ABSTRACT
Islamic populism is a variant of populism where the concept of the ummah (community of believers) substitutes for the “people.” But like the “people,” the ummah is inevitably made up of internally diverse social interests notionally homogenized through juxtaposition to purported oppressors. When successful, as in Turkey, an ummah-based politics has enabled cross-class alliances engaging effectively in competition over power and resources. In Indonesia, Islamic populism has been less successful. A missing component has been a pious big business component in extant alliances deploying Islamic identity in contests over power and resources. Also absent have been coherent organizational vehicles able to credibly claim a monopoly over representation of the ummah as a whole. Indonesia’s Islamic political parties and social organizations have been directly or indirectly absorbed into the logic of a money politics-fuelled democracy, contributing to the fragmentation of ummah-based politics and the incoherence of Islamic populism in the country.
