Between Democratization and Politics: Islamic Civil Society in Indonesia Civil Islam, Democratic Erosion, and Populist Pressures
Kata Kunci:
Civil Islam, democratic decline, populism, Islamic civil society, Indonesia, polarizationAbstrak
This research re-examines Robert W. Hefner’s Civil Islam theory in light of democratic backsliding, digital populism and post-truth communication in Indonesia. It meticulously and analytically evaluates the work in Scopus from 2000-2025 to map how Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah have responded to rising identity politics, social media polarization, and transnational Islamist pressures. Three discoveries are there. The first example of structural persistence is the associational and decentralized structure of Civil Islam as a normative framework. Second, digital media not only has enlarged the reach of moderate Islamic voices, but has also accelerated the spread of disinformation and exclusivist religious content. Third, gender has been an overlooked aspect of Civil Islam studies, despite its analytical importance. The article suggests that a reimagined framework of Civil Islam sensitive to subnational variation, gender inclusive in scope, and attentive to digital communication ecologies is a more appropriate tool for analyzing how Indonesia’s major Muslim groups oppose post-truth populism. The concept has implications for comparative studies on religion, democracy and communication in Southeast Asia, Europe and Americas.
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