The Future of Democracy in Digital Era: Challenges to Political Life in

Cyberspace in Indonesia

Auradian Marta

and Leo Agustino

Department of Government Studies, Universitas Riau, Indonesia

Department of Public Administration, Universitas Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa, Indonesia

Keywords:

Democracy, Digital Era, Political Life, Cyberspace, Indonesia

Abstract:

The development of technology and information has an impact on a country’s political and democratic life.

Social media becomes an arena in voicing various thoughts and opinions. This paper seeks to explain the

challenges of political life in cyberspace in Indonesia. This study uses qualitative research methods with case

study design. The data collected comes from books, research journals, reports, and articles in mass media

and online media. The ﬁndings of this study indicate that the challenges of political life in cyberspace in

Indonesia are political culture in Indonesia which is not yet ready to face freedom and information disclosure

and technology; non-democratic regime; and Media decadence. The conclusion in this study is the challenge

of political life in cyberspace in Indonesia if it cannot be dealt with well, then the future of democracy is the

deﬁcit.

1 INTRODUCTION

The wave of reforms in Indonesia in 1998 has brought

about a change of democratization with guaranteed

rights to express opinions, gather and organize. How-

ever, during the 21 years of the journey of reform and

democratization in Indonesia, the main political life

of freedom of opinion in Indonesia is currently ex-

periencing quite alarming problems. (Intelligence, )

report states that Indonesia was the worst-performing

country in 2017, falling by 20 places in the global

rankings from 48 to 68 positions after its score de-

clined from 6.97 to 6.39. This report from The

Economist is in line with the results of research from

the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) (2018) which is-

sued the Indonesian Democracy Index (IDI) in 2017

which explained that there was a signiﬁcant decrease

in freedom of opinion in 2017 compared to 2016

which was 6.20 from 72.17 to 65.97. Furthermore,

freedom of assembly and association also decreased

from 3.63 from 82.79 to 79.16 (Indonesia, 2017).

The development of democracy cannot be sepa-

rated from the development of technology and in-

formation, especially the use of social media very

rapidly. Through the development of social media,

the public sphere has become very open and some-

times very difﬁcult to limit. This freedom is the effect

of the digitalization era which can affect the ongoing

democratization in Indonesia.

The study of democracy in Indonesia has been ex-

plained and explored by political scientists with var-

ious focus studies such as the ﬁrst, analyzing Islam,

and democracy (Barton, 2010; Hamayotsu, 2011;

Nasir, 2014). Second, civil society and democracy

(Antlov et al., ; Marta, 2017; Mietzner, 2012). Fi-

nally, Media, internet, and democracy (Gazali, 2014;

Hill and Sen, ; Tapsell, 2015). Based on the classi-

ﬁcation of studies on democracy, there are still a few

who discuss the future of democracy by explaining

the challenges of political life in cyberspace in In-

donesia. So this study is interesting to discuss and

very relevant to the ongoing democratization process

in Indonesia.

Therefore, this study aims to explain the chal-

lenges of political life in cyberspace in Indonesia. The

challenges of political life if not properly dealt with

will have an impact on the future of democracy in In-

donesia.

2 METHODS

This study uses a qualitative approach with case study

research design. According to (Creswell, 2014) case

studies are the design of inquiry found in many ﬁelds,

especially evaluations, in which the researcher devel-

312

Marta, A. and Agustino, L.

The Future of Democracy in Digital Era: Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace in Indonesia.

DOI: 10.5220/0009143803120315

In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education and Humanity (ICoSEEH 2019) - Sustainable Development in Developing Country for Facing Industrial

Revolution 4.0, pages 312-315

ISBN: 978-989-758-464-0

ops an in-depth analysis of a case, often a program,

event, activity, process, or one or more individuals.

Meanwhile, according to (Yin, 2018), A case study

is an empirical method that investigates a contempo-

rary phenomenon (the ”case”) in depth and within its

real-world context, especially when, and may not be

evident. In the context of this study, the focus of the

study is to analyze the challenges of political life in

cyberspace in Indonesia in the era of Joko Widodo

and Jusuf Kalla’s administration. This is due to the

strengthening of the phenomenon of threats to free-

dom and political rights in that era. This is very con-

tradictory to the rapid development of digitalization.

Data collection in this study comes from docu-

mentation and archival records such as books, re-

search journals, reports, data surveys, and articles in

mass media and online media. The strength of the

data collection technique according to (Yin, 2018) is

stable, unobtrusive, speciﬁc, and broad. Data col-

lected from various sources are then analyzed using

approaches and theories that are relevant to the re-

search and produce research conclusions.

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Today’s digitalization of democracy has spread and

the Indonesian state is one of those faced with this

condition. Digital democracy is also called virtual

democracy, E-democracy or cyberdemocracy. Digital

democracy as a practice of democracy without lim-

its of time, space and other physical conditions, using

information and communication technology (ICT) or

computer communication (CMC) instead, as an ad-

dition, not a replacement for the traditional ”analog”

of political practices (Hacker and van Dijk, 2000).

Based on these explanations, the use and development

of ICT or CMC through cyberspace has an impact on

democracy and democratization with the opening of

the public sphere for the public to convey their aspi-

rations.

However, it cannot be denied that digitalization

also presents a challenge to political life that inﬂu-

ences the future of democracy towards the consolida-

tion of democracy. The challenges of political life in

cyberspace in Indonesia that can determine the future

of democracy in Indonesia include the ﬁrst, the com-

munity’s political culture that is not ready for the dig-

italization of democracy. According to (Almond and

Verba, ) democracies are only able to persist in they

enjoy political culture which is congruent to and sup-

portive of its democratic structures. Furthermore, it

was stated that political culture that supports democ-

racy is called civic culture which is understood as at-

titudes and behavior citizens. Meanwhile, (Klinge-

mann et al., 2006) state that political culture is a mul-

titude of political attitudes and behavior.

Indonesia is a unique country with a diversity of

ethnic groups that gave birth to a plurality of peo-

ple. This will indirectly lead to regional ties or pri-

mordialism. The primordialism culture that has ex-

isted since long ago has persisted into the digital era.

This culture will later become anti-democratic. Po-

litical reforms have not brought too much change to

the political culture in Indonesia. The political system

that has been successfully built has only arrived at a

form of pseudo-democracy; on the basis of this level

of institutional change that has not been supported by

changes in the level of political culture (Culla, 2018).

The form of primordialism and identity politics

can be seen clearly during the General Elections, es-

pecially the Election of the President and Vice Pres-

ident in 2019. The results of the University of In-

donesia’s Center for Political Studies (Puskapol) re-

veal that the use of political buzzers has become one

of the triggers of strengthening identity politics in so-

ciety (Amrullah, 2019). The Puskapol research re-

sults are in line with the survey conducted by the Indo

Survey and Strategy Institute (ISS) stating that eth-

nic, religious, racial, and intergroup (SARA) issues,

as well as communism, will be increasingly used in

the run-up to general elections, both regional and leg-

islative elections and the president (Hamdi, 2019).

Furthermore, the political culture that developed

in the midst of a society which contradicts the val-

ues of democracy is the development of hoaxes and

speeches of hatred. The community still enjoys the

euphoria of freedom of opinion which was during the

New Order era something ”expensive”. However, the

freedom to express their opinions and aspirations in

the digital era today has spread in cyberspace which

is very difﬁcult to control. Hoax news and utterances

of hatred will damage the threat of social capital to

build democracy, namely the values of community

unity and solidarity.

The second challenge for this political life in cy-

berspace is the non-democratic regime. (Brooker,

2013) explains that non-democratic regimes are that

they show why and how a modern state might be

ruled by other means than representative democracy.

The Joko Widodo government used its power by curb-

ing civil liberties and association by dissolving Hizb

ut-Tahrir Indonesia (HTI). This is a serious threat to

political life in Indonesia. Even (Warburton and As-

pinall, ) mention that Indonesian democracy has expe-

rienced regression. Civil society as a basis for democ-

racy, but its existence is currently threatened because

of the interests of the authorities.

The Future of Democracy in Digital Era: Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace in Indonesia

313

Freedom of expression today also experiences re-

strictions and blocking of social media applications.

The blocking of social media carried out by the gov-

ernment was carried out in 2017 by blocking tele-

gram. The climax, after the 2019 Election, the block-

ing and temporary restrictions were made on the use

of social media applications such as WhatsApp, Face-

book, Twitter, and Instagram. This condition is rem-

iniscent of the past history of the New Order which

used its power to block media with the aim of main-

taining its power. The difference, in the digital era

today is the blocking and limitation not only of main-

stream media but also on social media.

Finally, media decadence, (Keane, 2013) states

that democratic potential is threatened by the trou-

bling growth of media decadence. Furthermore, it

was explained that media decadence is a reference to

the wide gap that is opening up between the rosy ide-

als of free and fair public contestation and chastening

of power. Free and independent media are fundamen-

tal elements and have a contribution to democracy and

democratization. The freedom of the press as a re-

form agenda has not been successful and continues

to be championed in the digital era today. The cur-

rent mainstream media has become a tool of author-

ity rather than as a bridge between the ruler and so-

ciety. In fact, mainstream media has become partisan

of the government rather than as an agent to convey

the aspirations of citizens. This is of course inversely

proportional to the role of media in the democratic

era, namely as a watchdog and government monitor-

ing (Coronel, 2003).

The impact of public distrust on this mainstream

media, the community tries to ﬁnd information and

channel their thoughts on social media. This freedom

in cyberspace is used as a public sphere and is a hope

for the community in politics and democracy.

The challenges of political life faced in lead-

ing digital democracy in Indonesia, if not managed

properly, will have an impact on democratic deﬁcits.

Deﬁcit Democracy lacks the most important check on

abuse of power: informed citizenry resolutely defend-

ing their rights and liberties (Bovard, 2005). This

will have a broad impact on the emergence of divi-

sions, political polarization, and weak law enforce-

ment which are entirely contrary to democratic val-

ues.

4 CONCLUSION

The development of technology and information

through cyberspace has brought changes to all joints

of life including in political life and the course of

democracy in Indonesia. Indonesia began a new chap-

ter in political life in cyberspace which was full of

challenges.

The biggest challenge for political life and democ-

racy in Indonesia is the political culture in Indonesia

which is not ready to face freedom and openness to

information and technology, non-democratic regimes,

and media decadence. These three things are interre-

lated with one another, thus adding to the complexity

of democratization in Indonesia. This challenge must

be faced seriously so as not to contribute to the re-

treat of democracy in Indonesia so that it experiences

a deﬁcit democracy.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express gratitude to the Indonesian

Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP), Scholarship

for Indonesian Domestic Faculty Member (BUDI-

DN) for their education funding.

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