Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T16:54:48.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Paradoxical Religiosity Effect: Religion and Politics in Indonesia and the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2015

Nathanael Gratias Sumaktoyo ,
Victor Ottati  and
Vinaya Untoro
Nathanael Gratias Sumaktoyo*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
Victor Ottati*
Affiliation:
Loyola University Chicago
Vinaya Untoro*
Affiliation:
Universitas Pancasila
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Nathanael Gratias Sumaktoyo, Department of Political Science, 217 O'Shaughnessy Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556. E-mail: nathanael.sumaktoyo@fulbrightmail.org; or Victor Ottati, Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, 1032 W Sheridan Rd, Chicago, IL 60660. E-mail: vottati@luc.edu; or Vinaya Untoro, Fakultas Psikologi, Universitas Pancasila, Jagakarsa, Jakarta Selatan 12640, Indonesia.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Nathanael Gratias Sumaktoyo, Department of Political Science, 217 O'Shaughnessy Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556. E-mail: nathanael.sumaktoyo@fulbrightmail.org; or Victor Ottati, Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, 1032 W Sheridan Rd, Chicago, IL 60660. E-mail: vottati@luc.edu; or Vinaya Untoro, Fakultas Psikologi, Universitas Pancasila, Jagakarsa, Jakarta Selatan 12640, Indonesia.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Nathanael Gratias Sumaktoyo, Department of Political Science, 217 O'Shaughnessy Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556. E-mail: nathanael.sumaktoyo@fulbrightmail.org; or Victor Ottati, Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, 1032 W Sheridan Rd, Chicago, IL 60660. E-mail: vottati@luc.edu; or Vinaya Untoro, Fakultas Psikologi, Universitas Pancasila, Jagakarsa, Jakarta Selatan 12640, Indonesia.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We argue that personal religiosity and political religiosity are distinct attributes of a political candidate. Personal religiosity reflects a candidate's level of personal religious commitment and political religiosity reflects the candidate's policy regarding separating versus blending religion and politics. The paradoxical religiosity hypothesis predicts that, within a democracy, personal religiosity will increase voters' endorsement of a candidate whereas political religiosity will decrease voters' endorsement. We test this hypothesis comparatively in two experiments, one performed within a long-standing democracy containing predominantly Christian voters (the United States), and the other within a more recent democracy containing predominantly Muslim voters (Indonesia). We demonstrate the robustness of the paradoxical religiosity effect and its persistence across the two countries, suggesting that Muslim Indonesians are no less capable than Christian Americans in separating the sacred and the secular.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 481 - 507
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aiken, Leona, and West, Stephen. 1991. Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Albertson, Bethany. 2011. “Religious Appeals and Implicit Attitudes.” Political Psychology 32:109–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altemeyer, Bob, and Hunsberger, Bruce. 2005. “Fundamentalism and Authoritarianism.” In Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, eds. Paloutzian, Raymond F., and Park, Crystal L.. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 378–393.Google Scholar
Barton, Greg. 2010. “Indonesia: Legitimacy, Secular Democracy, and Islam.” Politics and Policy 38:471–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beard, T. Randolph, Ekelund, Robert B., Ford, George S., Gaskins, Ben, and Tollison, Robert D.. 2013. “Secularism, Religion, and Political Choice in the United States.” Politics and Religion 6:753–777.Google Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J., Huber, Gregory A., and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2012. “Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk.” Political Analysis 20:351–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brathwaite, Robert, and Bramsen, Andrew. 2011. “Reconceptualizing Church and State: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Separation of Religion and State on Democracy.” Politics and Religion 4:229–263.Google Scholar
Calfano, Brian R., and Djupe, Paul A.. 2015. “Going to Extremes: Stereotypes, Constitutional Violations, and Support for Religious Elites.” In Religion and Political Tolerance in America: Advances in the State of the Art, ed., Djupe, Paul A. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Phillip, Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald. 1960. The American Voter. New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Campbell, David E. 2007. A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, David E., Green, John C., and Layman, Geoffrey. 2011. “The Party Faithful: Partisan Images, Candidate Religion, and the Electoral Impact of Party Identification.” American Journal of Political Science 55:42–58.Google Scholar
Campbell, David E., Green, John C., and Monson, J. Quin. 2012. “The Stained Glass Ceiling: Social Contact and Mitt Romney's ‘Religion Problem’”. Political Behavior 34:277–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crouch, Melissa. 2009. “Indonesia, Militant Islam and Ahmadiyah: Origins and Implications.” In Islam, Syariah and Governance Background Paper Series. http://alc.law.unimelb.edu.au/ files/dmfile/crouch_final_website1.pdf (Accessed on June 7, 2014).Google Scholar
Crouch, Melissa. 2012. “Law and Religion in Indonesia: The Constitutional Court and the Blasphemy Law.” Asian Journal of Comparative Law 7:1–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellison, Christopher, and Musick, Marc A.. 1993. “Southern Intolerance: A Fundamentalist Effect?” Social Forces 72:379–398.Google Scholar
Freedman, Samuel G. 2009. “A Man's Existentialism, Construed as Blasphemy.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/us/21religion.html?em&_r=0 (Accessed on December 11, 2014).Google Scholar
Fox, Jonathan. 2006. “World Separation of Religion and State into the 21st Century.” Comparative Political Studies 39:537–569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, Jonathan, and Sandler, Shmuel. 2005. “Separation of Religion and State in the Twenty-first Century: Comparing the Middle East and Western Democracies.” Comparative Politics 37:317–335.Google Scholar
Galen, Luke W., Smith, Christine M., Knapp, Nathan, and Wyngarden, Nicole. 2011. “Perceptions of Religious and Nonreligious Targets: Exploring the Effects of Perceivers' Religious Fundamentalism.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 41:2123–2143.Google Scholar
Poll, Gallup. 2007. “Some Americans Reluctant to Vote for Mormon, 72-year-old Presidential Candidates.” http://www.gallup.com/poll/26611/Some-Americans-Reluctant-Vote-Mormon-72YearOld-Presidential-Candidates.aspx (Accessed on May 22, 2014).Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch. 2013. “In Religion's Name: Abuses against Religious Minorities in Indonesia.” http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/02/28/religion-s-name (Accessed on June 14, 2014)Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Imhoff, Roland, and Recker, Julia. 2012. “Differentiating Islamophobia: Introducing a New Scale to Measure Islamoprejudice and Secular Islam Critique.” Political Psychology 33:811–824.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, and Tversky, Amos. 1974. “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” Science 185:1124–1131.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. 1986. “Presidential Character Revisited.” In Political cognition: The 19th annual Carnegie symposium on cognition, eds. Lau, Richard R., and Sears, David O.. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 233–255.Google Scholar
Kinnvall, Catarina. 2004. “Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security.” Political Psychology 25:741–767.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layman, Geoffrey C. 2001. The Great Divide: Religious and Cultural Conflict in American Party Politics. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Berelson, Bernard, and Gaudet, Hzel. 1944. The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lembaga Survei Indonesia. 2011. “Pemilih mengambang dan prospek perubahan kekuatan partai politik (The floating voters and the prospect of a change in the strengths of political parties).” http://www.lsi.or.id/riset/403/Rilis%20LSI%2029%20Mei%202011 (Accessed on June 8, 2014).Google Scholar
McFarland, Sam G. 1989. “Religious Orientations and the Targets of Discrimination.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28:324–336.Google Scholar
Miller, Arthur H., Wattenberg, Martin P., and Malanchuk, Oksana. 1986. “Schematic Assessments of Presidential Candidates.” American Political Science Review 80:521–540.Google Scholar
Monroe, Kristen R., and Kreidie, Lina H.. 1997. “The Perspective of Islamic Fundamentalists and the Limits of Rational Choice Theory.” Political Psychology 18:19–43.Google Scholar
Mujani, Saiful, and Liddle, William. 2007. “Leadership, Party, and Religion: Explaining Voting Behavior in Indonesia” Comparative Political Studies 40:832–857.Google Scholar
Mujani, Saiful, and Liddle, William. 2009. “Muslim Indonesia's Secular Democracy.” Asian Survey 49:575–590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mujiburrahman, . 2006. Feeling Threatened: Muslim-Christian Relations in Indonesia's New Order. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Ottati, Victor. 2001. “The Psychological Determinants of Political Judgment.” In Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Intraindividual Processes, eds. Tesser, Abraham, and Schwarz, Nobert. Oxford: Blackwell, 615–634.Google Scholar
Pew Forum. 2012. “Little Voter Discomfort with Romney's Mormon Religion.” http://www.pewforum.org/files/2012/07/Little-Voter-Discomfort-Full.pdf (Accessed on May 22, 2014).Google Scholar
Pew Forum. 2013. “The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics, and Society.” http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf (Accessed on June 7, 2014).Google Scholar
Pew Global. 2007. “Views of Religion and Morality.” http://www.pewglobal.org/2007/10/04/chapter-3-views-of-religion-and-morality/ (Accessed on May 22, 2014).Google Scholar
Pew Global. 2008. “Religiosity.” http://www.pewglobal.org/2008/09/17/chapter-2-religiosity/ (Accessed on May 22, 2014).Google Scholar
Randolph-Seng, Brandon, and Nielsen, Michael E.. 2007. “Honesty: One Effect of Primed Religious Representations.” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 17:303–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, James T., and Robbins, Thomas. 2010. “Monitoring and Surveillance of Religious Groups in the United States.” In The Oxford Handbook of Church and State in the United States, ed. Davis, Derek H. Oxford University Press, 353–369.Google Scholar
Saroglou, Vassilis, Pichon, Isabelle, Trompette, Laurence, Verschueren, Marijke, and Dernelle, Rebecca. 2005. “Prosocial Behavior and Religion: New Evidence based on Projective Measures and Peer Ratings.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44:323–348.Google Scholar
Saroglou, Vassilis, Yzerbyt, Vincent, and Kaschten, Cecile. 2011. “Meta-stereotypes of Groups with Opposite Religious Views: Believers and Non-believers.” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 21:484–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, Sara, and Liht, Jose. 2008. “Mapping Fundamentalisms: The Psychology of Religion as a Sub-discipline in the Understanding of Religiously Motivated Violence.” Archive for the Psychology of Religion 30:75–91.Google Scholar
Sheets, Penelope, Domke, David S., and Greenwald, Anthony. 2011. “God and Country: The Partisan Psychology of the Presidency, Religion, and Nation.” Political Psychology 32:459–485.Google Scholar
Tanuwidjaja, Sunny. 2010. “Political Islam and Islamic Parties in Indonesia: Critically Assessing the Evidence of Islam's Political Decline.” Contemporary Southeast Asia 32:29–49.Google Scholar
Wald, Kenneth D., and Calhoun-Brown, Allison. 2014. Religion and Politics in the United States, Seventh Edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Ysseldyk, Renate, Matheson, Kimberly, and Anisman, Hymie. 2010. “Religiosity as Identity: Toward an Understanding of Religion from a Social Identity Perspective.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 14:60–71.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Sumaktoyo supplementary material

Sumaktoyo supplementary material 1

Download Sumaktoyo supplementary material(File)
File 123 KB