The Journey of Political Parties in Indonesia in the State System

Democratic country like Indonesia usually generates healthy, growing, and rooted from below political party. In Indonesia, political parties have long been known before Indonesia's independence. At that time, the political party became the medium of the founding father's struggle to fight against colonialism. Since Indonesia's Independence Day, the existence of a political party was admitted and supported by the government. This study needs to do from a political point of view. It will enrich learning and understanding the existence of political parties concerning the development of Political Science in Indonesia. The focus of this study is to describe how the political party's history and its role from Orde Lama until the Orde Baru era in Indonesia. This study uses a qualitative research method, and data interpreting will be analyzed using the descriptive analysis method. In the meantime, data validation will be checked and rechecked after collecting data. This study concludes that Indonesian politics has experienced a significant shift in values and practices. Indonesia must begin to review the political system, nation, and state.

The Use of Primaries by Political Parties: The Case of PASOK - A Comment

This paper comments on Professor Papanikos’ recent publication in this journal entitled, “The Use of Primaries by Political Parties: The Case of PASOK”. I make a number of observations regarding the argument of the author that primary elections are an application of democracy in the internal procedures of a political party. The question raised is whether primaries enhance democracy, or restrict it, by diminishing the role of party members only in selecting party representatives and have no role in the discussion of policies. Another important issue is the age structure of the participants in the primary elections. Did it matter? More analysis and evidence is needed on this issue to find out whether the relatively younger candidate mobilized more young members and friends to participate in the primary elections of PASOK. Keywords: primaries, elections, voting, political parties, PASOK, Greece

Gender and Candidate Communication: An Analysis of Televised Ads in the 2020 US Senate Races

Recent studies of the content of television ads of female versus male political candidates have shown that women and men are increasingly similar in their communication styles and strategies, with some notable exceptions. However, few studies examining gender and political ad content have focused exclusively on US Senate races, considered the influence of the candidates’ political party, or compared the messages of women running against female versus male opponents. This study examines 236 political ads—160 from mixed-gender and 76 from female–female—U.S. Senate races in 2020 for their verbal and visual content. Results show gendered and partisan differences in the issues emphasized and the tone used. Candidates were similar in the images emphasized. Female candidates were more balanced between formal and casual attire compared to previous election cycles. And candidates in mixed-gender races used different strategies than those in female–female contests as to the issues and political actors mentioned.

How Right-Wing Populists Engage with Cross-Cutting News on Online Message Boards: The Case of ForoCoches and Vox in Spain

Anecdotal evidence suggests a link between online message boards and the rise of far-right movements, which have achieved growing electoral success globally. Press accounts and scholarship have suggested these message boards help to radicalize like-minded users through exposure to shared media insulated from cross-cutting viewpoints (e.g., Hine et al. 2017 ; Palmer 2019). To better understand what role online message boards might play for supporters of right-wing populist movements, we focus on the Spanish political party Vox and its supporters’ use of the message board ForoCoches, a fan site for car enthusiasts, which became an important platform for the party. Using more than 120,000 messages collected from threads mentioning the party between 2013–2019, we examine the URLs shared to show how mainstream news media events shape the conversation online and how users not only were exposed but deeply engaged with cross-cutting news sources. We argue that the use of sites such as ForoCoches should be viewed in the context of a broader increasingly hybrid political and media landscape where activity online and offline cannot be understood separate from one another. Moreover, our findings suggest that the online political discussions that take place in Vox-related threads on ForoCoches resemble normatively positive deliberative spaces—albeit in this case in support of illiberal political positions. In other words, our findings complicate conventional notions about the benefits of political talk, especially online, as a democratically desirable end in and of itself.

Post-Islamism in Indonesia: Analysis of Islamic Political Party Programs in the 2019 National Elections

Although most Indonesia's population is Muslim, the Islamic parties' votes do not show a significant general election. This tendency encourages Islamic parties to develop post-Islamism to win the sympathy of majority Muslim voters in Indonesia. Ahead of the 2019 election, identity politics or sectarian politics had strengthened in the 2017 DKI Jakarta Regional Head Election, and even identity politics had long ago emerged with the proliferation of Sharia regulations in several regions, as well as the issuance of the MUI Fatwa regarding the illegitimacy of secularism, liberalism, and pluralism. This study aims to see whether Islamic parties maintain Post Islamism in political programs in the 2019 election. The research uses a library research method by collecting data from books, journals, national print, and online media. The study results explain that Islamic parties remain consistent in using the Post Islamism approach in the 2019 election, even though their vote acquisition is stagnant as a middle board party. Received: 4 September 2021 / Accepted: 15 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Power Consolidation of Jokowi's Administration: The Role of the Social Media and Political Issues in Indonesian Democracy

Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is the first Indonesian Democratic President elected by the peripheral people and not the elite. Jokowi is the only Indonesian President that is not the leader of any political party. Therefore, the President was faced with the issues of power consolidation in the initial administrative years. Some professional elites failed the President because they assumed a possible overthrown. During the presidential election in 2019 with Prabowo Subianto, Jokowi took K. H. Ma'ruf Amien as a vice presidential candidate and was attacked by China and the Indonesian Communist Party (ICP/PKI). However, Jokowi was re-elected for the second period (2019-2024) due to his close relationship with Indonesians, which is different from other presidents. Received: 23 August 2021 / Accepted: 24 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Democracy and Politics: An Introduction to the Special Issue of the Athens Journal of Social Sciences

This paper is an introduction to the special issue of the Athens Journal of Social Sciences on Politics. It includes six papers, which relate to various aspects of politics in today’s democracies. The first paper examines populism in selecting political parties of the European Union (EU); the second explains a political experiment performed in USA; the third discusses the prospects of the 2022 elections in Brazil; the fourth states that democracies need leaders as this is the case with Israel; the fifth looks at a real threat to democracy which is radicalism and violence using the case of the Slovakian youth; and the last paper examines a case of primary elections of a Greek political party (PASOK). Keywords: politics, democracy, elections, Brazil, Greece, Israel, Slovakia, USA, European Union, Latin America

Engaging Young Voters in the Political Process

The aim of this chapter is to analyse young voter engagement in modern Western democracies. Why young voters? Young voters are disengaged from the political process. In order to complete the analysis, the author adapts an engagement model from social media marketing. The adapted model consists of three parts: consumption, contribution, and (co) creation of brand related materials. The author hypothesises that each aspect of the model is related to the other and that all three aspects of the model are positively related to loyalty to the political party brand. The aim of this conceptual adaptation is to investigate a new way to re-engage young voters with the political party brand, thereby strengthening one pillar of modern democracy.

Analisis Pasangan Calon Tunggal Dalam Pemilihan Kepala Daerah Kota Pematang Siantar Tahun 2020

The purpose of this study was to analyze a single candidate pair in the regional head election of Pematang Siantar City in 2020. The purpose of this study was to explain why there was a single candidate pair in Pematang Siantar City. The legality of the Constitutional Court Decision number 100/PUU-XII/2015 is a legal force to uphold the meaning of democracy in political contestation, in this case regional head elections. Besides that, the essence of democracy which promises freedom to be elected and to vote is an additional power to bring up a single candidate pair. The failure to regenerate political parties is another trigger for the emergence of a single candidate pair in the post-conflict local election. Not only in Pematang Siantar City but also throughout Indonesia. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative with interview instruments involving political party administrators and political observers in Pematang Siantar City in addition to references to single candidate pairs. The weak cadre of political parties with the presence of wholesale parties makes incumbents not get support in Pematang Siantar City. The legal power of the Constitutional Court's decision and the meaning of democracy to be elected and voted made the single candidate pair in Pematang Siantar City win the post-conflict local election against an empty box.