This is my tentative thesis proposal on Indonesian voting behavior. Any comments or suggestions?

In a democracy, elections hold an instrumental role in making the government accountable for the political judgment of voters (Thomassen, 2005). As a mechanism of accountability, elections also compel politicians to be responsive to the concerns of their constituents because the politicians know that the political judgment of the voters with regard to their past actions affects the likelihood of getting reelected for another term (Diamond, 2003). Joseph Schumpeter called this system of governance a ‘competitive democracy’ as the voters’ satisfaction on the performance of the incumbent government serves as the deciding factor of whether the voter chooses to reelect the incumbent government or not (Schumpeter, 1976, as cited in [Thomassen, 2005]). In this model, the incumbent government competes for the voter’s approval against the opposition. However, it is commonly perceived that the instrumental role of elections as a mechanism of accountability is limited in a multiparty system because the competing parties tend to form coalitions (Thomassen, 2005). In such a situation, the formation of coalitions among different parties represent broad interests make it highly possible that even if the voters were dissatisfied by the performance of the outgoing administration, the same incumbent political parties will still hold political positions in the government (Thomassen, 2005). Thus, the instrumental role of elections as a mechanism of accountability is weakened in a multiparty system.

Although the formation of coalitions in a multiparty system weakens the ability of voters to hold the incumbent government accountable for their actions, it is argued that when voters consider their economic perceptions, elections can be used as an instrument to hold the incumbent president accountable for his or her actions. Holding the highest seat in office, the president is the most visible political and economic actor in the government (Wood, 2007). This is because the political institutions that are concerned with economic development all work under the supervision and leadership of a president (Wood, 2007). Consequently, a president would be deemed as the “most authoritative source of information on the economy” because a team of economists and other economic experts provide assistance to the president (Wood, 2007, p. 15). Furthermore, among all the issues that a president faces, no other issue besides economic ones capture the president’s sustained attention (Wood, 2007). As the chief economist of the country, a president’s performance is closely tied to the results of the economic decisions made by a president. Therefore, even in the context of a multiparty system in which political parties tend to form coalitions during the electoral period, the function of elections as a mechanism of accountability is not impeded when the voter links economic perceptions to the president.

The recent 2009 presidential elections in Indonesia present an interesting case in studying voting behavior because the victory of the incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhono or SBY seems to indicate that voters were able to hold the incumbent president accountable for his actions in the government. This was because SBY received majority support across different ethnic groups. Furthermore, SBY promoted secularism and the support that the majority of the electorate gave seems to have indicated that the voters were not divided between Islamist and secular sentiments as opposed to the previous elections. The most recent studies on voting behavior with regard to the recent presidential elections all assert one common claim: positive economic perceptions was a major factor in SBY’s victory (Harjanto, 2009; Lembaga Survei Indonesia, 2009; Institute for Social and Economic Research, Education and Information, 2009). Thus, the Indonesian electorate seems to have detached themselves from primordial factors such as ethnicity and religion in deciding which candidate to support. Instead, the findings of these studies suggest that the Indonesian voter is becoming more evaluative of the incumbent’s performance by using their economic perceptions as the criteria on whether they would reelect SBY or vote for an opposing candidate.

Such claims are heavily backed by data from the most recent studies on Indonesian voting behavior. These studies assert one common claim: positive economic perceptions contributed to the reelection of SBY for a second term (Harjanto, 2009; Lembaga Survei Indonesia, 2009; Institute for Social and Economic Research, Education and Information, 2009). In anticipation of the 2009 presidential elections, Nico Harjanto, from the department of political science in Northern Illinois University presented a study at a proceeding for the Midwest Political Science Association in April 2009 on Indonesian voting behavior. His study claimed that the positive economic perceptions held among the Indonesian electorate serves as a strong indication of the likelihood that SBY would be reelected for a second term: “the probability of voting again to SBY is 1.3 times larger than the probability of voting to the challengers” (Harjanto, 2009, p. 17). Likewise, the study from Lembaga Survei Indonesia or LSI indicated that among the voters that held positive economic perceptions, the largest portion of voters with positive economic perceptions voted for SBY (Lembaga Survei Indonesia, 2009, p. 19). The Institute for Social and Economic Research, Education and Information also revealed a similar finding as the study indicated that 62.6% elected SBY and that there was a general level of satisfaction in SBY’s performance during his first term (Institute for Social and Economic Research, Education and Information, 2009). These studies highlight the link between the voter’s positive economic perceptions and the voter’s support for SBY during the presidential elections. According to the theory of economic voting, such a connection between economic perceptions and vote choice in favor of the incumbent is a form of reward for the incumbent president’s performance as the theory’s basic assertion is that when the voter’s economic perceptions are positive, the voter ‘rewards’ the incumbent by reelecting the candidate for a second term and consequently, the incumbent is punished when economic perceptions are negative. Therefore, the link between economic perceptions and vote choice in favor of the incumbent seems to indicate that voters held president SBY accountable for their positive economic perceptions.

However, the role of SBY’s popularity across the Indonesian archipelago must not be ignored. The findings of Lembaga Survei Indonesia on Indonesian voting behavior during the 2009 presidential elections have indicated that SBY was popular regardless of the voter’s ethnicity or whether a candidate promoted secularism or Islamism as 63% of Muslims in Indonesia supported SBY and 61% of voters from Java and the outer regions also supported SBY. Thus, the influence of his overall popularity across all the regions might have affected the political judgment of voters as well. Harjanto’s study also indicated that partisan identifications among voters remain prevalent in Indonesia, as “Party hopping across ideological lineage by voters is not yet a significant development” (Harjanto, 2009, p. 2). Thus, the attachment to political parties among voters could have also influenced how voters assessed the incumbent’s performance. The voter’s choice might indicate that economic perceptions was a strong factor in the voter’s choice but this linkage would ignore the possibility that the voter’s choice was also motivated by the voter’s attachment to SBY’s political party for example. Thus, prevalence of economic perceptions in the recent elections does not necessarily entail that voters held the incumbent president accountable for positive economic perceptions. The popularity of president SBY as well as strong party attachments suggests that vote choice might also be a reflection of the voter’s biased judgment.

With such considerations in mind, the significance of economic perceptions as a factor, which influenced SBY’s reelection, requires further investigation. According to Bingham Powell and Guy Whitten’s analysis using aggregate level data, when relating economic perceptions to vote choice, the assignment of responsibility to the government is a “critical linkage” (2001). In order to determine whether the voter’s economic perceptions was used as a factor in evaluating the performance of president SBY, there is a need to consider the factors, which could influence the voter’s assignment of economic responsibility.

This study seeks to validate the claim that voters held SBY accountable for their positive economic perceptions by adopting an individual-level approach to the study of economic perceptions and vote choice. Through such an approach, the research will be able to determine how the voter assigned economic responsibility in the recent election especially whether other factors besides economic perceptions influenced the voter’s evaluation of the incumbent president’s performance. By considering the factors that have influenced the voter’s assignment of economic responsibility, the study of the voter’s individual perceptions would also be validating the claim by Powell and Whitten’s aggregate level analysis that the assignment of economic responsibility is a crucial linkage between economic perceptions and vote choice at the micro level. To be more specific, the scope of the study shall cover voters in Indonesia’s state capital, Jakarta because it has been observed that the central point of the network of political organizations and groups from the outer regions are all located in Jakarta (Lane, 2008). Thus, the sentiments in Jakarta represent the country as a whole. In this study, three particular factors shall be tested against the voter’s economic perceptions and vote choice: perceptions of institutional context, partisan identification and the voter’s economic ideology.