Political Action in Conflict and Nonconflict Regions in Indonesia: The Role of Religious and National Identifications

• DOI: 10.1111/pops.12345
• Publication Date: 2016-06-27T06:46:16Z
• Authors: Agnieszka Kanas; Borja Martinovic
• Keywords: Sociology and Political Science; Social Psychology; Conflict; 05 social sciences; Experimental and Cognitive Psychology; 16. Peace & justice; 320; Religious identification; National identification; 300; Normative and nonnormative action; Clinical Psychology; Philosophy; Indonesia; Taverne; Political Science and International Relations; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; Politicization

This study examined the relationship between group identification and political action in Indonesia. We made four contributions to the literature. First, we studied political action on behalf of religious groups and examined the role of religious identification alone and in combination with national identification. Second, we analyzed political action in a non‐Western country where social cleavages occur primarily along religious lines and where a conflict and nonconflict region can be studied. Third, we compared Muslims and Christians, whose majority and minority status varies across the two regions, and fourth, we investigated both normative and nonnormative forms of political action (protest and violence). In line with the dual‐identification model of politicization, we found that religious identification increased support for protest (but not violence) in the conflict region only and particularly among high national identifiers. In the nonconflict region, religious identification was not related to violence, and it was related to lower support for protest among high national identifiers. The patterns were largely similar for Muslims and Christians, but some differences were found depending on the majority‐minority status. We conclude that particularities of the intergroup context should be taken into consideration when studying politicization.