Indonesia’s (inter)national role as a Muslim democracy model: effectiveness and conflict between the conception and prescription roles

Abstract

Indonesia has developed an internal model of reconciling the values of democracy and Islam; therefore it could pursue international activities for bringing the West and the Islamic world together. However, Indonesia’s international role as a bridge-builder between democratic values and Islam has limited effectiveness. In this paper the attempt is to investigate why Indonesia’s international activity as a bridge-builder between the West and the Muslim world is ineffective? The analysis shows, and this is the argument, that its limited effectiveness results from a conflict between the country’s conception and prescription roles. The assumptions are that Indonesia’s underlying objective in its foreign policy is to provide a tool for reconciling the West and the Muslim world (role conception); however an enactment of this role is affected by a dissonance between the authors of this role. The paper examines three empirical case studies at different levels of Indonesia’s external engagement: (1) civilizational and interfaith dialogues at the international level; (2) the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Developing-8 at the inter-regional level; and (3) the Bali Democracy Forum at the regional level.