Streams of Interactions in Party Strategy

Streams of Interactions in Party Strategy 
escrito por Dini Harmita 

Abstract 
Living in houses and areas full of political party coverage makes me understand their strategies a little bit more. In one of the houses, my right neighbour installed hacking cables and my left neighbour is full of hackers who call themselves ‘party virus family’. Recently I found a line of satellite trains being launched in the sky to hack me through the radio waves. Like many areas including in Asia and Europe, the scope of the research is also economically, socially, culturally, and symbolically polarised. The rise of authoritarianism and populism all over the universe has clearly influenced this area too. It means democracy is eroded from almost all directions, mainly because of the dirty interactions that involve Corruption, Collusion, Cartelisation, and Nepotism (C4N). 

Keywords: Interactions, Party Strategy, Polarisation, Authoritarianism, Populism, Democracy

Introduction: Streams of Interactions 

Interactions are mainly discussed in Sociology. In political science it's discussed as part of political behaviour. In Sociology, human’s interactions have become the most important variable to make us feel social and sane. Nevertheless, with the current political practices where money speaks even our interactions feel scripted. We need to follow the scenarios of authoritarianism and populism otherwise they will attack us vigorously. Following the rise of both even in Europe, Casal Bértoa (2023) stated that there's no coincidence in politics. 

The differences between consolidated and babies of democracy seem to be emphasised in the process and result of interactions too. Nevertheless, the monitoring and evaluation seem to be very challenging. Like RSPO for palm oil certification, the rigid indicators of OSCE/ODIHR couldn't really stop the floods of both authoritarianism and populism.

The role of oligarchs and circulation of money laundering from the C4N in backsliding democracy seems to be undermined because of the rise of both authoritarianism and populism. They're free to use the money to bribe and kidnap everyone who is not in favour of them, then call themselves democracy.

The interactions between systems therefore need to be studied further. To understand that we need to comprehend the situation within the systems. 

Methodology 
This research is a pure qualitative research with mainly participatory observation as the methodology.

Party Strategy 
Case (2021) mentioned that one of the characters of authorisations is that they attack vigorously. Like in other entities and any aggressive actions, they must include weapons. Currently when technology has become the trap of neoliberalism (Harmita 2007, Bennon and Fukuyama 2023), those strikes are also manifested in the forms of cyberattacks. With Israeli technology, even hackers from Russia, Turkey, India, and Poland have been intercepting every conversation in Indonesia; not only the Government of Indonesia’s surveillance. 

The populist strategy is even worse because they need to cover their C4N. They use the authoritarians to do that. 

Since Indonesian corruption is very systemic and severe, both populists and authoritarians work together to cover the C4N. Which part of the interaction or strategy seems to be fragile? 

Cyberattacks have created more damages than what we can chew. People with systemic brain and anger like Valdo who attacked three persons in Nottingham in June 2023 for example, must have spent so much time struggling and influencing people with the cyberattack itself. The current generation seems to legalise the action of killing and stabbing that makes people like him don't feel guilty even to do another crazy and disgusting thing as manslaughter in January 2024.

Polarisation 
Poverty and inequalities with many dimensions have become one of the triggers of such action. I am attacked everyday by political party partisans who are poor and don't know anything about what lies ahead of the mastermind of the attacks. For a person like me, it feels like my brain is bleeding though I don't have physical damage. 

In Asia, the economical, social, cultural, and symbolyc polarisations (Bourdieu, 1983) are characterised with the differences between rural and urban poverty. Nevertheless, the urban poor tend to come from the rural areas. 

In Europe, the gap is indicated also in affective contexts (Torcal and Comellas, 2022). Nonetheless, the trend tends to be similar with Asia, that it's the good guy who radicalised; not the bad guy who becomes a good guy (Casal Bértoa, 2025).

In other continents such as Africa it's also similar, with higher levels of violences because the poor there are much poorer than in other continents. Therefore they have been escaping themselves by flying out of their countries even illegally to England for example. 

Authoritarianism and Populism
Authoritarianism has its own dimensions too till it makes the current scholars develop the theories of positive authoritarianism. Soeharto is once called the father of development by his supporters and populist by those who criticised him. When the US decided to ask him to pay loans he needed to borrow from the IMF and made Indonesia suffer from the systemic C4N, those who criticised him then called him an authoritarian. Yet, his families are still enjoying the C4N money everywhere. If they decide to empower the poor using that money will they be called a positive authoritarian? Will it lead to a legalisation of C4N cycles? 

Nevertheless what Casal Bértoa (2019) mentioned that they also need representation is true. Notwithstanding like too much and too little Party Institutionalisation (PI) and Party System Institutionalisation (PSI) mentioned by Casal Bértoa (2023), too much and too little representation of theirs may lead to what had happened in the recent years. That includes the efforts of Pedro Sanchez to also regulate the judiciary system CGPJ of Spain (Casal Bértoa, 2025).

Populism seems to be less complex than authoritarianism because of the physical attacks. Nonetheless when they work together to cover their mistakes including C4N it's rather even more unpleasant. 

Prabowo comes from a military background. Due to his behavioural routinisation and way of fixing problems he is supposedly categorised as authoritarian. His vice president is Jokowi’s son, a populist family. It's too early to assess, nevertheless regardless the leader changing takes place I am still attacked by the political parties before and after. 

Democracy 
Mair (2005) mentioned representative democracy as popular democracy because of its electoral system. Casal Bértoa and Enyedi (2021) emphasised on political party cooperation rather than competition.

In reality it's the electoral system that makes the political parties compete. The elections are everything for them till political parties even in consolidated democracy Europe become only public utilities (van Biezen, 2004).

It's not different in Indonesia. Linz (1990) and Casal Bértoa (2025) are so true, the sins of presidentialism where people fight only for the status to utilise the power are in front of our eyes; yet even scholars sometimes closed their eyes only to get what they're in favour of. 

Conclusion 
I sincerely ask the readers to conclude by themselves. I hope by analysing the streams of interactions with at least the theories related to polarisation, authoritarianism, populism, democracy and have it written here have given more colours to the elements of the current political science related to the festive democracy and party strategy. 

References
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Casal Bértoa, F. (2019). Fernando Casal Bértoa - The Rise of APEp and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy: Can We Fix it. YouTube, uploaded by MUNI Seminar Series, 9 July 2019, https://youtu.be/VHOcYK7JHXk?feature=shared 

Casal Bértoa, F., Enyedi Z., (2021). Party System Closure: Party Alliances, Government Alternatives, and Democracy in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/party-system-closure-9780198823605?prevNumResPerPage=20&prevSortField=1&sortField=8&resultsPerPage=20&start=0&lang=en&cc=gb&fbclid=IwAR2oaOx0lhXw_OPJn61509A7BexLJFIIia-ht8eVDWkbhFIvUlBoynGkSkI 

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Casal Bértoa, F. (2025). Reimagining Democracy: Revitalising Representative Democracy in Indonesia and ASEAN. YouTube, uploaded by the Habibie Center, 17 January 2025, https://www.youtube.com/live/h68QR_jSzW4?feature=shared 

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Harmita, D. (2007). Social Capital of Sundanese Women in Poverty, Collective Cases of Natural Based Tourism Village Kampung Citalahab Central Bogor and Cultural Based Tourism Village Kampung Ciptagelar Sukabumi-Banten. Bachelor Thesis. Bogor, Indonesia: IPB University.

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