Abstract

: There has been an intensive scholarly debate about the developmentof Indonesia’s post-New Order democracy. Some scholars have laudedIndonesia’s surprisingly successful transition to democratic consolidation,while others have disputed such a notion, arguing that Indonesia’s democraticprocess tends to be stagnant and even regressive. However, the absence ofa progressive civil society as a result of the increasingly dominant positionof oligarchic political elites in the structure of state power and democraticinstitutions, are a number of important factors that encourage the declineof democracy. This article investigates the conditions that drive the role ofmoderate Islamic organizations weredeclining rather than increasing in fighting for a democratic agenda. Referringto the research data obtained through interviews, documentation and casestudies on Nahdlatul Ulama activism - the largest moderate Islamicorganization in a predominantly Muslim country, this article arguesthat the decline of civil Islamic organizations is closely related to socio-politicalfragmentation and the strengthening of the conservative wing within moderateIslamic organizations. At the same time, the decline of the organization whichhad a glorious reputation as a champion of tolerance, pluralism, and democracyin the 1980-1990s had implications for the regression of Indonesian democracymarked by, among other things, the exclusion of religious minority groups suchas Shi’a from the public sphere.