Abstract
This article seeks to contribute an understanding of how populism informs incumbency disadvantages in elections. Incumbency has been seen as highly beneficial in elections, and many studies have found that incumbent candidates enjoy significant access to resources with which they can campaign. This article, however, finds a different reality, with incumbents in Banda Aceh and Takalar experiencing electoral defeat. In both areas, extensive field studies before and after the local elections found that incumbents’ unwillingness to adopt a populist approach during their terms influenced voters’ choices. The main argument of this article is that, in Indonesia’s local democracies, incumbency has created space for varied models of populism, including the communitarian populism found in Aceh and Takalar. Such populism has emerged from specific socio-cultural contexts at the local level that have shaped voters’ preferences. The socio-cultural context of communal societies such as Aceh and Takalar has informed the truth value through which elites, policies, and phenomena are judged. Ultimately, this communitarian populism cannot be separated from the public’s desires for elections. These two cases offer a profile of how communitarian societies respond to and shape local populism in Indonesia.
Highlights
Some questions are asked when an incumbent fails to win an election: why and how has this happened? In many democratic countries, incumbents receive a significantly higher number of58 Incumbency Disadvantages and Populism in Indonesian Local ElectionsCase Studies of Banda Aceh and Takalar votes than non-incumbents, improving their chances for re-election (Campbell, 1983; Gelman & King, 1990; Anderson & Glomm, 1992; Carey, Niemi, & Powell, 2000; Mayhew, 2008)
These three perspectives have most commonly be used as the conceptual basis for empirical study, we hold that a sociocultural approach is capable of explaining the incumbency disadvantages experienced in Aceh and Takalar
It is very interesting to consider the electoral defeat of the incumbent in Banda Aceh’s mayoral elections within the context of the social, cultural, and structural conditions of Indonesia since political reform began in the late 1990s
Summary
Some questions are asked when an incumbent fails to win an election: why and how has this happened? In many democratic countries, incumbents receive a significantly higher number of58 Incumbency Disadvantages and Populism in Indonesian Local ElectionsCase Studies of Banda Aceh and Takalar votes than non-incumbents, improving their chances for re-election (Campbell, 1983; Gelman & King, 1990; Anderson & Glomm, 1992; Carey, Niemi, & Powell, 2000; Mayhew, 2008). As the representatives of political parties, fail to produce policies that influence voters’ preferences, the disadvantages of incumbency tend to dominate. The incumbency disadvantages studied in this article show different tendencies, including candidates’ policy and programmatic politics, gender and Islamic life in Aceh, and corruption in Takalar.
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