⁶

During the New Order dictatorship only three parties were allowed to participate in elections, namely the Golkar party, the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P – Partai Demokrasi Indonesia – Perjuangan) and the aforementioned PPP. There has been a proliferation of nationwide parties after the political opening in 1998. At the time of writing, there were seven major parties in Indonesia, which garnered a combined share of votes of 89.9 percent in 1999, 80.1 percent in 2004 and 73.5 percent in 2009 (Tomsa, 2010a: 154).

The high number of parties does not reflect a diversity of competing ideologies or policy options. Indonesian politics remain highly personalized and programmatic party platforms are rare. Two of the seven aforementioned parties, however, have an explicit Islamist background, namely the PKS and the PPP. The PKS, which entered politics as the Justice Party (PK-Partai Keadilan),⁷ has managed to increase its number of votes in every election since 1998 and was the strongest Islamist party in the country at the time of writing. The PKS is therefore an important case to examine the inclusion-moderation thesis in a decentralized political system.

PKS’s behavior in national politics since 1998

The political trajectory of the PKS over the past decade shows that the party has adopted more moderate behavior with regard to national coalition-building and policy programmes.

Moderation in national coalition-building

PKS’s stance on coalition-building was clear when it entered politics a decade ago. In a public hearing during the presidential elections in 1999, Didin Hafidhuddin, then the party’s presidential candidate, who had been nominated because ‘he was not a politician’ (Damanik, 2002: 286), categorically ruled out the possibility of a coalition between PKS and ‘status-quo parties’ in case he would win the country’s top job (Kompas, 1999a: 6). At the time, the party leadership also considered the formation of an all Islamist party coalition as the main avenue for PKS’s political engagement. This coalition would include the PPP, the Islamic Community Party (PUI – Partai Umat Islam), the Masyumi party (Partai Masyumi) and the Community Awakening party (PKU – Partai Kebangkitan Umat) (Kompas, 1999b: 13).

The PKS continued to be a minor political player after the 1999 elections, occupying only seven seats in the national parliament and with one minister in the cabinet (Bubalo et al., 2008: 49). Largely excluded from national politics, the national party leadership was able to brand the PKS as a party of Islamic propagation (dakwah) that shuns alliances with secular-nationalist parties (Damanik, 2002: 246). In 2000, the PKS even left the government to become an opposition party. Hidayat Nurwahid, then party chairman, cited what he perceived the pro-Israel course of the government’s Middle East politics as one of the main reasons behind the party’s decision (Kompas, 2000: 6). In subsequent months, the party leadership mentioned on several occasions that it would not participate in any ‘political compromise’ (Kompas, 2001a: 6). The PKS also refused to join the cabinet of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, referring to different ideological views on policy issues (Permata and Kailani, 2010: 23–39).

The party’s stance toward coalitions in national politics changed after the watershed elections in 2004 in which the PKS managed to increase its votes to 7.34 percent from 1.36 percent in the 1999 elections. Now, the PKS leadership decided to support the presidential bid of former New-Order general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and his secular-nationalist Democratic Party (PD – Partai Demokrat). After the elections, the party was awarded four cabinet posts out of which it accepted three. In 2009, once again the party supported the candidacy of SBY, who was the clear frontrunner. This time, the PKS was awarded four posts in what the media dubbed the ‘return-the-favor’ cabinet (kabinet balas budi). This evidence suggests that the prospects of gaining cabinet seats may have been behind the change in PKS behavior.

Moderation of national policy positions

After the party had gained a bigger stake in politics, it also showed more moderate behavior in policy matters, arguably in an effort to appeal to median voters. For example, the party began to reject publicly the label Islamism, agreed to cooperate with other faiths and officially endorsed Indonesia’s ecumenical state philosophy Pancasila with its commitment to religious pluralism. PKS also abandoned its initial opposition to women in leadership positions and formally amended the party’s organizational statutes to allow Muslims from non-tarbiyah backgrounds, meaning ‘education’ in Arabic and a label used for members of the social movement the PKS emerged from, to become official members of the party (Tomsa, 2010b: 11–21). The PKS even supported non-Muslim candidates for legislative and executive elections and allowed them to enter the party. In addition, PKS’s national leadership supported various national policies drafted by the SBY administration that were highly controversial among voters.⁸

Most evidently a manifestation of PKS’s moderation in policy issues at the national level is its stance on shari'a law. The party’s initial political agenda was formulated around the idea of an Islamic state based on shari'a law (Bubalo et al., 2008: 68). Hence, in its early days, the party’s national party leadership regarded the implementation of such laws as an important item on its policy agenda. ‘There is a need to expand [Islamic] education [in Indonesia] so that people have a better understanding of Islam and will support the idea of implementing shari'a …’, a party official stated in 2003 (Kompas, 2003: 6).

PKS’s stance on shari'a law changed, again, after the party became more included in politics as a result of its 2004 electoral success. Gradually, the PKS leadership distanced itself from its earlier vision of shari'a law as the basis of the Indonesian state out of fear of alienating middle ground voters: ‘We would be mad to talk about Islamic law when what the public wants is good government’, a national party leader said after 2004 (quoted in Bubalo et al., 2008: 69).

Several recent studies documented PKS’s behavioral moderation in national politics (Bubalo et al., 2008: 73; Chernov Hwang, 2010: 635–674; Hadiz, 2010: 71; Permata and Kailani, 2010: 56; Shihab and Nugroho, 2008: 233–267), all reaching conclusions similar to Tomsa who stated that the PKS at the national level shows ‘clear signs of moderation effectuated by the party’s inclusion into democratic procedures such as elections, parliamentary negotiations and lobbying’ (Tomsa, 2010b: 13).

PKS’s behavior in local politics since 1998

PKS has shown more moderate behavior in local politics too, despite the fact that institutional incentives working in favor of moderation are less pronounced at this level of government.

Moderation in local coalition-building

Between 1999 and 2005, governors, district heads and mayors were elected by local parliaments. Only the overall votes each candidate received were made public without revealing information about how local parliamentarians had actually voted. Therefore, data on coalition-building during this period are sparse. Anectodal evidence suggests, however, that in the first few years following the collapse of the New Order, local PKS branches opposed broad coalitions. After an election reform in 2005, parties were required to nominate candidates who were then elected directly by the people. This made patterns of coalition-building more easily observable. In 2005, PKS branches started to show considerable pragmatism in their endeavor to be part of local executive elections. In the 33 gubernatorial elections that were held between 2005 and 2008, the PKS entered coalitions with secular-nationalist parties in 69.7 percent of all cases. In contrast, the PKS entered gubernatorial elections on an all-Islamist party platform only in the provinces of North Sumatra and West Nusa Tenggara and it was only in the former province where such a coalition won. Party coalition-building in district and municipality elections followed similar patterns. The PKS participated in 180 out of 487 district head or mayor elections held between 2005 and 2008. The party entered coalitions with secular-nationalist parties in 63.9 percent of these elections. All-Islamist party coalitions accounted for only 2.2 percent of PKS’s district head and mayor election coalitions, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2.

PKS coalitions in local executive head elections, 2005–2008.

	Absolute	Percentage
Gubernatorial Elections
Coalition with secular-nationalist parties	23	69.7
Coalition with Islamist parties	2	6.1
PKS single nominations	1	3.0
n.a.	7	21.2
Total	33	100
District Head and Mayor Elections
Coalition with secular-nationalist parties	115	63.9
Coalition with Islamist parties	4	2.2
PKS single nominations	5	2.8
n.a.	56	31.1
Total	180	100

Source: Own calculations based on JPPR (2008) and party internal documents.

PKS’s behavior also changed with regard to the kind of candidates it supported. Initially portraying itself as a party in opposition to the New Order establishment (Bubalo et al., 2008: 57 f.), over the years the PKS started to support candidates from brackets of society from which it had distanced itself in 1998. For instance, the party started to support military and police figures in local elections who had become powerful during the military-backed Suharto dictatorship, such as Ikasuma Hamid Dt Gadang Batuah, a Brigadier General in the Indonesian military (Brigjen TNI) who was running for deputy governor in West Sumatra in 2005, Major General (Mayjen TNI) Salim Mengga, who ran for the governor post in West Sulawesi province in 2006, as well as Adang Daradjatun, a high-ranking police officer, running for governor of Jakarta in 2007. Local PKS leaders also frequently endorsed the candidacy of prominent actors, television presenters, singers and dancers, all hailing from the entertainment industry the party had regularly condemned as un-Islamic in its early days. For example, PKS chose Marissa Haque, a popular soap opera star and wife to rock singer Ikang Fawzi as the deputy governor candidate in Banten province in 2006. Similarly, Helmi Yahya, a television producer and news presenter was the PKS candidate for deputy governor in the South Sumatra gubernatorial elections in 2008, as was Dede Yusuf, a well-known actor, who ran for deputy governor in the West Java gubernatorial race in 2008. The extent to which celebrity endorsement has become a deliberate strategy of local PKS chapters over the years is exemplified in a 2008 statement by Zulkieflimansyah, a leading party figure: ‘[If you nominate a celebrity] [i]mmediately the grassroots will come to you, shake your hand, and just admire the beauty of the movie star and so on and so forth, and you're saving a lot of money [for campaigning]’ (Lopez, 2009). Local PKS branches even entered coalitions with Christian party candidates in areas with considerable Christian populations as the alliances between PKS and the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS – Partai Damai Sejahtera) in Papua and West Kalimantan show.⁹

All-Islamist party alliances and support for candidates with an Islamist background were the exception rather than the norm in local elections. One such example is the candidacy of Nasir Djamil, who had been a prominent member in the national parliament’s special committee for the drafting of an anti-pornography law. He received PKS’s endorsement to run as deputy governor in Aceh province in 2008. Likewise, local PKS branches were part of a coalition that campaigned for Syamlan, who wanted to become deputy governor in Bengkulu province in 2005. Syamlan, who won the elections, had previously been the secretary of the provincial Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI – Majelis Ulama Indonesia), an arch-conservative, government-sponsored body tasked with issuing religious edicts (fatwa).

PKS single tickets were successful in only four districts and municipalities, namely, Bangka Barat, Bekasi, Kota Depok and Kota Pariaman (Setiawan, 2009: 8). Parhan Ali who became district head in Bangka Barat in 2005 and Mahmudi Ismail who became mayor in Kota Depok in 2005 were the only successful candidates that were also official PKS members. Slightly more PKS members became deputy district heads, namely Ria Saptarika in Batam City in 2006, Teguh Sahono in Kampar in 2006 and Ardiansyah in Hulu Sungai Selatan in 2008. Only two PKS rank-and-file members were successful in gubernatorial elections between 2005 and 2008. Abdul Ghani Kasuba, a former PKS member in the national parliament, became deputy governor in North Maluku province in 2007 supported by a coalition including the secular-nationalist PD and the Islamist PBB. Likewise, Ahmad, who had long been a PKS cadre, became governor of West Java province in 2008.

Of course, the role of institutions should not be ignored altogether when explaining why local PKS branches have shown more moderate behavior in coalition-building over time. The aforementioned 15 percent rule undoubdtedly played a key role in local coalition-building. Since the PKS did not reach 15 percent of the votes or seats in any provincial assembly in the 1999 or 2004 legislative elections with the exception of Jakarta, and in only a minority of districts and municipalities, it had to enter coalitions with other parties if it wanted to be part of these elections. However, it was not only such institutional incentives that motivated local PKS branches to adopt more moderate behavior in its coalition-building. This is shown by the fact that the party entered more than minimum-winning coalitions in most provinces and districts. Most candidates the party supported through such coalitions were also not from PKS. Institutional opportunity structures alone, in short, cannot explain PKS’s behavior to enter coalitions with secular-nationalist parties that were larger than the 15 percent rule would have required.

Moderation of local policy positions

In the first few years after PKS’s formation, local party branches were frequently involved in debates on radical policy agendas. PKS branches, for instance, organized demonstrations, rallying for more conservative approaches on issues such as the government’s policy in the Middle East and the United States' invasion of Afghanistan, but also domestic issues such as the distribution of ‘pornography’ through local print and broadcast media (Kompas, 2001b: 26; 2001c: 20). In certain localities, PKS cadres were directly involved in pursuing radical agendas. For instance, in Sinjai district in South Sulawesi province, Kahar Mustafa, the secretary of the local PKS branch, was involved in a bomb attack on a McDonalds restaurant in 2001 (Kompas, 2002: 20).

Over time, however, local PKS branches abandoned such radical agendas despite the fact that institutional constraints for such behavior were less developed at that government level. This is most evident when looking at the adoption and implementation of shari'a regulations. The Laws on Regional Government 22/1999 and 32/2004 gave local executive heads the right to draft and issue regulations together with local parliaments on a wide range of issues (Art. 140). 169 regulations with an Islamist connotation were adopted over the last decade, regulating dress codes for women, alcohol consumption or the collection of religious alms (Buehler, 2013). The emergence of such regulations in many provinces, districts and municipalities was interpreted as signs of PKS’s growing assertiveness (Dhume, 2007) and prompted alarmist accounts of the ‘creeping shari'aization’ of Indonesia (Anwar, 2003).

The majority of local PKS cadres did not adopt such shari'a regulations, however. A look at localities in which the PKS exerted political influence over the executive government – local executive heads are the dominant force in drafting and implementing local regulations, as mentioned before – is illuminating. PKS was part of a winning coalition in 7 out of 33 gubernatorial elections held between 2005 and 2008. Not a single shari'a regulation was adopted in any of these seven provinces after the elections. Likewise, PKS was part of a winning coalition in 121 of the 487 district head and mayoral elections conducted between 2005 and 2008; 114 of the 121 executive heads supported by the PKS did not issue shari'a regulations. Seven districts and municipalities adopted shari'a regulations after a candidate who enjoyed the endorsement of PKS had won the elections. However, none of these seven district heads or mayors had a PKS background or was an actual party member. Of the seven aforementioned PKS rank-and-file members who were able to win an executive position only Mahmudi Ismail adopted two shari'a regulations, namely a regulation on stopping prostitution in 2006 and a regulation on banning Ahmadiyah, an Islamic sect, in his district in 2011. All other PKS figures with executive government powers did not adopt a single shari'a regulation during their tenure. PKS members who were given executive government power, in short, refrained from adopting shari'a regulations despite the fact that the institutional context would have allowed them to do otherwise.¹⁰ These findings show that the party has not only refrained from adopting shari'a law in national politics but has also shown more moderate behavior in this respect in local politics.

To summarize, the PKS has shown more moderate behavior over time in both national and local politics. The national party leadership has repeatedly entered coalitions with secular-nationalist parties and other faith-based parties, from which the party had distanced itself in its early days. The national leadership has also changed its stance on crucial policy issues, including the adoption of shari'a law. Finally, the central party board has not only modified its position on the pluralistic state ideology Pancasila, and the role of women within the party, but has also allowed non-tarbiyah Muslim and non-Muslim to become rank-and-file members. In local politics, PKS branches have regularly entered coalitions with secular-nationalist and other faith-based parties. Local party branches have also frequently nominated military personnel and figures from the entertainment industry as well as candidates from other faiths in areas with significant religious minorities. At the same time, the party has not utilized institutional opportunities to pursue more radical local politics. The majority of provinces, districts and municipalities in which the PKS was part of a winning coalition in local executive head elections did not adopt shari'a regulations. No province and only one district in which PKS rank-and file members constituted the executive government adopted shari'a regulations. Finally, the PKS did not dominate any of the local parliaments in provinces, districts and municipalities that adopted shari'a regulations.

The structured comparison of PKS’s national and local politics failed to produce a strong pattern of invariant association between institutional opportunity structures and party behavior. The national party leadership became more moderate over the past decade in response to institutional incentives at that level of government. PKS’s behavior at the national level is in line with a broader convergence of party positions towards the middle ground of Indonesian politics (Mietzner, 2008; Platzdasch, 2009). At the local level, PKS branches adopted more moderate behavior too despite the institutional setting pushing less in the direction of moderation. This is also remarkable because local PKS rank-and-file members are much more purist in their religious practices and political views than the national party leadership (Chernov Hwang, 2010: 658; Fealy, 2010: 5). It seems that the moderate national PKS leadership has managed to impose its course across the party apparatus, defying the centrifugal forces of subnational politics and its ‘assertive regional cadre’ (Tomsa, 2006) that have undermined the cohesion of many other parties. This suggests a focus on other factors than institutional incentives to explain PKS’s behavioral moderation across government layers.

Party formation and moderation

The main goal of the following paragraphs is to show that socio-structural factors, frowned upon by rational choice approaches to the inclusion-moderation thesis (Kalyvas, 1998: 307), play an important role in moderation processes. Concretely, the argument put forward is that the intricacies of party formation have an impact on the propensity of a party to adopt more moderate behavior.

The fact that the PKS leadership managed to override both local institutional incentives and the political views of lower party rungs suggests the examination of party internal organization and decision-making processes. The argument presented in the following paragraphs complements and expands research findings of recent years made in other political settings, which argued that party institutionalization, party internal organization as well as a party’s ability to create narratives governing political practice are decisive factors in moderating Islamist parties (Schwedler, 2006: 195; 2007: 59). Schwedler, for example, attributes the fact that Yemen’s Islah party did not become more moderate, despite the ‘right’ institutional incentives being in place, to the party’s rather undemocratic internal structures. The decisions of moderate forces within the party to shun radical agendas had no legitimacy as they were not based on party consensus. In contrast, the IAF in Jordan became more moderate because decisions about the political course of the party were reached through democratic practices between party members (2006: 196). In other words, it was easier for the IAF to justify changes in the party’s course and redraw the ‘boundaries of justifiable action’ because decisions were reached through a deliberate process.

However, one could also draw the conclusion from a close reading of Schwedler’s account that it was not so much the deliberative nature of party internal mechanisms that led the IAF towards moderation but party capacity per se, i.e. the strength to impose a political course on a party’s apparatus, that played a crucial role in the moderation process. In fact, several studies on the inclusion-moderation thesis in democratic settings have previously hinted at the irony that strong, hierarchical and rather undemocratic organizational structures contributed to behavioral moderation (Kalyvas, 2000: 393; Tezcur, 2010: 77; Tezcur and Kunkler, 2010: 20). Even Schwedler alluded to the crucial role of integrated internal power structures by stating that Yemen’s Islah party did not become more moderate because the party was ‘fairly fragmented’ as it consisted of a ‘coalition of tribal, mercantile and religious interests’ (2006: 195). Consequently, Islah’s leadership often formally announced a more moderate behavioral course, only to see prominent individuals within the party who had a different political agenda undermine it. Arguably, the capacity of the party leadership to control dissent within a party and the power to impose behavioral changes across the party apparatus plays an important role in moderation processes, especially in multi-level government systems.

To understand the dynamics of party internal power struggles one has to study party formation (Shefter, 1994). Panebianco, for instance, showed how ‘organizational development is strictly conditioned by the relations that the party establishes in the genetic phases and after by its interactions with other organizations and societal institutions” (1988: 20). Since the hypothesis proposed here is that vertical power structures that are tilted in favor of the party leadership play an important role in moderation processes, the following paragraphs draw on those parts of Panebianco’s theory that explain how party formation shapes vertical relations within a party.

Outcomes of negotiations between party leaders and rank-and-file members depend on the degree of control each group has over crucial resources or ‘zones of uncertainty’. ‘The survival and functioning of an organization depend on a series of activities; the very possibility that a vital activity could be denied, that someone could walk out on the organization, that an interruption could take place in crucial activities, constitutes an uncertain situation for the organization. People who control the zones of uncertainty upon which the operation of the services depends, hold a trump card, a resource that is ‘spendable’ in the internal power games’ (Panebianco, 1988: 33). Applying Panebianco’s insights on party internal dynamics to the inclusion-moderation thesis means that if party leaders control most of these aforementioned ‘zones’, they will find it easy to impose a new behavioral course across the party apparatus. In contrast, if rank-and-file members control many of these ‘zones’, lower party rungs are likely to shape the political course of the party.

Several features of party formation facilitate party leadership control over such ‘zones of uncertainty’. For instance, party leaders gain control if it is difficult for ordinary party followers to obtain the material and ideological benefits they enjoy qua being party members from another party or organization. For instance, party followers who have no alternative sources of remuneration ‘[a]re heavily dependent upon the organization. And the more they depend upon the organization, the less they control certain zones of uncertainty, and thus the more the leaders can act independently’ (Panebianco, 1988: 31).

Party members depend on an organization, for example, if the party is a ‘community of fate’, characterized by a specific identity for which there is no equivalent in the broader political arena. Similarly, parties that are rooted in a certain class are inclined to develop strong vertical structures under the control of a small group. In Western Europe, for instance, parties that emerged from within the working class were more prone to develop hierarchical structures than middle-class parties, because members of the former class found it more difficult to find other alternatives to the privileges they enjoyed by being party members. In short, the circumstances of party formation define the internal bargaining power of the party leadership (Panebianco, 1988: 32).

The control of PKS’s national party leadership over vertical structures

The PKS has the structure of a hierarchical cadre party (Permata and Kailani, 2010: 27–34; Shihab and Nugroho, 2008). For instance, the party leadership claims religious authority over all its members through PKS’s shari'a council (Dewan Syari’ah). The religious edicts (fatwa) of the council are binding for all party followers (Permata and Kailani, 2010: 29). PKS’s deliberation assembly (Majelis Syuro) under the control of national party leaders is the ultimate decision-making body for party strategy, the drafting and implementation of policy programmes and the amendment of party statutes. Membership in the deliberation assembly is highly restricted. Furthermore, the party leadership has various mechanisms at hand to ensure the implementation of party strategies across the party apparatus. Party members, for instance, are ranked into six different membership categories. Change in rank usually has to be approved by party leaders from the next higher category and therefore ultimately by the national party leadership. Party statutes also stipulate that it is the duty of all members to be loyal to the party leaders and to follow party edicts on political and policy issues. Finally, the central party board (Dewan Pimpinan Pusat) has the power to propose party candidates, to approve party leadership at the provincial level (which then approves the party leadership at the district level) and to evaluate party programmes in local politics. Party internal guidelines require PKS chapters to follow national party doctrines. Local party branches are not allowed to exclude women, non-Muslim or non-tarbiyah Muslim since the national party guidelines officially allow these groups to participate in party activities (pers. comm., Mardani 21 July 2010; pers. comm., Nur I’man 21 July 2010). The national party leadership reserved the rights to intervene in local candidate selection and frequently did so (pers. comm., Mardani 21 July 2010). All this makes the PKS ‘the most centralistic party [in Indonesia]. This is because for the PKS functionaries’ compliancy towards higher leadership structures is not only a matter of organizational discipline or political loyalty, but also a moral commitment’ (Permata and Kailani, 2010: 46).

The PKS’s most recent five-yearly national congress in June 2010 provided ample evidence for how strong the control of the national leadership over the party’s vertical structures is. A foreign observer reported:

[During the congress], PKS allowed no outsiders into its internal sessions. … In fact, all of the key party policy and leadership decisions had been taken at closed-door Majelis Syuro meetings in Jakarta over months leading up to the [congress]. … Some [congress] delegates later informed me that the internal sessions at the [congress] were dominated by briefings and motivational speeches by party leaders, rather than discussion of or debate about party policy and strategy. One cadre said: ‘This was all about socializing decisions from the party leadership. We were told what the Majelis Syuro had decided and how best to implement the decisions. This [congress] is not about deliberation’. Another told me: ‘Dissent or differing opinions are frowned upon at these occasions. We are expected to just accept the Majelis Syuro decisions (Fealy, 2010: 6).

The origins of PKS’s hierarchical structures: Class and religious doctrine

Other parties in Indonesia have hierarchical structures too, but PKS’s formative years explain why its vertical structures are skewed in favor of the leadership. The PKS is rooted in social networks that formed at university mosques across Indonesia in the late 1970s (Damanik, 2002: 63–122). These networks morphed into a closely-knit, inward looking community (usrah) whose members were organized in small cells through which they engaged in Islamic outreach activities (dakwah). The members of this tarbiyah community formed strong bonds for several reasons. The repressive nature of the New Order regime forced these networks to operate in clandestine ways. At the same time, drawing on the agenda of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan) and the teachings of its founder Hassan al-Banna, the members of these networks followed a distinct religious ideology from the start. The core doctrine was to build a ‘pure’ Islamic society in an evolutionary manner, mainly through Islamic education. In short, the unique ideology that was taught within these networks and the interpretation of core religious doctrines in much stricter ways than other Muslim organizations in Indonesia (Damanik, 2002: 78 f.) set the group apart from mainstream Indonesian Islam that is more syncretist in nature (Damanik, 2002: 88). These factors, in combination with a rigorous recruitment system for new cadres that would rely on schools affiliated with the movement, explain the tarbiyah movement’s strong social cohesion but also relative isolation (Damanik, 2002: 82).

The networks were also rooted in a very specific class of Indonesian society. Early supporters of the tarbiyah movement, who eventually became PKS followers and cadre, were predominantly students from Indonesia’s indigenous middle class, which had grown in size during the three decades of economic growth under the Suharto dictatorship, and which had also profited from the improvements in the higher education sector made throughout the New Order (Damanik, 2002: 67).

Unsurprisingly, the PKS features unique characteristics compared to other Indonesian parties. For instance, it is the only Islamic party that does not claim to have any kind of link or historical affiliation with Islamic parties established prior to the New Order (Damanik, 2002: 219–221). Initially, the party had no personalities that would have been well known among the electorate and that could have served as vote-getters (Damanik, 2002: 275). The party, in other words, is much less personalized than other Indonesian parties which often serve as the political vehicle of an ambitious individual. Furthermore, in the party’s early years, its main base was at university campuses (Damanik, 2002: 268 f.). Today, PKS’s strongholds remain concentrated in urban middle-class neighborhood (Setiawan, 2009: 8). Hence, most PKS members have an above-average educational background and are comparatively young. This statistic holds true down to local party branches (Damanik, 2002: 261).

It is precisely because of the shared experiences of oppression during the New Order, the unique religious universe PKS followers inhabit and their distinct socio-economic background that rank-and-file members find it difficult to substitute the rewards they receive from belonging to the party by joining another party or organization. For instance, PKS’s doctrine of changing Indonesian society through Islamic education is unknown to other Islamist parties in the country. Likewise, PKS provided many of its middle-class members with opportunities for upward social mobility and an entry ticket into politics they could not find elsewhere. The lack of spiritual and political alternatives for many PKS followers works to the advantage of the party leadership, increasing its freedom to impose its political course on the party and gradually steer the party in more moderate directions.

Conclusion

In this article, I have shown the limitations of the argument that it is, above all, institutions that shape the behavior of parties. Indeed, the PKS adjusted its behavior at the national level in accordance with the institutional setting it encountered after gaining a stake in politics in 2004. The party also showed more moderate behavior at the local level, however, where institutions defined ‘the realm of what is possible’ in a less restrictive manner.

Party internal structures transmitted the national impulse to moderation to the local setting. Concretely, rigid vertical structures provided party leaders with the powers to steer the PKS in new directions. The origins of these internal power structures, I argued, lie in the formative years of the party. The party’s unique religious doctrine and the distinct class background of its members make it difficult for PKS rank-and-file members to seek alternative political vehicles. This worked in favor of the party leadership.

These findings lead to several questions that need to be addressed in future research. If the formation of a party shapes its long-term development, are certain parties more likely to become more moderate than others from the outset? A comparison of PKS with other Islamic parties in Indonesia, thereby holding the institutional setting constant, could shed light on this question. Furthermore, the PKS leadership achieved behavioral moderation across its party apparatus and institutional layers by imposing a new course on lower party rungs in a rather authoritarian manner. Future research will have to show whether this will also lead to ideological moderation within the party. A recent article stated that behavioral moderation can only lead to ideological moderation through ‘a process of engaging in debates about ideological commitments – and collectively agreeing to adhere to the outcome of internal votes on the substantive issues being debated …’ (Schwedler, 2011: 360; my emphasis). However, it is far from clear whether PKS’s moderate course is unsustainable, because it was imposed on parts of the party. A long-term study of PKS’s local branches would be an opportunity for future research on whether ideological moderation can occur even if a majority of party members are being excluded from internal debates. Overall, the examination of PKS’s path towards behavioral moderation over the past decade has shown that socio-structural factors play an important role in moderation processes and should therefore be examined further in accounts of the inclusion-moderation thesis in democratic settings.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Endah Asnari for her research assistance, Manfred Brocker, Greg Fealy, Mirjam Künkler, John Sidel and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft. Any errors that remain are my sole responsibility.

Notes

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