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This article explores Indonesia’s institutional foundations to understand the country’s resilience against violent extremism. First, Pancasila has been the foundation of an inclusive state that can bind Indonesian diversity. Second, multiparty elections allow Islamist groups to participate in politics and express their aspirations constitutionally, thus moderating their violent strategies. Third, the support of the largest Islamic organizations, especially NU and Muhammadiyah, for counterterrorism and law enforcement against extremist orchestrated by the government. Both organizations exhibit a stronghold essential to countering the Salafi jihadist ideology. However, although infrequent and small in scale, the continued acts of violent extremism in Indonesia have shown that there is still room for the terrorist ideology to grow. Some Islamic educational institutions deliberately educate students to support Islamism, and some students are introduced to Salafi jihadist ideology. Such a development should serve as a warning for the government to pay more attention to the curriculum and teachers, especially in Islamic educational institutions.

Preexisting political institutions influence governments' responses to public health crises in different ways, creating national variations. This article investigates how state capacity, a country's fundamental ability to organize bureaucracy and allocate societal resources, affects the timing and configuration of governments' COVID-19 policy responses. Through comparative case study analysis of five of China's neighboring countries early in the COVID-19 crisis, the paper shows that more-capable states (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan) initiated crisis response faster, mobilized national resources more extensively, and utilized diverse policy tools when the virus risk level was still low. In contrast, low-capacity states (Thailand and Indonesia) were more reactive in handling the crisis, limited their focus to border-related measures, and were more constrained in the types of tools they could employ. The paper points to the importance of studying the COVID-19 response process rather than the outcome (i.e., confirmed cases/deaths) when unpacking the impacts of political institutions in public health crises.

Mirjam Kunkler and Alfred Stepan (eds). 2013. Democracy and Islam in Indonesia. New York: Columbia University Press. xv + 252pp. Donald L. Horowitz. 2013. Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. xviii + 326pp. The two reviewed books provide explanations for the success of Indonesia’s democratization. Kunkler and Stepan’s (2013) edited volume, Democracy and Islam in Indonesia , emphasizes the political actors (agency) in explaining democratization in Indonesia. Meanwhile, Horowitz’s (2013) Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia focuses on institutions and the strategies of institutional reform chosen by political actors during democratization. Both works provide careful evaluation on the relatively stable development of Indonesian democracy. Examining the social, political, and institutional foundations that facilitate the consolidation of Indonesia’s democracy, the two works analyze why and how the democratic transition in Indonesia proceeded to a consolidation stage. Different form Kunkler and Stepan’s edited volume, which evaluates the state of Indonesian democracy by refererring to the criteria offered by democratic consolidation framework, Horowitz’s work moves farther revealing why the democratic processes have occurred in the sequence and manner that they did. DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v22i3.2411

Research in various public institutions of higher education in Indonesia, which forms the basis of this article revealed that - especially Islamic - books have been greatly influential in the dissemination process of individual thoughts, especially among campus Islamic activists. The original thought of an individual is influenced by his/her prior experiences, In the modern context, this means, by the most important media: books. Thus, the process of the transmission of ideology among campus Islamic activists is shaped by reference works published by Islamic publishers. It is therefore safe to say that books are the means of transmission for campus Islamic movements in Indonesia DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v15i2.533

Center for the Study of Islam and Society (Pusat Pengkajian Islam dan Masyarakat, PPIM) of the State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta in cooperation with Leiden University, the Netherlands, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands), and the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Indonesia, held an international conference called: ‘Is Indonesian Islam Different? Islam in Indonesia in a Comparative International Perspective’ on January 24-26, 2011 in Bogor, West Java. DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v18i1.445