In the context of Indonesian politics, symbolic domination manifests in the normalization of transactional voting. When monetary incentives for votes are widespread and socially accepted, both politicians and citizens internalize the notion that electoral success can be "purchased" and political participation is a transactional obligation rather than a moral or civic duty. The dominant social narrative frames this practice as ordinary, pragmatic, or even clever, subtly masking the erosion of democratic legitimacy.
This symbolic structure reinforces and legitimizes the patterns highlighted by social exchange, labeling, cognitive dissonance, and alienation:
1. For citizens, symbolic domination shapes perception, making the act of accepting monetary incentives appear rational and acceptable. Even feelings of cognitive dissonance are mitigated by culturally reinforced norms: "Everyone does it; it is just how politics works."
2. For politicians, it legitimizes a sense of entitlement and arrogance. Electoral victories obtained through transactional means are interpreted as deserved, rather than problematic, justifying the neglect of campaign promises.
3. For society at large, symbolic domination transforms systemic degradation into a cultural expectation. Democratic erosion is experienced not as an anomaly but as part of the "natural" order of political life.
By integrating symbolic domination into the analytical framework, we understand that transactional politics is not solely a function of individual rationality or structural incentive. Rather, it is embedded in a web of social meanings that perpetuate acceptance, normalize deviation from democratic norms, and shield both voters and politicians from moral critique.
In Indonesia, this is evident in public discourse, media framing, and political rhetoric that routinely present vote buying as a pragmatic necessity or a minor vice, effectively naturalizing systemic degradation. Symbolic domination thus bridges individual psychology and macro-level social structure, explaining how repeated micro-level transactions consolidate into entrenched patterns of political inequality and democratic decay.
F. Prior Models of Vote Buying, Clientelism, and Democratic Erosion
Building upon the classical theories, a growing body of empirical research has examined how vote buying and clientelism impact the functioning of democracies, particularly in emerging and transitional states. Scholars have approached the problem from multiple perspectives: economic, sociological, and political-institutional.
Economic models often treat vote buying as a rational, market-like transaction. Schaffer (2007) formalized elections as strategic exchanges, where political actors allocate resources to secure votes, and voters weigh the immediate benefit against the uncertain policy outcome. Hicken (2011) extended this approach, emphasizing the role of institutional structures and monitoring mechanisms in constraining or enabling transactional politics. These models highlight the calculative logic of both voters and politicians but often abstract away from the psychological and cultural dimensions of political behavior.
Sociological analyses, in contrast, explore clientelism as a social network phenomenon. Aspinall and Sukmajati (2016) documented how clientelist networks in Indonesia perpetuate political inequality, reproduce social hierarchies, and embed transactional relationships into local culture. These studies emphasize that transactional politics is not merely opportunistic, but is sustained through social norms, patronage systems, and historical patterns of inequality.
