Abdil Mughis Mudhoffir

Abdil Mughis Mudhoffir is a postdoctoral research visitor at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. He is also a lecturer at the Department of Sociology, State University of Jakarta. His PhD thesis has won the 2020 Dean’s Prize for Excellence in the PhD Thesis, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne. His forthcoming book entitled State of Disorder: Privatised Violence and the State in Indonesia will be published by Palgrave Macmillan. His latest book chapter entitled ‘Islamic Populism and Indonesia’s Illiberal Democracy’ was published by ISEAS in August 2020. Another book chapter about illiberalism (co-authored with Vedi Hadiz) will be published by Routledge. His research interests include the political economy of Indonesia, illiberal democracy, privatised violence, Islamist politics and capitalist development.

Exploiting Covid-19 Crisis, Deepening Illiberalism in Indonesia

The way the government responds to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic reflects the nature of political system. This means that the problems that Indonesia is facing in handling the pandemic is not simply a result of the leadership style or state institutional capacity as many have argued. Instead, within Indonesia’s illiberal nature of politics, powerful politico-business elites exploit the crisis to further their interests, resulting in the poor handling of the outbreak while simultaneously deepening illiberalism in the country.