Description

Religious conflict in Indonesia has historically occurred largely along Muslim/Christian lines. Since the mid-2000s, however, non-Sunni Muslims—particularly Ahmadiyah and Shi’a groups—have increasingly been targets of violence and state repression.This new phenomenon is puzzling: until the 2000s, there was little—if any—violence against non-Sunni Muslim groups. For example, the Ahmadiyah population has co-existed peacefully with their Sunni counterparts since the arrival of the first Ahmadi missionaries in the 1920s. Drawing from a self-constructed database of events, this paper explores the sudden salience of non-Sunni Muslim groups in Indonesia’s social and political spheres. In particular, this paper focuses how formal institutional change have contributed to the shape of intergroup politics in Indonesia today.

Jessica Soedirgo is a PhD Student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her work focuses on democracy, religion, and intergroup conflict in Indonesia.

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