The military quest for political participation is one important aspect of the civil-military equation, and its historical manifestations and legacies in Indonesia have been discussed extensively in Chapter 1. Authors such as Samuel Finer asserted, however, that the quality of civilian political leadership is equally crucial for the outcome of civil-military interactions. Solid civilian state institutions, consensus among important groups in society over the foundation of the system of government, and low levels of political conflict combine into what Finer called a “developed political culture”. States with sophisticated political cultures are much less likely to experience military intervention in politics than those with weak institutions and fragmentation among major civilian groups.

For much of Indonesia's post-independence history, fissures within the civilian polity have had an obstructive effect on the development of strong democratic institutions. Conflicts among influential societal groups have weakened the civilian capacity to run stable governments, eroding the confidence of the public in political parties and democracy. Significantly, the intra-civilian fractures contributed to an environment in which the armed forces were presented with numerous opportunities for political intervention. This chapter focuses on divisions within the Muslim community as a case study to highlight both general patterns of intra-civilian conflict in Indonesia and their impact on the levels of military intervention in political affairs. Disputes among key constituencies over the role of Islam in state and society as well as over its diverse doctrinal, cultural, and political interpretations have marked Indonesian politics since 1945. The historical legacies of these debates and conflicts had, as will be shown in the course of this study, important implications for the development of civil-military relations after 1998.

In discussing the fragmentation within the Muslim community, this chapter draws attention to three main areas. First of all, there have been stark differences between groups favouring a strong role for Islam in politics and those that promote a nationalist vision of the state without distinguishing between followers of different religions. The controversy between these two camps over the formal role of Islam in the state dominated the Indonesian polity from the mid-1940s to the late 1950s and played an important role in the decline of liberal democracy.