Not So Common, Apparently

As has been a tradition in understanding politicians and their political behavior in Indonesia, one typically scrutinizes their formative period as a person: where they were born, grew up, and finally maturing as a politicians. This biographical approach has a long pedigree; see one writing about general Soeharto here, and even one writing about our current president Joko Widodo here. 

A trope in this approach is how the politician comes from humble background and thus explains their (alleged) quest to elevate the fate of the marginalized: economically, socially, politically. "I am part of the 'rakyat' or commoners." That is more or less the message the politicians broadcast. Whether that is genuinely the case, or a mere fronting, is for you to judge yourself (should you have the privilege to know the politicians in person).

I myself am curious to see where Jokowi used to hang out, especially where his favorite culinary joints are. Information from the internet tells us that during his days in Solo one of his favorite places is soto Triwindu, a meat or chicken soup named after the traditional market where the food stall located.

 

 I consider myself a big fan of soto, not yet a knowledgable afficionado but already a sucker for soto session anytime anywhere, and can confirm that soto Triwindu is indeed delicious, off the chart for that type of soto. But also, here is an important information, a rather fancy soto place. At least to my initial impression.

If soto is commoners' food, then soto Triwindu is among the royals. Certainly not the kind of kaki lima place I go every morning. Soto Triwindu sets itself aside from others not because it is being overtly expensive. It is still affordable to Jakarta middle class' purchasing power. Rather, it is special owing to its presentation. It is more a restaurant than a street food stall. The fried tempehs, beef tripe (babat), and other side dishes to compliment the soto are put inside a glass drawer of a rather fancy piece of furniture, to mention one of its unique presentation.

Now, lets assume this is indeed Jokowi's favorite soto place and there is an extent to which it describes what kind of person he is. Is he a commoners like us? Yes and no. Our president indeed is a commoner. Much more so seen from the capital of Jakarta where the middle class frequent fancy ethnic restaurants and Western food franchises. But among the commoners, Jokowi occupies a place in its upper echelon. He appears cultured, has a taste, and more importantly could afford his taste. People tend to forget that when he commenced his journey in electoral politics, he has already been a self-made man (subnational scale nothwitstanding) namely a successful furniture businessman exporting his products worldwide.

How Illiberal Is Indonesia's Democracy?

 My latest paper provides a rudimentary measure of the degree of Indonesia's illiberal democracy by looking at the involvement of the state in enforcing religious values. Comparison between Indonesia's religious legislation with other democracies yields an observation that Indonesia is rather unusually illiberal: the state is heavily involved in religion enforcement. The paper is available here, and the data replication material here.

Snippets from the paper. The boxplot below demonstrates that democracies have narrower spread of scores in terms of the number of religious legislation. Autocracies, in contrast, has wider spread reflecting a population of countries with high scores.

With that difference in mind, it is interesting to see whether there are outlier cases. For example, democracies that pass high number of religious legislation. Another figure below maps countries on two important planes: their democratic scores (V-Dem dataset) and their religious legislation scores (RAS 3 dataset). Indeed, some countries demonstrate deviation from the typical relationship between regime type and religious legislation.  Democracies usually have low religious legislation scores, with important exceptions including Indonesia.

More discussion in the paper in regard to what high enforcement of religion implies to the quality of Indonesia's democracy. Especially, to the degree of its illiberal nature.