Nahdlatul Ulama-State Alliance?  State Patronage, Extractive Industry, and Religious Civil Society in Indonesia

Skaidra Pulley

doi:10.19184/csi.v6i1.53697

Authors

Skaidra Pulley Independent Researcher, United States

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.19184/csi.v6i1.53697

Abstract

In studies of the relationship between Islamic thought and the Indonesian state, focus has largely been brought to the nation’s two largest civil society organizations: Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah. With robust networks of universities, schools, and hospitals, both Islamic organizations are deeply embedded into the social and political fabric of Indonesian national life. Most recently, the two organizations have come under scrutiny for accepting mining concessions from the government of Joko Widodo, a policy maintained by current president Prabowo Subianto. This paper begins by providing a review of existing scholarship to analyze how academics have understood the political and social formations of Indonesian Islam. To address more recent developments, Indonesian news sites are incorporated as sources alongside scholastic literature to examine changes in the relationships between NU and Muhammadiyah and the Indonesian state. Amid concerns of democratic backsliding, I advance the concept of ulama-state alliance in the Indonesian context and argue that the changing nature and scale of financial ties between the Indonesian government and its two largest civil society organizations risks a narrowing of civil society and a decline in the dynamism of Islamic thought in Indonesia.

Keywords: Nahdlatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah, ulama-state alliance, mining concessions

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