Religious Symbolism and Political Legitimacy: A Critical Analysis of Baitul Muslimin Indonesia (BAMUSI)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15408/jii.v16i1.51211Keywords:
religious symbolism, political communication, islamic politics, political legitimacy, muslim votersAbstract
This study examines how religious symbolism is negotiated within the political communication and da’wah strategies of Baitul Muslimin Indonesia (BAMUSI), an Islamic wing organization affiliated with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle. The research aims to analyze how religious symbolism is used to construct political legitimacy, reduce anti-Islam stigma toward the party among Muslim voters, and generate polarized interpretations between internal and external actors. Using a qualitative approach within a constructivist paradigm, this study applies a case study design based on in-depth interviews, documentation, and interpretative analysis. The findings reveal that BAMUSI negotiates Islamic symbolism through an integrative discourse that positions Islam, nationalism, and Pancasila as compatible identities within Indonesian democracy. Religious symbols are represented not only through rituals and visual attributes, but also through social-religious programs, digital da’wah, and the involvement of Islamic figures to strengthen emotional and symbolic ties with Muslim communities. However, the study also finds that external actors frequently interpret these symbolic practices as political image-building and electoral camouflage rather than substantive religious commitment. This research concludes that religious symbolism in contemporary Indonesian politics functions as a multidimensional arena of meaning negotiation, political legitimacy, audience accommodation, and identity contestation. The study contributes to the development of political communication and Islamic politics scholarship by demonstrating how religious symbolism operates beyond ideological representation and becomes a strategic mechanism for political branding and legitimacy construction in democratic society.
References
Aliman, Binti Saaidun, N. S. N., Ibrahim, M. B. M., & Hasanuddin. (2025). The Transformation of Da’wah in the Digital Era: An Analysis of Social Media Usage Trends Among the Audience. Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law and Practice, 21(4), 136–147.
Bahtiar Effendy. (2011). Islam dan Negara: Transformasi Pemikiran dan Politik Islam di Indonesia. Democracy Project.
Bakti, A. F. (2025). Komunikasi Budaya Majelis Ulama Indonesia Dalam Mencegah Konflik Keagamaan Di Kota Bekasi (Cultural Communication of the Indonesian Ulema Council in Preventing Religious Conflicts in Bekasi City). INTERPRETASI: Communication & Public Relation, 5(2), 91–105.
Bouranta, V. (2025). Crafting the Campaign: The Role of Political Marketing in Voter Behavior Analysis. In Understanding Voter Behavior With Predictive Modeling (pp. 333–358). https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3373-1037-4.ch011
Briandana, R., Doktoralina, C. M., Hassan, S. A., & Hasan, W. N. W. (2020). Da’wah communication and social media: The interpretation of millennials in southeast Asia. International Journal of Economics and Business Administration, 8(1), 216–226. https://doi.org/10.35808/ijeba/543
Brighenti, A. M., & Castelli, A. (2016). Social camouflage: functions, logic, paradoxes. Distinktion, 17(2), 228–249. https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2016.1217552
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design : qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. SAGE Publications.
Damayanti, R., Ibrahim, K., & Hasan, A. (2024). The Role of Islam in the Indonesian Foreign Policy in the Era of Joko Widodo ’ s Government ( 2014-2024 ): between the Islamic Identity and the National Interests. Jurnal Indo-Islamika, 14(1), 1–15.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2018). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Sage Publications.
Djupe, P. A., & Neiheisel, J. R. (2022). The Religious Communication Approach and Political Behavior. Political Psychology, 43(S1), 165–194. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12848
Dottori, A. O. (2020). Bourdieu and the “magic” of language. Revista Mexicana de Sociologia, 82(4), 749–775.
Dragojevic, M., Giles, H., & Gasiorek, J. (2015). Communication Accommodation Theory. In The International Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication (pp. 1–21). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118540190.wbeic006
Edwards, L. (2009). Symbolic power and public relations practice: Locating individual practitioners in their social context. Journal of Public Relations Research, 21(3), 251–272. https://doi.org/10.1080/10627260802640674
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x
Entman, R. M. (2007). Framing bias: Media in the distribution of power. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 163–173. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00336.x
Fonti, D. (2021). Apocalyptic and catechetical a religious-political turn for contemporary philosophy. Veritas, 48, 35–55. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-92732021000100035
Frunzǎ, S. (2012). Political ethics between biblical ethics and the mythology of the death of God. Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 11(33), 206–231.
Gallois, C., & Giles, H. (2015). Communication Accommodation Theory. In The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction (pp. 1–18). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118611463.wbielsi066
Gavrilov, A. V, Lvov, S. V, Minchenko, E. N., Stulova, E. V, & Fedorov, V. V. (2025). The Four Russias: An Empirical Verification Of The Expert Model Of Segmentation Of Political Audiences In The Context Of The SMO. Monitoring Obshchestvennogo Mneniya: Ekonomicheskie i Sotsial’nye Peremeny, 2, 212–242. https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2025.2.2775
Giles, H. (2016). Communication Accommodation Theory. In The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy (pp. 1–7). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118766804.wbiect056
Hanks, W. F. (2005). Pierre Bourdieu and the practices of language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 67–83. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143907
Hashemi, N. (2014). Rethinking religion and political legitimacy across the Islam-West divide. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 40(4–5), 439–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453714522803
Herrero, M. (2016). Religion and the political: The answer of Hegel’s philosophy between tension and reconciliation. Pensamiento, 72(271), 279–294. https://doi.org/10.14422/pen.v72.i271.y2016.004
Hine, D. W., Reser, J. P., Morrison, M., Phillips, W. J., Nunn, P., & Cooksey, R. (2014). Audience segmentation and climate change communication: Conceptual and methodological considerations. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(4), 441–459. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.279
Jones, S., Keane, A., St John, F., Vickery, J., & Papworth, S. (2019). Audience segmentation to improve targeting of conservation interventions for hunters. Conservation Biology, 33(4), 895–905. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13275
Khairil, M., Alatas, R., & Sari, D. F. K. (2020). Communication strategy using Da’wah assembly to heal traumatised natural disaster victims in Palu City. Space and Culture, India, 7(4), 228–233. https://doi.org/10.20896/SACI.V7I4.626
Klimeš, D. (2022). “Hi, Folks!” Attention Populism as a Strategy for Dominating the Dissonant Information Environment. Javnost, 29(4), 388–402. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2022.2147773
Kostiuchkov, S., Garaschuk, D., Volkova, K., & Serhieev, V. (2024). Religious Symbolism In Rhetoric Of Right Populist Parties: A Comparative Study Of Poland And Hungary. Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, 44(6), 54–72. https://doi.org/10.55221/2693-2229.2538
Maududi, M. M., Bakti, A. F., & Khohar, A. (2024). Bamusi’s Role in Rebranding PDI-P as a Nationalist-Religious Party. Proceedings of the 3nd Annual International Conference on Natural and Social Science Education (ICNSSE 2023), 475–489. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-242-2_47
Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook (3rd ed.). Sage.
Mochla, V., Tsourvakas, G., & Stoubos, I. (2025). Segmenting Voters by Motivation to Use Social Media and Their Lifestyle for Political Engagement. Journal of Political Marketing, 24(2), 101–122. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2023.2168831
Moss, H. B., Kirby, S. D., & Donodeo, F. (2009). Characterizing and reaching high-risk drinkers using audience segmentation. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 33(8), 1336–1345. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2009.00963.x
Muhtar, S., Burhanuddin, J., Munhanif, A., & Heryanto, G. G. (2024). Islamic Populism and Symbolic Convergence in the 2019 Presidential Election. Jurnal Indo-Islamika, 14(1), 126–135.
Muslimin, J. M. (2012). Islamic Law in the Pancasila State. AHKAM: Jurnal Ilmu Syariah, 12(1).
Norris, P. (2015). Political Communication. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences: Second Edition (pp. 342–349). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.95025-6
Nungesser, F. (2017). A pleonastic oxymoron: Construction problems of Pierre Bourdieuʼs key concept of symbolic violence. Berliner Journal Fur Soziologie, 27(1), 7–33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11609-017-0335-5
Olivier, B. (2017). Bourdieu, Rancière, Inequality and Education. Koers, 82(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.19108/KOERS.82.1.2315
Purba, A. M., & Lusia, A. (2026). Digital Da’wah and Islamic Public Relations: A Communication Theology Perspective on the Social Dynamics of the Ummah. Pharos Journal of Theology, 107(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.46222/pharosjot.107.128
Riegel, V. (2015). Bourdieu, Pierre. In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies (pp. 1–4). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs027
Ritzer, G. (2021). Sociological Theory.
Rosidi, I. (2021). Da’wah and politics among Muslim preachers in contemporary Indonesia. Intellectual Discourse, 29(1), 35–52.
Sokolov, A. V, & Vasilyeva, D. (2024). Perception of Political Information in Online Communication on the Social Network VKontakte: Features of Content Consumption by Student Representatives. Proceedings of the 2024 Communication Strategies in Digital Society Seminar, ComSDS 2024, 129–135. https://doi.org/10.1109/ComSDS61892.2024.10502037
St. Aisyah, B. M. (2019). Strategy of communication and da’wah in reducing uang panai’ of marriage in Bulukumba. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 35(3), 92–107. https://doi.org/10.17576/JKMJC-2019-3503-06
Subramanian, P. (2025). The Sacred Beyond the Political: Rituals, Authority and Kingship Among Kongu Vellala Paṭṭakkārar and Pāḷaiyakkārar (Chieftains). Sociological Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380229251333128
Thaha, I. (2018). PDI Perjuangan dan Islam: Kajian atas Akomodasi Islam dalam Politik Umat. Prenada Media.
Troy, J. (2020). Legitimacy in the ‘secular church’ of the United Nations. International Relations, 34(4), 565–582. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117820904094
Villa, P.-I. (2011). Symbolic violence and its potential failure. Between Butler and Bourdieu. Osterreichische Zeitschrift Fur Soziologie, 36(4), 51–69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11614-011-0003-5
Wacquant, L. (2013). Symbolic power and group-making: On Pierre Bourdieu’s reframing of class. Journal of Classical Sociology, 13(2), 274–291. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X12468737
Watkins, M. (2018). Little room for capacitation: rethinking Bourdieu on pedagogy as symbolic violence. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39(1), 47–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2017.1304202
Wertz, F. J., Charmaz, K., McMullen, L. M., Josselson, R., Anderson, R., & McSpadden, E. (2016). Five Ways of Doing Qualitative Analysis Phenomenological Psychology, Grounded Theory, Discourse Analysis, Narrative Research, and Intuitive Inquiry. In Educacao e Sociedade (Vol. 1, Issue 1).
Yob, I. (2008). Religious education through the language of religion. In Inspiring Faith in Schools: Studies in Religious Education (pp. 151–162).
Zulkifli, Z., Nur Kafid, Nanang, H., & Fahri, M. (2023). The Construction of Religious Moderation among Indonesian Muslim Academics. Teosofi: Jurnal Tasawuf Dan Pemikiran Islam, 13(2), 337–366.
