Democracy and Islam in Indonesia

Specialists in Indonesia will see the array of experts assembled in this volume and need little persuasion to study its contents. But those interested in democratization, religion and politics, and Islam will find the book equally rich. The authors offer sober and sophisticated analysis in service of fairly sunny conclusions about Indonesia's democratic present and future; they do so in a form that is accessible and very amenable to comparative understandings of the Indonesian experience. -- Nathan J. Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University The democratization literature in political science has few in-depth studies of democratic transitions in Muslim-majority societies. The abundant literature on Islam and politics in Indonesia has largely neglected to compare Indonesia's transition to those in other parts of the world. In this well-written and theoretically engaging volume, Kunkler and Stepan bring together leading figures from political science and Indonesian studies to address both of these intellectual shortcomings. The result is the best volume currently available on the role of Islam and Muslims in Indonesia's democratic transition. This important book should be required reading for specialists of Indonesia and all those interested in how democracy might be constructed in Muslim-majority countries. -- Robert W. Hefner, Director, Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, Boston University