SUFFERING FROM ‘POLITICAL EXHAUSTION’: The Dynamics of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in Indonesia’s Political Arena

Abstract

Whilst many literature and books tended to approach Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) as just among many political players, later works focused on NU's interests and power relations vis-à-vis the state as the most important explanatory variable in its behaviour. This book aims at providing us with distinctive analysis by arguing that it is NU's relationship with modern Islam that shapes much of its public and political behaviour. In other words, NU's political interactions with the state and public political discourses are primarily intended to improve NU's political position vis-à-vis modernist Muslims, not to strengthen its position vis-à-vis the state. So, it is the modernist-traditionalist contestation as the focus of this study rather than NU's relationship with the state, which primarily explain NU's public and political behaviour. Another distinction that we can find in this book and not in other literature is its analysis on NU that focuses on civil society movement and civil society discourses, especially from the perspective Book Review