The Political Geography of Voters and Political Participation: Evidence from Local Election in Suburban Indonesia

Abstract

The praxis of political issue including voter turnout and political participation does not exist in a vacuum. Therefore, geographical and spatial issues are frequently engaged and even embedded into it. Thus, this article is written with one purpose: to investigate the spatial relationship of voter turnout and their political participation. As stated earlier, the complexity of the political analysis based on geography will take us on a multidimensional approach that includes social, cultural and economy. However, this article starts the discussion from spatial analysis by using a map that illustrates the administrative boundaries of a region, then determining whether one region is adjacent to another. In this case, Moran’s I is used to determine the spatial autocorrelation of voter turnout and political participation. The result indicates that the voter turnout and political participation in one region are adjacent to each other. Possible reasons for the result are discussed in this article.

Keywords

• adjacent
• democracy
• gentrification
• neighboring
• spatial autocorrelation
• south tangerang municipality