SUPPORT FOR FAMILY POLITICS AND DEMOCRACY: EVIDENCE FROM INDONESIA

. Studies on the relationship between family politics and democracy are inconclusive. A number of studies suggest that family politics weakens democracy, and some other studies found that family politics does not matter to democracy, and some other works on the issue even reveals that family politics strenghthens democracy. This article is to report the result of a study about the relationships between family politics and democratic support and performance. Mass support for democracy is an indicator of democratic consolidation at the attitudinal level, and mass assessment of democratic performance is also crucial to the extent in which a democracy performs. In addition, this article addresses the issue how political knowledge of family politics predicts support for family politics. Lack of political knowledge among the massess in developing democracy is probably responsible for the support for family politics. This article relies on relevant data of a nation wide public opinion survey of the fourth largest electorate in the world, Indonesian voter. The findings of this study are: Indonesian voters are in general negative towards family politics; attitudes toward family politics do not matter to democratic support, but explain significantly assessment of democratic performance: negative attitude towards family politics decreases positive assessment of democratic performance. This pattern indicates a syndrome of critical citizens, i.e. political knowledge and education reject family politics which positively assesses democratic performance. Family politics does not demand a better democratic performance. Education does.


Introduction
Family politics is the power a person acquires through family or familial relationships or kinship (Yadav, 2020, Besley andReynal-Queroz, 2017;Geys and Smith, 2017;Chandra, 2016;Tadem and Tadem, 2016). Democracy has transformed how power is acquired, not by familial relationship or kinship but by popular vote (Geys and Smith, 2017). However, family politics is not a rare phonemoneon in democracies (Smith, 2012). In a democracy, family politics operates through open contestation in an election, by relying on family support and networks. Specifically, by using familial ties to leverage resources and social networks for the mobilization of mass electoral support (Geys and Smith, 2017). Family politics typically starts with an incumbent politician and then spreads to the broader family network, who also gain shares in power (Smith, 2018).
One of the main virtues of democracy is that it is an open system for the selection of political elites through competition for votes. In this sense, democracy places no restrictions on the background of those that are able to compete for a seat in power. Incumbents, husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters should all be able to compete in elections for legislative and executive positions-at the national or local level.
Family politics is not a rare phenomenon across the world and is particularly pronounced in young democracies (Yadav, 2020). Yet many activists and students of politics are concerned with the potentially negative impact of family politics on development in general and in democracy in particular (Dar, 2019;George and Ponattu, 2019;Ahmad and Rehman, 2019;Amundsen, 2016;Ali, 2016;Braganca, Ferraz, and Rios, 2015;Rivera, 2015;Chhibber, 2011). However, some other studies found that family politics does not matter to democracy. A study even suggests that family politics strenghthens democratic support among the elites (Yadav, 2020(Yadav, : 1046. Family politics helps elected officials more competent in their jobs as they learn from their political families (Parker, 1996). How are these claims contradictory?
Theoretically, there are at least three possible connections between the extent of family politics and democracy. First, it might be the case that an individuals' perception of family politics has a positive effect on democracy. This pattern is produced by the fact that democracy is inherently an open system in which any citizen, including member of political families, basically may participate to contest for a public office. A person who accepts this democratic principle is likely to have a positive attitude toward political participation of anyone, including members of political families. The chance to win the contestation for members of the families is likely larger because of their incubment advantages (Yadav, 2020;Smith, 2018;Feinstein, 2010;Dal Bo et al., 2009). Members of political families are likely to have larger social and political networks, better material and symbolic resources important to mobilize the masses (Yadav, 2020). Because of this larger chance to be successful in democratic contestation, contestants of political families are likely to have positive attitudes toward democracy.
The second, family politics has no effect on their level of support for democracy. Because democracy opens political opportunities for anyone to participate or not to participate in political contestation, positive attitude toward democracy is supposed not to exclude anyone in political contestation. A democrat should allow members of political families and of non-political families as well to participate in politics. A democrat should be neutral on the issue if family politics is positive or negative to democracy.
Third, alternatively, the presence of family politics can weaken democratic performance for a number of reasons. First, family politics typically involves a single family's monopolistic control over politics in a given area, to the exclusion of other potential entrants (Geys and Smith, 2017). This can be a source of public discontent in the performance of democracy. Second, family politics can allow those families to consolidate power in ways that allows them to extract resources and enrich themselves. In turn, this confers a greater material advantage to those from within the family, to the exclusion of those without, when it comes to elections and campaigns. Third, family politics limits the diversity of politicians (Geys and Smith, 2017). Those that benefit from family politics are typically a small group, representing the diversity of a constituency becomes difficult to achieve if politics is controlled by a much smaller family. Family politics therefore inhibits democratic performance by undercutting the contestation among the various interest groups in society. Fourth, in terms of mass mobilization in less politically informed societies, family politics will weaken debate on substantive issues, as individual voters will rely on the family name as a short-cut for forming preferences.
Jurnal Ilmu Sosial Indonesia Family politics will therefore weaken democratic performance by weakening debate.
In addition, in less politically informed societies the masses are not competent enough to assess family politics and democratic performance. Once a citizen is aware with members of political families she or he is likely to have negative attitudes toward family politics since it makes democracy controlled by small group of the people. Political knowledge and eduaction are likley to weaken support for family politics on the one hand and be crtical with democratic performance on the other (Norris, 1999).

Indonesian Context
Particularly in young democracies, family politics is a common phenomenon. Indonesia is no exception. Relatedly, since Indonesia's democratic transition nearly twenty-five years ago, its performance has remained shaky. In the last ten years, Freedom House and V-Dem have charted a decline in freedom and democratic performance in the country, even after 10 years of continuously increasing levels of freedom (Mujani, 2022;Mujani and Liddle, 2021).
A study indicates that family politics has been common in Indonesia both at national and regional levels (Buehler, 2013). Family politics in the country is believed to be an indication that democracy in the country does not work well (Buehler, 2013). However, another study suggests that estabishing family politics in the country is difficult, and therefore the threat of family politics to democratic performance in the country is not clear (Aspinall and As'ad, 2016). They found that family politics in the country has been unsuccessful due to "formidable competing sources of political authority" (Aspinall and As'ad, 2016: 420). To the extent in which family politics is a threat to democracy in Indonesia is inconclusive, and this study an attempt to answer the question at the mass level.
Family politics in Indonesia can be seen from several examples. At the national level, it is readily visible. The most prominent example at the national level is the family of the first President, Sukarno. Almost all of Sukarno's children had successful careers in politics. The most prominent is his daughter Megawati Soekarnoputri. Megawati is the chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the largest party, which is a continuation of the Indonesian National Party (PNI), which was originally established by his father before independence. Megawati became the first vice-president when Indonesia transitioned to democracy in 1999, and then rose to the presidency when President Abdurahman Wahid was impeached by the parliament. Since her failed re-election bid in 2004, she has remained the chairwoman of the PDI-P.
Other than Megawati, three of Sukarno's other children have also been active in politics: Guruh Soekarnoputra, Sukmawati Soekarnoputri, and Rachmawati Soekarnoputri. Guruh has been a member of the House of Representatives, representing the PDI-P. Sukma and Rachmawati, meanwhile, have frequently tried to establish another political party.
Puan Maharani is Megawati's daughter, and has long been active as one of the PDI-P's central political managers. She has been a member of the House of Representatives several times and became the Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare (2014-2019). She is now Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives. Puti Guntur Soekarno is another Sukarno's grandchildren, Guntur Soekarnoputra's son, Sukarno's first child, and is also now a member of the House of Representatives, representing the PDI-P.
Another major political family in Indonesia is the family of Indonesia's second president, Suharto, who was Indonesia's president for 32 years . His children are generally still active in Golkar Party. At the time of his regime, Siti Hardiyati Rukmana, Suharto's oldest daughter, was Suharto's most active child in politics through the Golkar party. After Suharto fell in 1998, she tried to establish a new party but failed. Since his fall, only one of Suharto's children remains active in politics: Siti Hediati Hariyadi, known Titiek Suharto, continued as a representative of the Golkar Party in the House of Representatives. Later she left Golkar and joined other family members to set up a new party, the Working Party (Partai Berkarya).
The sixth Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has also built a political family. He founded the Democratic Party in 2001, and, with the support of this party, he became Indonesia's president for two periods (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014). His son, Edhi Baskoro Yudhoyono to this day is a member of the Democratic Party and a member of the House of Representatives. His other son, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono was an army officer, but then went on as a candidate for governor of Jakarta 2016. He failed to win the election. Now he is chair of Partai Demokrat, and has tried to become a presidential candidate or vice-presidential candidate.
Jurnal Ilmu Sosial Indonesia Current president, Joko Widodo (Jokowi), has been in the office for almost ten years. In 2020, Jokowi's oldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka ran for mayor of Surakarta, a city where his father started his political career. He was successfully elected. A son in law of President Jokowi, Bobby Nasution, also ran for a major of Medan city in 2020. He was also elected. Gibran is expected to run for governor either in Central Java or DKI Jakarta in 2024 and Bobby is also expected for the province of North Sumatra. Dynasty politics of Jokowi Family is in the making.
Among the seven former presidents of Indonesia, only President Habibie (third president) and President Abdurrahman Wahid (fourth president) did not build political empires around their families. Habibie's children were all professional, and started their own businesses. Among the children of Abdurrahman Wahid there was an effort to build family politics through his daughter, Yenny Wahid, but this effort has largely failed. Yenny and her siblings are now more prominently known as social activists.
At the local level, family politics is even more prominent. One of the most famous examples is the family of Chasan Sochib from Banten province. Chasan is a businessman and politician from the Golkar Party at the local level. Through a combination of business, politics, charisma, and thuggery, he created a strong political family. Almost all of his children went directly to politics as Golkar party officials at the local and central level. Among his most prominent children is Ratu Atut Chosiyah.
Ratu Atut was a member of the central board of Golkar party, one of the top parties in Indonesia. She was later elected governor of Banten twice, until she was imprisoned for a corruption scandal. Her siblings became mayors and regent in Banten. Her younger sister, Ratu Tatu Chasanah, was the deputy district head of Serang Regency in Banten. Her step-brother, Tb Haerul Nurjaman, was deputy mayor of Serang. In addition, Ratu Atut's son, Andika Hazrumy, was a member of the Regional Representative Council (DPD)-the Indonesian senate-representing Banten province. He was later member of Parliament and was elected as a Vice Governor of Banten from 2017 to 2022. Andika's wife is now a DPD member, continuing the political career her husband left behind. Moreover, the former wife of Chasan Sochib became deputy regent in Pandeglang regency, and Ratu Atut's sister in law, Airin Rachmy Diany, became the mayor of South Tangerang City.
Family politics in Banten province can be seen on an even more local level in Tangerang, Lebak, and Cilegon City. In these three areas the political families are also strong. Although not as powerful as the Chasan Sochib family, family politics can be found easily in other provinces in Indonesia. In sum, family politics is not a phenomenon that is foreign to the Indonesian public, and family politics often gets a huge amount of exposure from the local and national mass media because of many scandals associated with it.
Assessment of family politics in Indonesia is still inconclusive. There is no systematic study at the national level about mass attittude toward family politics. This article is an attempt to fill the void, and hope to contribute to comparative study on the subject in the world.

Measures and Data
Family politics will grow in a society if the masses support it. This support is a political culture of family politics. Because we are concerned with the issue of mass support for family politics and their relationship with democracy, this article relies on relevant data of public opinion survey: mass attitudes toward democracy, democratic performance, and towards family politics. We analyze to the extent to which family politics correlates positively or negatively with democratic preference and democratic performance. Measures and wordings of the three concepts are in appendix.
Public opinion survey data for this study was conducted on May 15-29, 2018 with a nationwide, nationally representative sample selected through a multistage random sampling design. The original targeted sample size was 2400, and the final sample was 2206 (response rate was about 92%). Compared to the proportion of basic demographics of the nation, i.e. rural-urban, sex, region, ethnicity, and religion, the sample was representative of the national population of voting age (17 or older).

Findings
Descriptive statistics indicates a number of interesting findings: Most people prefer democracy to other types of regimes (Figure 1). A majority of the population also assessed positively democratic performance in general in the country. Most people are satisfied with how democracy works in Indonesia. Most of the masses also positively assessed the performance Jurnal Ilmu Sosial Indonesia of the national parliament, the local (city or municipality) parliament, and the local governments (mayor or regent).
The people's attitudes towards family politics in general are negative, or neutral at most. (Figure 1). However, mixed attitudes or neutral and nonresponses are quite high. A majority of the people are neutral regarding a new candidate running for a public office from a political family. It is worth highlighting that most of the people are neutral, not positive nor negative on the issue, though. In addition, there are more people who agree or strongly agree that it is democratic if a candidate from family politics wins in an election. These measures indicate that the people are neutral or more positive towards family politics. In short, these results confirm that expectation that democracy may accommodate any citizen to participate in an open and competitive election regardless of his or her family background is verified. However, other measures of family politics indicate that more people in the country are negative towards family politics. There are more people who state that a candidate or politician from a family politics has more advantages, is more corrupt, can't help people, can't preserve local resources (Figure 1).
One major problem with these measures is that people in general are not competent enough to assess family politics more specifically. They are mostly not aware with the family background of candidates running in legislative or executive elections. In other words there was lack of knowledge of family politics ( Figure 1). Regardless of this competence, the people are in general not positive towards family politics.

Correlates of Family Politics
Bivariate statistics indicates that democratic preference has a significant correlation with democratic performance (Table 2). 1 A person who is more satisfied with the way democracy works in the country tends to prefer democracy. 2 If the performance is bad the people are likely to be hostile to democracy. Democratic support in the country is not independent from its performance. This association indicates that the country's democracy is not consolidated, as peoples' commitment to 1 Democratic preference is a 3-point scale: 1 = prefer nondemocracy, 2 = regime type does not matter, 3 = prefer democracy. Don't know responses were coded 2.
2 Democratic performance is an index constructed from the four items. Interitem-correlations are very strong. Cranvabch's Alpha: 0.846. Don't know responses were coded: 5 democracy is still affected by its performance. Linz and Stepan argue that preference to democracy is supposed to be independent from its performance if a democracy is consolidated (Linz and Stepan, 1996).  Family politics, on the contrary, does not have a significant relationship with democratic preference 3 (Figure 2). This insignificant relationship indicates that family politics is not likely to affect directly democratic preference. If democratic preference is an indicator of democratic consolidation at the attitudinal level, family politics, therefore, is not likely to threaten directly democratic consolidation in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, family politics does have a significant correlation with democratic performance. The more positive attitudes toward family politics the more likely to increase positive assessment of democratic performance. On the contrary, the more negative towards family politics the more negative assessment of democratic performance. A person who thinks that family politics is positive assesses positively democratic performance in the country. On the contrary, a person who think that family politics is negative, then he or she is more likely to think that democratic performance in the country is bad. This pattern of relationship verifies the view that antifamily politics tends to be critical of democratic performance. On the contrary, a person who views family politics positively tends to be uncritical and to feel satisfied with how democracy works in the country.
What can explain support for family politics? Who has positive or negative attitudes towards family politics?
3 The seven items of family politics are not very constistent. The items do not constitute a single dimension in a factor analysis. Family politics in this analysis therefore only includes the most positive and significant interitem correlations, i.e. four items: Q64, Q69, Q70, and Q71. The index is a 1-3 point scale: 1 = anti-family politics, 2 = neutral, 3 = profamily politics. Don't know and don't understand the questions were coded 2.

Political Knowledge
Attitudes towards democratic performance and towards family politics are likely affected by political knowledge 4 (Figure 2). In this study political knowledge is defined as the extent to which the people are aware of, or know correctly the politicians from political families. The people who know the politicians from political families are likely to be more critical of family politics. Indonesians, in general, are in fact not aware with politicians from family politics (Figure 1). Only two in ten, on average, know the politicians from political families, or those from non-political families.
The correlation between political knowledge with democratic preference is positive and statistically significant ( Figure 2). On the contrary, the knowledge has negative and significant association with family politics. The more aware of politicians from political family the more resistant they are towards family politics. Family politics is viewed negatively for those who are aware of it. This association indicates that improvement of knowledge of family politics is likely to decrease support for family politics, on the one hand. On the other hand, it is likely to increase democratic support. In other words, political knowledge can make democracy strong without or with minimum family politics.

Demographics
Education potentially has positive relationship with political knowledge. Education provides opportunities to be more informed about politics. The more educated the more likely to know about family politics. The data verifies this relationship (Figure 2). In addition, education also potentially helps people exposed to democratic values such as liberty and equality. The more educated a person, the more likely he or she is to prefer democracy to other types of regimes. This hypothesis is also verified in the context of Indonesian democracy (Figure 2).  Similar to political knowledge, education also has a negative relationship with family politics. It is also negatively correlated with democratic performance. In other words, education makes citizens more critical of family politics as a form of democratic practice, and also makes them more critical of democratic performance in general. More educated citizens who prefer democracy tend to be negative with how democracy works in a country.
The level of education in Indonesia is low. Most people are only elementary or middle school graduates. This population mostly lives in rural areas. Mostly, the non-educated are among non-Javanese, older, female, and Muslims. Therefore, these demographics have a negative relationship with political knowledge and democratic preference, on the one hand. On the other hand, they have positive relationship with democratic performance and with family politics.
The relationship between political knowledge and education, on the one hand, and family politics, on the other is significantly negative (Figure 3). The more sophisticated an individual is in terms of political knowledge, and the more educated a person is, then the more likely they are to have a negative view of family politics. This pattern indicates that political knowledge and education will weaken family politics, which in turn will strenghten a more critical view of democratic performance. This pattern of relationship is consistent controlling for some demographic factors (Figure 3).

Conclusion
Indonesian democracy is nowadays unconsolidated. However, most people prefer democracy, and majority of them are satisfied with how democracy works in the country. Democratic performance affects support for democracy. This indicates that commitment to democracy is not independent from its performance. A consolidated democracy is characterized by preference to democracy by a vast majority of the people regardless of democratic performance and socio-economic problems faced by a country. This pattern does not emerge in the context of Indonesian democracy as Indonesia is not yet a consolidated democracy.
Democratic performance in the country is associated with support for family politics. Support for family politics strengthens satisfaction with individuals' views of how democracy works. On the contrary, negative assessment of family politics weakens people's satisfaction with democratic performance. The negative attitude of people towards family politics is also critical of democratic performance. The more negative towards family politics, the more dissatisfied with democratic performance.
The critical citizens can be identified from their knowledge of family politics and from their level of education. The better informed with family politics the more negative with it, and the more educated the more negative towards family politics. Support for family politics, relative to anti-family politics in the country is actually small. Because their demographics indicate that this group of people is, by nature, lesser educated and lesser informed, they should be expected to decrease a share of the population in the future, as education improves. Consequently, the share of critical citizens will increase, and support for family politics will decrease. Further, the critical assessment of democratic performance will increase while support for democracy become larger and become more independent from its performance. If this pattern holds, family politics will not matter to Indonesian democracy.