Some Concept of the Electoral Participation

Managemen Partai Politik dan Pemilu

Nur Hidayat Sardini

Jurusan Ilmu PemerintahanFakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik

Universitas Diponegoro2015

SPG-509

SPG-222

Materi Bahasan

■ Political Participation

■ Voting Behavior

■ Women’s Electoral Participation

I. Political Participation

Political participation encompasses the many activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue.

Political participation derives from the freedom to speak out, assemble and associate; the ability to take part in the conduct of public affairs; and the opportunity to register as a candidate, to campaign, to be elected and to hold office at all levels of government.

Partisipasi politik itu berkaitan dengan sejumlah kegiatan warga negara dalam rangka memengaruhi pemilihan pemimpin politik, atau pengambilan keputusan.

Partisipasi politik terdiri atas kebebasan berbicara, berkumpul dan berorganisasi, mengambil bagian dalam urusan-urusan umum, dan mendaftar sebagai kandidat, kampanye, dipilih, dan menduduki jabatan pemerintahan dalam seluruh jenjang.

Political participation extends beyond parties, however.

Individuals can also become involved in certain aspects of the electoral process through independent action—particularly at the local level—and by joining civil society organizations.

Professional networks, trade unions, non-governmental organizations, and the media can all provide avenues for political participation.

Hal lain, partisipasi politik menyerupai kegiatan-kegiatan (yang dilakukan oleh) partai.

Para individu dapat juga mengambil peran dalam sejumlah aspek menyangkut proses-proses Pemilu melalui kegiatan mandiri, sedemikian rupa—dan tergabung dalm organisasi masyarakat sipil.

Jaringan profesional, kelompok bisnis, LSM, dan media massa, yang kesemuanya itu untuk tujuan-tujuan partisipasi politik.

Political participation can be defined as those actions of private citizens by which they seek to influence or to support government and politics.

Participation in electoral processes involves much more than just voting.

Partisipasi politik adalah aksi-aksi yang dilakukan oleh warga negara dengan maksud untuk memengaruhi atau mendukung pemerintah dan kebijakan-kebijakan politik.

Partisipasi (warga negara) dalam proses-proses Pemilu tidak sekadar memberikan suara (Pemilu).

Apa itu demokrasi? 1. Pemilu bebas, terbuka,

dan jujur2. Berdasarkan hukum3. Masyarakat madani

Komitmen tsb di atas memengaruhi kualitas demokrasi yang terekspresi dalam partisipasi politik.

What is democracy?  1. Elections – free, open and fair2. Rule of law3. Civil society Commitment to these three elements which determine the quality of democracy is expressed through political participation.

Types of Political Participation

I. Unconventional Political Participation,

is a relatively uncommon behavior that challenges or defies government channels or the dominant culture.

It is usually personally stressful for both participants and their opponents.

Bentuk-Bentuk:

1. Pengajuan petisi kepada pejabat eksekutif atau legislatif

2. Demonstrasi dengan atau tanpa kekerasan

3. Konfrontasi politik kepada penguasa

4. Mogok makan, mogok kerja, boycotting, boycotting

5. Protesting dengan atau tanpa kekerasan, huru hara, pembakaran patung, pembomban, pembakaran bendera, menyegel kantor, menawan pejabat, mengusung tandu, dst

6. Penculikan, pembangkangan, memaksa pejabat membacakan tuntutan, revolusi, kudeta, dan bentuk-bentuk radikalisme lainnya.

Unconventional participation has been successful in influencing government decisions – civil rights movement.

People participating in unconventional ways (such as direct political action) tend to share three characteristics:

1. Distrust of the political system;

2. A strong sense of political efficacy; and

3. A highly developed sense of group consciousness.

II. Conventional Political Participation,

is a relatively routine, added behavior that uses the channels of representative government.a. Supportive

behaviors, are mainly ceremonial acts expressing allegiance, to government and country.

b. Influencing behaviors seek to modify or reverse government policy.

Bentuk-Bentuk:

1. Mengajukan pendapat, pemberian suara, memilih wakil rakyat, mengajukan atau menolak calon pemimpin yang disodorkan.

2. Diskusi politik, rapat umum, debat politik, sarasehan politik, orasi politik secara ilmiah, kampanye.

3. Kampanye di muka umum, kampanye di media cetak, pasang spanduk, baliho, dan seterusnya.

4. Komunikasi invidual dengan para pejabat resmi, menulis keberatan atau dukungan melalui kotak pos, dst.

- Citizens may seek to derive particular benefits from government.

- Citizens engage in two kinds of activities that influence the selection of government personnel and policies.

● Low-initiative acts, such as voting, do not require much effort by the individual.

● High-initiative acts, require active participation by individuals to obtain benefits for a group. Such activities can be associated with the electoral process, or they can be separate, such as filing class-action suits.

c.Compared, with citizens of other countries, Americans are less likely to vote in elections, but more likely to engage in other forms of conventional participation.

Reasons for Political Participation

● Political socialization, is "the process through which an individual acquires his or her own political orientations."

● Agents of socialization, are numerous, including the family, the media, and schools, government.

● Participation rates, are a function of resources and civic skills.

Identifying factors as important determinants of the magnitude of electoral:

1.Institutional changes;

2.Significant changes in turnout;

3.The numbers of parties;

4.Religious and ethnic heterogeneity; and

5.The membership of left-wing parties.

Dimensions of Cleavage versus loyalty voters:

1. Group membership and party loyalty;

2. Value homogeneity and party loyalty;

3. Cleavage mobilization and party loyalty; dan

4. Party organization and party loyalty.

Source: Gabor Toka. 1998. “Party Appeal and Voter Loyalty in New Democracies.” Political Studies (1998), XLVI, 589-610.

II. Voting Behavior

■ Theoretical Models of Voting Behaviour

I. Sociological model of voting behavior

The theoretical assumptions of the sociological model of voting behavior are defined in three essential works:

a. The People’s Choice (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944);b. Voting (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, & McPhee, 1954); andc. Personal Influence (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955).

Penelitian yang pernah dilakukan dengan judul The People’s Choice (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944), berhasil mengkarakterisasi dukungan terhadap 2 Parpol di Amerika yang melibatkan 600 objek, diinterview 7 kali selama 7 bulan kampanye.

Dari penelitian yang dilakukan tsb., diidentifikasi karakter-karakter pemilih Amerika Serikat, yang dapat berubah posisi sikap mereka selama masa kampanye, dengan hasil perbandingan 3 kelompok, yakni:

1. Those who decided their vote before beginning the campaign;

2. Those whose decision wastaken during the party convention; and

3. Those that decided their vote only at an advanced stage of the campaign.

The Central hypothesis

■ the act of voting is an individual act, affected mainly by the personality of the voter and his exposure to themedia.

■ the effect of the media in electoral decision was minimal and that the decisive influence was the social groups to which they belonged.

■ The significance of political behavior was highlighted by the study but further investigation is necessary to establish it more firmly.”

1.1. Political homogeneity of social groups.

1.2. Activation, reinforcement, and conversion.

1.3. Social transmission of political choices.

1.4. Perception and political differentiation.

1.5. Democratic practice and theory.

1.6 Social cleavage.

II. Psychosocial model of voting behavior

2.1. Partisanship

The central concept of this model of voting behavior is partisanship, which is designed as a psychological affinity, stable and lasting relationship with a political party that does not necessarily translate into a concrete link, namely registration, or consistently voting and systematically militancy with this party.

2.2. Funnel of causality

The explanatory model of relations between the variables involved in the definition of electoral behavior is called a funnel of causality.

This metaphor represents the chain of events that contributes to the vote of the subjects, distinguishing distal factors (socio-economic and historical factors, values and attitudes and membership groups) and proximal factors (issues, candidates, election campaign, political and economic situation, the government action, influence of friends).

2.3. Proximal and distal factors

Causal model outlined above shows that changes in long-term factors that can lead to changes in party identification of voters.

In general the factors considered by the model are those the sociological approaches conceptualize as determinants of voting behavior.The Funnel Model1. Parents determinant

and socialization: attitudes- like party, its positions.

2. Attitudes are then reflected in positions.

3. The groups involved in politics and the questions of group interest affecting, the issues of domestic policy, the issues of foreign policy.

4. the comparative record of the two parties in managing the affairs of government.

5. These issue positions are the proximal cause of your voting decision.

III. Theory of Rational Choice

The operation of the model is based on three fundamental premises:

1. All decisions — those that are made by voters and political parties — are rational, guided by self interest and enforced in accordance with the principle of maximization of action’s utility;

2. The democratic political system implies a level of consistency that supports predictions about the consequences of decisions made by voters and political parties, their agents—voters, parties, and government—are responsible, and trustworthy,

which makes it possible to make predictions about the consequences that result from different choices; and

3. the democratic system assumes — despite the consistency stated in the previous point — a level of uncertainty, sufficiently important to allow differentoptions.

3.1. Maximizing the action’s utility

3.2. Consistency3.3. Uncertainty3.4. Spatial representation3.5. Strategic vote

Source: Rui Antunes. 2010. Theoretical models of voting behavior. Exedra No. 4 2010. C o m u n i c a ç ã o e c i ê n c i a s e m p r e s a r i a i s.

Perilaku pemilihan ditentukan oleh konteks historis, sebagaimana terjadi di Amerika pada 1956.

Seseorang apakah masih bertahan dengan partisanship-nya, dideteksi oleh Angus Cambell dkk (1960) dengan 9 (sembilan) preferensi:

Source: Angus Campbell, et al. 1960. The American Voter. N.Y.+London: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

1. Domestic-issues attitudes;

2. Primary-group pressure;

3. Personality traits of voter;

4. Family political history;

5. Candidat and issues attitudes;

6. Family influence;7. Sosial pressures;8. The depression; and9. Local politics.

Bagan di samping memperlihatkan, ada 4 jalan kemungkinan dalam mengategorisasi perilaku pemilih, yakni:

A. Personal and non-political

B. External and politicalC. Or personal and

politicalD. The second portion of

the figure provides schematic indication of situation just before the vote to be predicted is cast.

By this point in time, personal and political elements predominate, most event and conditions that are going to affect the behavior have comte into the voter’s awareness and have acquired political meaning.

Source: Andrew Gelman, et al. 2012. The Mythical Swing Voter.

Voters Condition in Indonesia Election

by Saiful Mujani and R. William Liddle

Source: Edward Aspinall, and Marcuse Mietzner. 2010. Problems of

Democratisation in Indonesia: Elections, Institutions, and Society. Singapore-Australia: The Australian National University-ISEAS.

○ Faktor-faktor sosiologis dan kultural—sejauh bukan berkait dengan keagamaan, tapi juga kedaerahan, etnitisas, dan kelas sosial—memiliki pengaruh-pengaruh yang signifikan terhadap perilaku memilih di Indonesia.

○ Tapi kenyataan pula, pada Pemilu tahun 1999 dan 2004, faktor-faktor sosiologis pandangan agama atau aliran tidak relevan untuk menyumbang bagi pertimbangan orang untuk menentukan pilihannya, terkait dengan “politik aliran”: santri (orthodox) dan abangan (syncretist).

○ Dalam studi tsb., pemimpin partai memiliki peran yang lebih kuat dengan pilithan partai politik dalam Pemilu 1999 dan 2004, juga Pemilu presiden 1999 dan 2004.

1. Sociological factors

2. Leaders and Candidates

3. Party ID

4. The media campaign

5. The Incumbent’s performance

III. Women’s Electoral Participation

Women’s emancipation in three ways:

● Freedom from oppressive restrictions imposed by sex;

● Self-determination; and● Autonomy

It involves liberation from any form of gender subordination and violence, thereby achieving equal footing with men, both at the private and the public sphere of everyday life.

Source: Gerda Lerner. 1986. The Creation of Patriarchy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The concept of women’s emancipation was popularized by the U.S. feminist movement at a women’s emancipation convention at Seneca Fall, New York in 1848.

In a declaration of independent for women, the following became the Indicators for Women’s Emancipation:

1. Full legal equality;2. Full educational and commercial

opportunity;3. Equal compensation, the right to

collect wages; and4. The right to vote.

Source: Janet M Arnado, “Women’s Emancipation in The Philippines: A Legacy of Western Feminism?”, ini Terence Chong, Globalization and Its Counter-force in Southeast Asia. Singapore: ISEAS. 2008. p. 296-297.

The impact of gender on the voting behavior of the American electorate began to seep into consciousness after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. This act granted women the right to vote in 1920.

Among the seeds of the woman’s suffrage movement was the seed of broader social participation:

1. To organize around issues they cared about,2. Particularly civil rights,3. Prohibition,4. Domestic violence,5. The welfare of children.

Early women’s organizations, such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the League of Women Voters.

The most frequently mentioned areas of parliamentary involvement include:

- Education and vocational training,

- Health

- Family law

- Maternity protection

- Professional equality;

- Action against domestic violence.

There are several factors influencing the patterns of the recruitment of men and women as legislators.

• The cultural context in Indonesia is still heavily patriarchal. The common perception is that the political arena is for men, and that it is less preferable for women to become members of parliament.

• The selection of candidates by political parties is usually done by a small groupof officials or party leaders, almost always men. In Indonesia awareness of gender equality and justice issues is still low. Male political leaders have a disproportionate influence over party politics and women do not receive much support.

Women’s Participation in Indonesia• The media have yet to effectively mobilize the public regarding the importance of women’s representation in parliament.

• Despite the existence of women’s organizations fighting for the goal of increased representation of women (since 1999), there is little effective networking among these organizations, NGOs and political parties towards this common goal.

• Poverty and the low levels of education of women make it difficult to recruitwomen who have the political capabilities that would allow them to compete on anequal basis with men.

• In the 2004 election, despite the legal provision for a gender quota, no significant increase in women’s representation was seen.

The law did not make it mandatory for political parties to nominate 30% women in the list of candidates and only 11,8% women were elected to the DPR RI.

This situation gave rise to a demand by civil society actors and the women’s movement for a further change in the law to make itu mandatory for political parties to ensure 30% of the lists of candidate were women.