Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 54 IS INDONESIA LOSING THE SOUL OF ITS DEMOCRACY? A Look at 11 Year Trend of Indonesian Democracy Abdul Malik Gismar Paramadina Public Policy Institute - Paramadina University malik.gismar@paramadina.ac.id Abstract: This paper describes 11 year dynamics and trends of Indonesian democracy, specifically, aspects of Civil Liberty, Political Rights, and Democratic Institutions, through the results of Indonesia Democracy Index’s (IDI) annual assessment. IDI is an assessment of provincial democracy. Its calculation is based on events occurring throughout the year; it is an attempt to capture democracy from the ground up; a depiction of democracy as it is practiced in everyday life at the institutional as well as at behavioral level. The results indicate complex dynamics and trends where issues of civil liberty, political rights and democratic institutions intertwine to shape political reality on the ground. Discrepancies of performances between IDI’s indicators of democracy indicate a certain paradox in Indonesian democracy as it is practiced at the provincial level. On one hand, the space for civil liberty is open and the citizens are freely and enthusiastically express themselves; and on the other hand, democratic institutions are lacking in capacity and cannot respond adequately to the democratic demands arising from the opening up of civil liberty. More than a decade long abject performance of provincial parliaments across Indonesia in performing its legislative roles (i.e. initiating legislation and giving public policy recommendation to the executives) have no doubt contributed to dissatisfactions express in many public complaints and demonstrations throughout Indonesia. This lack of parliamentary capacity across Indonesia translates into the absence of representation. Keyword : Indonesia Democracy Index, Democratic Assessment, Democratic Trends Submission : Nov, 20th 2020 Revision : Jan 30th 2021 Publication : Feb 28th 2021 INTRODUCTION For at least the past ten years, scholars of democracy have been suggesting that democracy is in decline globally. Their suggestion is confirmed by many assessments of democracy (Democary, 2015). We witness authoritarian return in many new democracies of Asia, Africa, and South America, but the declining trend is not restricted to new democracies. It can also be witnessed in many old and well established democracies of the West. Right wing populism, often with a shade of racism and xenophobia, spread across Europe. Yes, even the Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 55 first democracy (The United States of America), according to the Economist’s Democracy Index 2016, is experiencing a democratic “demotion”. (Index, 2018). Recent events around the US’ elections, from the lies about elections fraud to storming of the US Capitol building (one of the most sacred symbols of democracy in the US) by Trump’s supporters, graphically sums up the democratic crisis in the US and around the world. Nancy Fraser suggests that democracy’s current predicament is nothing less than global political crisis: At first sight, today’s crisis appears to be political. Its most spectacular expression is right here in the United States: Donald Trump—his election, his presidency, and the contention surrounding it. But there is no shortage of analogues elsewhere: the UK’s Brexit debacle; the waning legitimacy of the European Union and the disintegration of the social-democratic and center-right parties that championed it; the waxing fortunes of racist, anti-immigrant parties throughout northern and east-central Europe; and the upsurge of authoritarian forces, some qualifying as proto-fascist, in Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific. Our political crisis, if that’s what it is, is not just American, but global (Fraser, 2018). Perhaps representative democracy, especially in the West, will metamorphose into something else. But we cannot be very sure what or how the “new” democracy will look like, albeit some have entertained the idea of a “post democracy” and “neo democracy” (Crouch, 2004; Beyme, 2018). As Nancy Fraser puts it, “the old is dying, but the new cannot be born” (Fraser, 2018). Arguably, the main reason for the democratic discontents around the globe is the failure of democratic regimes to deliver the promises of democracy. From the Occupy Now movement in New York to the Yellow Vest demonstrators in Paris (and everywhere else) the protesters are telling us that their democratic governments do not represent them; have not been working for them; and worst, have been making policies contrary to their interests and the sense of justice in general. Votes that people dutifully cast during election do not become voice in the parliamentary chambers. In a representative democracy, representation is the soul. Therefore, a democracy without representation loses its soul. For countries recently transitioning to democracy this trend is mindboggling. Democracy that they all so craved during the authoritarian era, turned out to be so complicated and problematic, to say the least, even in the countries that they used to see as a reference or benchmark for democratic government. Democracy that they believe will take us to the land of liberty, safety, justice, and prosperity is not a sure thing anymore. The prophetic words of Dunkwart Rustow (1970) come to mind when we ponder upon the current global democratic Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 56 trend, especially among transitioning countries; More than 40 years ago he suggested that “the factors that keep a democracy stable may not be the ones that brought it into existence”. The Indonesian experience tells us that after the noise of democratic transition recedes, the painstaking process of delivering the promises of democracy begins. This process does not always run smoothly. On the contrary, it is often arrested, taken on a detour, or even reversed. As a result, after nearly twenty years, for many people the situation is still far from the euphoric expectation at the beginning of the transition. Democracy comes to offer legitimacy for the state; specifically, through the establishment of democratic institutions such as multiparty competition, elections, free press, etc. However, we cannot be sure anymore that this is sufficient to guarantee the emergence of a stable and sustained democratic state where justice, liberty, security, and welfare can be realized. After two decades of reform some questions need to be asked: what does current Indonesian democracy look like and what are the trends trajectories ahead? This paper attempts to answer these questions through a careful examination of the past 11 year results of the Indonesia Democracy Index. The Framework and Method Of Indonesia Democracy Index The Indonesia Democracy Index, or IDI, is an annual assessment of democratic condition in Indonesia’s provinces. It specifically portrays the condition of civil liberty (Civil Liberty), fulfillment of political rights (Political Rights), and the performance of democratic institution. (Democratic Institutions). Civil Liberty is captured by four variables, namely 1) Freedom of assembly and freedom of association; 2) Freedom of expression; 3) Religious Freedom; and 5) Freedom from discrimination. Political Rights are elaborated into two variables which capture not only the system and procedures to guarantee that the rights are fulfilled, but also the behavioral expression of the citizens in their participation to monitor public affairs throughout the year (Bollen, 1993). These two variables are 1) The right to vote and to be elected in a general election; and 2) Political participation in monitoring public affairs decisions and processes. The Institutions of Democracy are operationally defined as public institutions established to regulate and carry out the activities of the state, and/or the government. These institutions may exist within the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, as well as independent commission in charge for certain task, i.e general elections, political parties, the media, and interest groups. The role of institutions of democracy are captured through the following variables 1) existence of free and fair general elections; 2) The performance of regional parliament; 3) The performance of political parties; 3) the performance of provincial Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 57 bureaucracy; 4) Independent judiciary. These variables are further translated into respectively ten (10) indicators for Civil Liberty, seven (7) for Political Rights, and eleven (11) for Democratic Institution. Although the aspects of democracy to be assessed by IDI overlap with democratic assessment worldwide, the indicators to capture these aspects are tangible events, some even at behavioral level. The insistence on using indicators at such level of expression is to capture democracy as it is lived by citizens in their everyday life (Index, 2014). For each indicator, evidence is found first in newspaper reports and official documents. In each province one newspaper is selected (newspaper with the highest number of readership) to be content analyzed. Official documents include documents issued by regional governments and regional parliaments, such as provincial regulations (Perda), gubernatorial decrees, and other official documents such as statistics on voters issued by the Regional General Elections Commission. The National Statistics Agency, which has offices in all provinces and districts across Indonesia, is charged with the data collection. Collected data are cleaned and verified (in terms of their agreement with the definition of the indicators) in a meticulous process of going through all one by one, involving the Expert Panel and National Statistics Agency’s team. Once it is cleaned and verified, data is brought up in Focus Group Discussions in each province to be further verified, qualified, and elaborated (in terms of its accuracy of depiction of what really has happened). The participants of the discussion are well informed persons representing all stakeholders in the province. For certain indicators, an interview with well-informed persons are conducted to further enrich the data. IDI employs a fourfold data collection method, each in conjunction with the other with the purpose of covering the weakness of each data collection method. The newspaper and document reviews serve to capture incidents as defined by the indicators throughout the year. Newspaper is chosen because it is there all year long reporting on life in the province. The content analysis results are then verified in focus group discussions (which usually include chief editor other newspaper in the province) and in-depth interviews. IDI assumes that each aspect and each indicators within aspects have different contribution to the overall condition of democracy. Therefore, before the index can be calculated, a separate process is conducted to calculate the weight of each indicator, variable, and aspect. This is done by Analytical Hierarchy Process. These weight is then used in further calculation of the index. To describe the outcome of democratic performance in each province, a scale of 1 to 100 is used. This scale is a normative scale in which a score of 1 indicates the lowest performance Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 58 (theoretically possible if all the indicators receive the lowest score) and 100 indicate the highest (theoretically possible if all the indicators receive the highest score). IDI further qualify score of ≤60 as Bad; 61 – 80 as Moderate, and > 80 as Good. RESULTS: 11 YEAR TREND OF INDONESIA’S DEMOCRACY The overall national index in 2019 is 74.92 and fall into moderate quality according, as has been in the past 11 years of assessment. This number represents the condition of Indonesian democracy as an aggregate of the democratic conditions in all provinces. As an aggregate it is not identical to any provincial index; there are provinces that perform better or worse than this aggregation. The overall moderate quality of democracy is also reflected in the number of provinces, 28 out of 34, that fall into this category. This flat overall trend belies the different dynamics and trends of each aspects of democracy being measured as shown in Figure 1 below. The first thing to be noticed is that, except for 2019, there is a consistent pattern where civil liberty achieved higher scores than the fulfillment of political rights and the performance of democratic institutions. Figure 1 also indicates that in general the threat to civil liberties in Indonesia is relatively low, although there is also evidence of a slightly declining trend. In contrast, the performance of democratic institutions fluctuates across the years, at times drastically. Figure 1. Indonesia Democratic Trend 2009 – 2019 Political right shows a very different trend. After showing a very low performance for the first five years of assessment, this aspect jumped in 2014 and remained consistently high thereafter. Democratic institutions show yet another different dynamic and trend. This aspect stay in the same level of performance but with a much sharper year to year fluctuation. Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 59 To better understand these different dynamics and trends we need to understand the scores of the variables and indicators. Table1 below give us the scores of IDI variables in 2018 and 2019. The complete list of scores of indicators can be found in the Appendix. There are five variables with a score between 60 and 80 (moderate quality), one variable score below 60 (low), and five variables score above 80 (high). The only variable with low score is Political Participation. It is important to note that we can find high and moderate performance in all aspects; hence the performance of variables does not follow the aspects. Table 1: 2018 – 2019 Scores of IDI Variables No. Variables 2018 2019 Difference 1. Freedom of assembly and association 82.35 78.03 -4.32 2. Freedom of expression 66.17 64.29 -1.88 3. Religious Freedom 82.86 83.03 0.17 4. Freedom from discrimination 91.77 92.35 0.58 5. The right to vote and be voted in a general election 75.77 79.27 3.50 6. Political participation in decision making and monitoring 54.28 56.72 2.44 7. Free and fair elections 95.48 85.75 -9.73 8. The role of provincial parliament 58.92 61.74 2.82 9. The role of political parties 82.10 80.62 -1.48 10. The role provincial bureaucracy 55.74 62.58 6.84 11. The role of independent judiciary 90.72 93.66 2.94 The deviation between 2018 and 2019 scores of variables indicate the fluctuation of the democratic conditions. Further, the three aspects also show different average of deviation between 2018 and 2019. They are 2.09 for Civil Liberty, 6.08 for Political Rights and 4.29 for Democratic Institutions. The same dynamics can also be seen for 2018. These numbers show that Civil Liberty is a much more consistent throughout the years compare to the other variables. Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 60 The consistently high civil liberty scores seem to indicate a real opening up of public spheres and the rules and that the regulations established in the post-Suharto era have been effective in ensuring that the state does not trample on the civil rights of the citizens. Likewise, threats of freedom from society, as indicated by incidents where people inhibit or curb others’ freedom, are also relatively small. However, if we look closely at conditions of civil liberty from the variables that formed them, a very interesting picture emerges. Figure 2 illustrates clearly how all variables tend to cluster close to each other at the high score, except for freedom of expression. Figure 2: Civil Liberty Trend 2009 -2019 For eleven years all variables of Civil Liberty scored above or around 80, except for freedom of expression which consistently scored lower, with the lowest score of 60.86 in 2012. Consequently, when all the scores of all variables are averaged, freedom expression pulls down the overall score of civil liberty significantly. If we took out this variable, Civil Liberty score would drastically jump. Hence, the low score of Freedom of expression is an anomaly within the aspect of Civil Liberty. The picture becomes even more interesting if we look at the trend of each indicator of Civil Liberty (see appendix). All indicators in every variable, except for indicators in Freedom of Expression variable, tend to have high scores and similar trends. Only two indicators consistently obtained scores below 80. Those are “threat or use of violence by officer(s) which restricts freedom of expression” (indicator 3) and “threat or use of violence by people which restricts freedom of expression” (indicator 4). Both are indicators of Freedom of Expression (see appendix). 91.44 84.21 91.7 80.28 86.06 84.62 86.65 82.79 79.16 82.35 78.03 83.97 70.35 64.96 61.86 69.15 67.76 62.21 72.17 65.97 66.1764.29 90.67 89.17 84.8 83.79 81.13 83.22 80.5 81.69 84.28 82.8683.03 88.92 88.31 89.49 84.7 86.22 87.02 87.6 87.43 90.74 91.7792.35 0 20 40 60 80 100 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Freedom of Assembly Freedom of Expression Freem of Religion Freedom from discrimination Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 61 Contrary to Civil Liberty, the fulfillment of Political Rights consistently scored low in the first five years. As can be seen from Figure 3 below, of the two variables in this aspect, in 2014 the score of “The Right to Vote and to Be Elected” showed a significant jump from the previous year. In the meantime, “Political Participation” did not move much from the previous year’s position. Figure 3 illustrates this trend. Figure 3: Trend of Political Rights 2009 – 2019 The discrepancy between the two variables is wide in the past 6 years. There are 22.55 discrepancies in 2019, and in the last three years the discrepancies seem to follow a widening trend. One indicator particularly contributing to the increase in “The Right to Vote and to Be Elected” score is the “the quality of the list of eligible voters” (Indicator 14) which jumps drastically in the last assessment (see appendix). If we look into the score of indicators, in the eleven year assessment the Political Rights score is determined by two indicators that measure people’s behavior; “violent demonstration or strike” (indicator 16) and the other “peaceful participation in public affairs” (indicator 17). In 2019 the score for indicator 16 was 34.91 and indicator 17 was 79.19. The gap between them is 44.28 point. What these scores tell us is that in 2019 there were many peaceful protests (more incidents mean higher scores), but at the same time there were many protests that ended in violence (more incidents mean lower scores). The performance of democratic institutions is the most fluctuating among the three aspects of democracy being assessed. The score goes up and down across the years, but the overall trend is climbing. There are distinct groupings of the variables into the high scoring variables and low scoring ones, as can be seen in Figure 4 below. 50.05 49.98 50.11 50.26 50.31 75.27 75.26 75.26 75.55 75.77 79.27 55.16 48.32 45.97 44.52 45.61 50.28 60.59 61.24 56.16 54.2856.72 0 20 40 60 80 100 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Right to vote and be voted Political Participation Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 62 Figure 4. Trend of Democratic Institutions 2009 - 2019 The high scoring variables are Free and Fair Election, The Role of Bureaucracy, and Independent Judiciary. These variables consistently score above 80. On the other hand, The Role of Parliament and The Role of Political Parties fluctuating in the lowest range of scores, and at times almost hit the floor. These two variables drag down the overall performance of democratic institutions and are closely related; the role of the parliament is determined by the role of the political parties through the members they send to the parliament. Upon closer look, there are groupings of variables (at least from 2015 up) into high scoring variables and low scoring variables. The first group includes Free and Fair Election and The Role of Independent Judiciary. The second group includes The Role of Provincial Parliament and The Role of Provincial Bureaucracy. One variable, The Role of Political Parties, fluctuates highly across the eleven years. These groupings of variables indicate two different underlying factors; the high scoring variables are not directly related to politics and their indicators are procedural indicators and the low scoring variables are more directly related to politics and their indicators are substantive indicators. In the ten year assessment, The Role of Political Parties seems to be most prone to intervention or seasonal conditions such as general election. It is Important to note that The Role of Provincial Parliamentary achieved low scores throughout 11 years, and the score of The Role of Provincial Bureaucracy significantly dropped in 2017. A glaring example of the abysmal performance of the provincial parliament can be found in the score of indicators “legislation initiated by parliament” and “parliamentary public policy recommendation to the executive” which in 2019 respectively score 46.16 and 16. 70. Since these scores are aggregate scores, we can be sure that there are many provinces that score 87.67 87.67 87.67 87.67 87.67 95.35 95.48 95.48 95.48 95.48 85.75 38.03 42.89 47.39 35.53 36.62 39.51 42.9 46.76 59.78 58.92 61.74 19.29 23.37 64.49 69.52 53.51 61.76 59.09 52.29 71.64 82.1 80.62 88.58 88.58 88.58 88.58 88.58 99.38 53.11 47.51 56.26 55.74 62.58 90.53 90 81.97 82.42 83.94 86.29 92.28 91.36 86.31 90.72 93.66 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Free and fair election Role of parliamentary Role of political parties Role of bureaucracy Role of independen judiciary Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 63 even lower. It is hard to imagine that legislative body has no role in initiating legislation, but this seems to be widespread across provinces. Also, it is difficult to understand the almost non-existence parliamentary public policy recommendation amidst the daily complaints and demonstrations that can be found across Indonesia. RESULT AND DISCUSSION The results of Indonesia Democracy index indicate the dynamics and complexity of Indonesian democracy where issues of civil liberty, political rights and democratic institutions intertwine to shape political reality on the ground. Take the aspect of civil liberty, for example. The usual image to showcase the problem of civil liberty in Indonesia is religious intolerance which often ends in the threat and use of violence. IDI 2009 – 2019 shows that the tendency to threaten the use of violence, and in many cases to actually resort to violence, is a tendency that exists for many various issues in Indonesia. The biggest portion of demonstrations that ended with violence were related to government performance in conducting public affairs. Religious intolerance and tensions certainly occur in Indonesia and from an ethical standpoint it should be very clear that if one incident occurs in a year, it is already one too many. Though there is a tendency to attribute the cause of these religious tensions to “primordial” factors or factors within the religion itself, IDI indicates that many religious contentions in Indonesia are related to management of religious diversity, not due to inherent conflicting religious values or deeply rooted religious enmity. One of the most common tensions between Muslims and Christians in Indonesia, for example, is related to the construction of churches or mosques. Problems occur when Christians wish to build a church in majority Muslim area, and vice versa, when Muslims wish to build a mosque in a Christian majority area. The constitution is very clear on this matter: every citizen is free to believe in any religion and practice it in their life, however problems arise when this principle is translated into bad regulations. In the case of mosque or church construction, one that contributes and exacerbates the tensions is the regulation prescribing any religious group to ask approval of the residence of the area where they want to construct their house of worship (in the form of certain numbers of signature). This is a very sensitive issue and can easily be predicted that the approval is very hard to come by if the religion is a minority religion, regardless of whether it is Islam or Christianity. This regulation has made it very difficult for Christians to build churches in predominantly Muslim areas, and for Muslims to build mosques in predominantly Christian areas. The problem with this regulation is that, without any clear delineation and direction acceptable to all, it relegates a very sensitive issue to the people; and eventually to the street, where there is not even a chance for a serious and careful deliberation. This deliberation should happen in the Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 64 parliamentary chamber involving all stakeholders to find out rules and regulations acceptable to all. Once a decision that can be accepted by all stakeholders is made, every effort must be made to uphold it. It is obvious from the trend across the years that Freedom of Expression in Indonesia has its own dynamic, different from other civil liberty variables. If we look at the incidents of violation of freedom of expression, many are associated with political activities in and out of campaign season. Local political activities, especially during election time are fertile ground for partisan disagreements, tensions, and conflicts that are emotionally charged and often find expressions that trample others’ rights. Pertaining to the fulfillment of the political rights, the jump in the score of the Right to Vote and to Be Elected tells an interesting story. The scores of four of the five indicators of this variable are actually similar across the years. Only one indicator “the quality of the list of eligible voters” jumped drastically in the last assessment. This jump can be attributed almost solely to the success of the Indonesian Election Commission to significantly improve the list of eligible voters. Indeed, in the last round of elections in Indonesia, the Election Commission succeeded to guarantee almost all eligible voters the opportunity and ability to vote. Very comprehensive rules and regulations concerning voting facilities that include various disabilities were enacted and implemented to the utmost details. This is a major institutional achievement, because until 2014 “the list of eligible voters” was the source of never ending complaints and disputes. The Political Participation variable measures two sides of political participation; on one side people’s awareness and participation in public and governmental affairs and, on the other side, how they express their opinions and feelings about it. These two Indicators trends show interesting relationship between the enthusiasm to be involved in public and government affairs (to monitor, report, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, etc.) and the civility of the expression. Scores of “People’s participation” keep increasing, a good sign that people do care about what is going on around them and are willing to be involved in it; if they do not like what they see, they will let those responsible know what they feel. This is a good sign of civic involvement, a much needed prerequisite for a healthy democracy. However, the score of indicators that specifically measure public demonstrations that end in violence is going in the opposite direction; it is getting worse by the year. So, as there is more public expression, there is also more violence. Glances at violent demonstrations clearly show widespread questioning of the state legitimacy and capability. On the target of the demonstration that end in violence, data from IDI 2015 for all provinces in Java show that it is overwhelmingly targeted to the government; Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 65 mundane everyday issues such as unmaintained road, electricity, clean water, poverty, and health to bigger issues such as corruption, and various government policies, and land disputes. The next largest issue is related to labor relations (such as unfair wages, perceived government partiality towards businesses) and the impact of business activities (such as pollution, destruction of public road, destruction of environment, and the like). Surprisingly perhaps to many people, violence demonstrations related to religious issues are only a very small portion of the total number of demonstrations that end in violence (Gismar, 2016). The most disheartening data seen in the Indonesia Democracy Index throughout the year is the performance of the parliament. All indicators of the role of parliament score extremely low throughout 11 years of assessment period. This clearly indicates that the provincial parliaments simply did miserable jobs as representatives of the citizens. We can safely assume that this is related to the performance of political parties described earlier. Because of the poor performance of political parties, we cannot expect much of the parliament. By sending unqualified people to the parliament, political parties have put a ceiling to what the parliament can achieve. The emerging picture from the results of the democratic institutions aspect is that the fundamental issue of democratic representations still remains, even as there are some improvements in some indicators of democracy. Indonesia has successfully established system, mechanism, and procedure of democracy that guarantee a regular, free and fair elections but has not been as successful in translating the votes cast in the elections into voice in the parliament due to the weak provincial parliaments and the low performance of political parties. Guaranteeing that votes translate into voices in the parliament is the biggest challenge of Indonesian democracy today. CONCLUSION So, after two decades of reform, what does current Indonesian democracy look like and what are the trends and trajectories ahead? The picture from more than a decade assessment of provincial democracy is not a simple one and characterized by many intricately intertwined factors related to all aspects of democracy (i.e. civil liberty, fulfillment of political rights, and the performance of democratic institutions). In the broadest sense, however, we can discern a paradox in Indonesian democracy. On the one hand, public spheres are open up and the citizens can relatively freely and enthusiastically express themselves. Free and fair elections with a relatively high voter turnout are conducted regularly; voters’ satisfaction with the running of elections is relatively high. These are major democratic achievements that need to be acknowledged and Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 66 appreciated. On the other hand, however, democratic institutions are lacking in capacity and cannot respond adequately to the burgeoning democratic demands. Provincial parliaments across Indonesia perform their roles as legislating bodies abjectly; in fact they almost has no role in initiating legislation or giving public policy recommendation to the executives; these are important indications whether they are actually voicing the aspiration and interest of their constituents. Political parties play very important roles in contributing to this situation too, since they are the ones who send their members to the parliament. This is not a minor problem. The origins of the above paradox perhaps can be traced to the early years of reform. In answering the demand of May 1998 reform movement, Indonesia engaged in a massive, some even call it “big-bang”, initiative to create institutions necessary for system of representative democracy (Hidayat, 2010). Among these initiatives are amendment of the 1945 Constitution, the establishment of Constitutional Court and Regional Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah/DPD); Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi/KPK); direct election, regional autonomy; multiparty system; and press freedom. By any measure, these are massive undertaking to be taken in such short period of time. Perhaps, in a rush of establishing the appearance of democracy, Indonesia has overlooked the importance of ensuring the capacity of these democratic institutions. To borrow loosely from Migdal (2003) we have focused on creating “state image” (i.e. massive effort in building state institutions and revitalization the rules and regulations), but less on ensuring “state in practice”. Democracy in Indonesia, and social-political life in general for that matter, were shaped by this paradox. From the remote villages in the most remote province to the capital city we witness an enthusiastic public participation in monitoring public and government affairs, often in the form of complaints, protests, and demonstrations on various issues. These legitimate democratic demands, however, do not find their echoes in parliamentary chambers and unanswered by executive responses. The results is frustration that may find contrasting expression, either apathy or anger; both breeds contempt to the state and, perhaps, to the system of democracy itself. This is indeed a serious problem. If representation is the soul of representative democracy then, looking at the 11 years dynamic and trends of Indonesia’s provincial democracy, we are forced to seriously asked the question: are we losing the soul of democracy? Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 67 REFERENCES Bollen, Kenneth A. (1993). “Political Democracy: Conceptual and Measurement Traps,” in Alex Inkeles, ed. “On Measuring Democracy. Transaction Publisher. Brunswick, NJ. Crouch, Collin. (2004). Post-Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2004. Dahl, Robert. (1971). “Poliarchy: Participation and Opposition”. Yale University Press. New Haven, CT. Fraser, Nancy. (2019.) “The Old is Dying and The New Cannot Be Born”. Verso. NY. NY. 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Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 68 Appendix Score of Indonesia Democracy Index’s Indicator 2018 – 2019 No. Name of Indicator Tahun 2018 Tahun 2019 Civil Liberty: Freedom of Assembly and Association 01 Threat or use of violence by officer(s) which restrict freedom of assembly and freedondicatorm of association 82.35 77.21 02 Threat or use of violence by other(s) which inhibit freedom of assembly and freedom of association 82.35 83.82 Civil Liberty: Freedom of Expression 03 Threat or use of violence by officer(s) which restricts freedom of expression 70.20 65.69 04 Threat or use of violence by people which restricts freedom of expression 45.96 57.35 Civil Liberty: Religious Freedom 05 Written rules and regulations which restrict the freedom or require people to practice their religions 80.43 81.71 06 Actions or statements by officials which restrict the freedom or require people, to practice their religions 84.38 83.73 07 Threat or use of violence by a group of people against other related to religious teachings 91.47 87.79 Civil Liberty: Freedom from Discrimination 08 Discriminatory rules and regulations on the grounds of gender, ethnicity or against vulnerable groups 92.16 92.65 09 Discriminatory actions or statements by regional officials (gender, ethnicity, vulnerable groups) 91.91 88.97 10 Threats or use of violence by people/society (gender or ethnicity of the victim and/or vulnerable groups) 91.18 94.85 Political Rights: Right to Vote and to be Elected 11 Incidents in which people’s right to vote or get elected is restricted 95.83 94.80 12 Incidents of lack/shortage of facilities for people with disabilities as a result of which they cannot exercise their rights to vote 60.00 96.83 13 The quality of the fixed list register voters (Daftar Pemilih Tetap – DPT) 74.44 73.67 Journal of Social Political Sciences JSPS Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb, 2021 ISSN: 2715-7539 (Online) 69 14 Percentage of eligible voters who actually vote in a general election (voter turnout) 75.07 82.54 15 Percentage of female provincial parliamentarian (of the total members of provincial parliament) 59.61 58.63 Political Rights: Political Participations 16 Demonstrations /strikes that turn violent 30.37 34.91 17 Peaceful protests, complaints, demonstrations on how the government run the affairs of the province 78.19 78.53 Democratic Institutions: Free and Fair Elections 18 Incidents that indicate the partiality of Regional General Elections Commissions (KPUD) 98.93 81.55 19 Incidents or reporting of the fraudulent counting of votes 92.03 89.95 Democratic Institutions: Role of Provincial Parliament 20 Budget allocated for education and health per capita 74.02 78.07 21 Legislation initiated by parliament 40.35 46.16 22 Number of parliament’s public policy recommendations to the executive 20.80 16.70 Democratic Institutions: Role of Political Parties 23 Cadre recruitment and training carried out by political parties participating in general elections 80.25 78.57 24 Percentage of women in the leadership of political parties at provincial level 98.76 99.07 Democratic Institutions: Role of Provinvial Bureaucracy 25 Misuse of government facilities by candidates /political parties in legislative general elections 72.76 73.45 26 Involvement of civil servants in political activities of political parties in legislative general elections 41.42 53.43 Democratic Institutions: Role of Independent Judiciary 27 Controversial rulings handed down by judges 92.46 93.20 28 Controversial terminations of investigations by prosecutors or police 88.97 94.12