Islam and Politics in the Era of Democracy: The Variants of Political Elite in Muhammadiyah on the Dynamics of Islam Politics of 1998-2010

Politically, the collapse of the New Order regime gives opportunities for Islamic interest groups to re-debate the dynamics relationship between Islam (religion) and politics (state). As the political power of moderate group, Muhammadiyah’s elites have strong influence in determining the pattern of Islam-politics relationship. Muhammadiyah’s elites who sat as both executive and legislative position mostly becomes the mediator of various fragmented political power. It can be seen from the facts in which happened recently, for instance, the emergence of the Islamic political parties, the emergence of supporter of the Jakarta Charter as the state principle, and terrorism issue nationwide-which always attached a term of “jihad” as Islamic ‘tradition’ since the birth of Islamic society.

This topic is surely interesting subject to study in particular when the discourse of relationship between Islam and politics has been marginalized along the New Order era by imposing the only legal principle of Pancasila as state ideology within society. This study describes the politics of stream and charismatic leadership of civil society organization by taking a case study of Muhammadiyah. The argument was built in relation to the fragmented political behavior of Muhammadiyah’s elite (period 1998-2010) in response to Islam and political issues. According to Putnam, the characterristic of elites is determined how they influence the decision making process. In very same way, elite here can be understood as Muhammadiyah’s cadre those who officially become leader in Central Board of Muhammadiyah both in Yogyakarta and Jakarta. They generally have strong influences to organizational polices. Moreover, in order to conduct data and information I use a qualitative approach as method-logy of research. The techniques of collecting data are by conducting interviews and analyzing documentation. The collected data then are analyzed and interpreted descriptively to get reliable and validity conclusion.

The research findings indicate that politics of stream and charismatic model of leadership in Muhammadiyah doesn’t work effectively. It was proven by some evident by seeing the diversities of political attitude of Muhammadiyah’s elites at certain time. The elite’s attitude alone can be classified into four variations. First of all is the transformative-idealistic-the political attitude which emphasizes on Islam thought with humanity vision in order to resolve social problems. Second is moderate-idealistic-the political attitude which believes in political Islamic is the inevitably requirement. This attitude is not in the extreme position neither right nor left. Third is a realistic-critical-the political attitude which emphasizes on substantial values rather than symbolic values. They avoid violence and formalistic way as the means of propaganda. Last but not least is an accommodative-pragmatic-the political attitude which easily cooperates to everyone and is not in one particular extreme attitude. This attitude is looking forward to seeking political opportunities to attract sympathy from Islamic groups.

Finally, the variations of elite attitude were deeply influenced by many causes that could be categorized, at least, into two main causes. First is sociological background, such as education, employment, personal relation, and individual political orientation. Second is the organizational factor, such as vision of Muhammadiyah, Muhammadiyah political statements, and historical continuity. In short, each factor basically has its own degree of influence in determining elite attitude related to the political issues.


Ridho Al-Hamdi, MA
This executive summary submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for Master Degree (MA) in Department of Political Science, Islamic State University of Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta. Advisor is Dr. Dodi Ambardi, MA and Co-Advisor is Dra. Ratnawati, SU.