Islam and Politics: A Latent Class Analysis of Indonesian Muslims Based on Political Attitudes and Psychological Determinants

Abstract

This study explored the diversity of Muslim political attitudes by conducting a latent class analysis in the rarely investigated context of Indonesia—the largest Muslim country in the world. We surveyed a total of 1208 Indonesian Muslim participants from eight out of 33 Indonesian provinces. The latent class analysis revealed that there are six clusters of Muslim Individuals based on their political attitudes: Fundamentalist Muslim, Nationalist Muslim, Apolitical Muslim, Hijrah Muslim, Moderate Muslim, and Progressive Muslim. Moreover, we also found several meaningful differences in psychological correlates (right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and need for cognitive closure) across the six clusters. Taken together, this study sheds some light upon the diversity of Muslim political attitudes and the psychological tendencies that correspond with such attitudes.

Keywords

• muslim
• political attitudes
• latent class analysis
• religious fundamentalism