Religious nationalism is often associated with leaders such as Trump, Orbán, or Modi. Yet Indonesia offers a different lesson. In this month’s guest article, Saskia Schäfer examines how democratic competition itself can fuel exclusionary religious politics and erode pluralism.

Dr. Saskia Schäfer is a senior researcher at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her book “Mobilizing Mainstream Islam: The Politics of Orthodoxy in Indonesia in Comparative Perspective” was published by Cornell University Press in January 2026.

A familiar pattern dominates political commentary: a charismatic leader comes to power, weaponizes religion or ethnic identity, and dismantles pluralist society step by step. Turkey has Erdoğan. India has Modi. The United States has Trump. Hungary had Orbán.
The recipe seems clear: strongmen enhance identitarian and neonationalist turns. 

But is that really true?
Indonesia shows that the answer is more complicated and that is not a reassuring conclusion. In the two decades following Indonesia’s democratic transition in 1998, a new religious nationalism emerged that redefined who fully belongs to the nation. And it did so without any strongman at the top.

The World’s Largest Muslim Democracy Experiment

Although often overlooked, Indonesia is an important country to understand the relationship between religion and politics. With more than 270 million inhabitants and over 700 languages, it ranks among the most diverse societies on earth and since 1998, it has been an electoral democracy. After the fall of Suharto’s authoritarian regime, Indonesians built free elections, liberal institutions, and impressive press freedom. Many observers pointed to Indonesia as proof that Islam and democracy could coexist and even reinforce each other.

Before and during the transition to electoral democracy, religious organisations were crucial in bringing the authoritarian regime down. Muslim intellectuals, student movements organized through Islamic networks, and prominent religious figures such as Abdurrahman Wahid, who would go on to become Indonesia’s fourth president and a defining figure of the democratic transition, lent legitimacy and momentum to the pro-democracy movement. Religion, in that moment, pushed toward openness, pluralism, and accountability. Indonesia’s democratic transition is in part a religious achievement.

What unfolded in the 2000s and 2010s, however, was paradoxical: precisely during this period of democratic opening, a growing homogenization of what counts as “proper Islam” took hold. A particular, socially conservative reading of Islam pushed alternative practices and beliefs to the margins. Religious minorities such as Ahmadis, Shia Muslims, LGBTQI people faced mounting pressure as politicians, religious authorities, and civil society actors began questioning their place within the Indonesian nation.

This process became possible not through top-down decree, but through fierce bottom-up competition among politicians, religious authorities, media figures, and civil society actors.

Religious Outbidding as Electoral Strategy

In a highly competitive, fragmented political system, religious outbidding became a rational strategy. In such a political climate, religious nationalism rises: defining who counts as a “proper Muslim” wins votes more reliably than concrete policy platforms.

Nowhere does this become clearer than in the case of Jakarta’s former governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama. Christian, ethnic Chinese, and politically liberal, he was a successful politician in the early 2010s and everything the new religious nationalism defined as not fully belonging to the nation. In 2016, Muslim extremist organizations and conservative politicians organized mass protests against him, fueled by a doctored video portraying him as a blasphemer. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama did not just lose the gubernatorial election: a court sentenced him to two years in prison for blasphemy. The political landscape has shifted considerably since then — Ahok himself returned to public life, endorsing the winning candidate in Jakarta’s 2024 gubernatorial election. But the 2016 episode remains the clearest illustration of how religious boundary-drawing functioned as a political weapon in the reform era.

The question “Who is a proper Muslim?” proved more powerful than any budget debate. Minorities and those constructed as minorities paid the price. The Council of Indonesian Islamic Scholars (MUI) issued fatwas declaring Ahmadiyya and other groups deviant. The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) mobilized in the streets. State authorities denied Ahmadis identity documents. Angry groups attacked Shia mosques and schools. Politicians allied with extremist religious actors to secure their power bases.

The Malaysian Mirror

Does this mean that democracy should bear the blame? A glance at neighbouring Malaysia complicates this hasty conclusion: Malaysia never underwent a comparable democratic opening. Yet observers can trace a similar trajectory there: a similar mainstreaming of Islam, similar tightening regulation of religious practice, similar pressure on the same minorities.

When two such different political systems produce such similar outcomes, regime type cannot be the determining variable. The common thread is something else: competition along identitarian lines. Whether through elections or through elite struggles within an authoritarian system: once political actors start treating religious identity as a resource, the logic is hard to reverse.

“Mainstream Islam”

I attempt to grasp this dynamic of rising religious nationalism with the concept I call “Mainstream Islam”. This does not neutrally describe a religious center but an actively constructed process: the homogenization and bureaucratization of what counts as acceptable Islam and the growing power of a small group of religious authorities to draw those boundaries. It is the foundation of post-Suharto Indonesia’s variant of religious nationalism.

Indonesia’s Islam was historically rich and diverse, shaped by local practices, regional traditions, and multiple legal schools. Never fully harmonious but certainly plural. What the reform period brought was not simply more religion in public life. It brought a narrowing: an ever-tighter definition of what counts.

Journalists, mid-level religious leaders, and many ordinary Indonesians amplified the calls to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable Islam. The MUI issued fatwas against Ahmadis, against interfaith marriage, against pluralism and liberalism as concepts. Hardline organizations mobilized on the streets. Politicians ran electoral campaigns on Islamic identity rather than governance. Together, these actors constructed a new “mainstream” and pushed minorities to its edges.

Uncomfortable Questions

Indonesia remains an electoral democracy. But the case of Indonesia demonstrates that electoral democracy alone does not guarantee pluralism. Under the right conditions, competitive electoral politics can erode pluralism just as effectively as authoritarian rule.

This raises uncomfortable questions: how does this affect liberal democracies and the way we structure our political processes? What Indonesia teaches extends far beyond Southeast Asia: religious nationalism does not only emerge where democracy is absent. It can grow within democracy itself.

But the Indonesian case also shows the opposite is true. Liberal democratic institutions might not be enough on their own — but pro-democratic religious civil society actors, independent courts, robust minority rights, and politicians who resist weaponizing religious identity can push back. Which direction religion goes depends on who gets organized, funded, and heard.