What underlying logic explains candidate participation in vote buying, given that clientelist exchange is so difficult to enforce? We address this question through close analysis of campaigns by several dozen candidates in two electoral districts in Java, Indonesia. Analyzing candidates’ targeting and pricing strategies, we show that candidates used personal brokerage structures that drew on social networks to identify voters and deliver payments to them. But these candidates achieved vote totals averaging about one quarter of the number of payments they distributed. Many candidates claimed to be targeting loyalists, suggestive of “turnout buying,” but judged loyalty in personal rather than partisan terms, and extended their vote-buying reach through personal connections mediated by brokers. Candidates were market sensitive, paying prices per vote determined not only by personal resources, but also by constituency size and prices offered by competitors. Accordingly, we argue that a market logic structures Indonesia's system of vote buying.

This article tries to present the most current phenomenon of how moderate Islam can live side by side with radical Islam. By focusing its analysis on the dynamics of political life in Bangkalan, Madura, the paper argues that the encounter between these two different ideological streams is possible under particular circumstances. First, there is a specific political situation where the moderate Islam is able to control the political posts. Second, there is a forum where they can articulate Islamic ideas in terms of classical and modern political movements. This study has also found out that the binary perspective applied in the analysis of Islamic movement is not always relevant. The fact, as in the case of Bangkalan, is far more complex, in which NU and Islamic Defender Front (FPI) can merge. This is so because at the beginning, FPI's management in the city is led by kyais or/and prominent local NU leaders.

This paper deals with the most recent religion-based conflict on the island of Madura involving some Shi’ite and their opponents. The conflict took place mid of 2011. The paper traces the history of the conflict, the parties involved in it, and the various factors that triggered it to happen. It argues that although the conflict is local, it nonetheless reflects the larger and most “global” kind of conflict between the Sunnis and the Shi’is. Considering that the Muslims of Madura are always NU in their theology and tradition, the paper asks to what extend does NU lose its influence on the island in this particular regard. Theories concerning conflict will be used to explain this rare development. Preliminary assumption might however be said that the conflict reflects (1) the need of the Madurese agrarian society for a better harmonious state of life, or else (2) the need to punish those who have gone astray from the traditional religious belief, or reflects (3) the latent power struggle between various religious denomination on the island. These are the problems that the paper will try to address.