Political markets, the party-related factors and political party’s market-orientation in Indonesia’s democracy: evidence from Indonesia’s 2014 parliamentary election

Abstract

Market-orientation has been advanced by political parties in not merely the Western, but also the emerging democracies. Knowledge of the nomenclatures of political markets that emerge in Indonesia’s democracy, types of political sub-markets considered by Indonesian political parties’ leaders in Indonesia’s 2014 parliamentary election and the effects of the party-related factors on perceptions of these parties’ members and activists regarding the importance of these political markets has, however, been under-developed. Focusing on such issues, this work adopted political marketing perspective and deployed the pure mixed of qualitative and quantitative methods. The findings are as follows. The following political markets evolved in Indonesia’s democracy. They include the governmental, parliamentary, internal party, electoral and non-electoral and the media markets. In facing such election, most of these parties’ leaders considered the internal party, media, electorates, competitors and campaign-donors as political sub-markets. These parties’ members and activists perceived the importance of these political sub-markets. Their perceptions regarding the importance of campaign donors are determined by party ideology and campaign resources. Their perceptions regarding the importance of electorates and party members are instead, influenced by party experience of internal shock. Based on the Indonesian case, this work offers new knowledge of: (1) nomenclatures of political markets that emerge in the emerging democracy; (2) types of political sub-markets considered by political parties’ leaders in such democracy; and (3) types of the party-related factors that likely determine perceptions of these parties’ members and activists regarding the importance of these political sub-markets in the parliamentary election.