Abstract
Factionalization in Indonesian political parties is commonly explained by elite rivalry, coalition choices, or clientelistic interests, leaving intra-party conflict over the meaning of ideology less well explained. This article asks how the discourse of an open party constructs and reveals ideological contestation within Jemaah Tarbiyah and how that contestation contributed to the emergence of the Gelora Indonesia Party. Using Teun A. van Dijk's critical discourse analysis (CDA), the study integrates textual analysis, social cognition, and social context. The empirical material consists of in-depth interviews with 20 purposively selected actors from PKS, GARBI, Gelora, and related Tarbiyah networks, together with party documents, political speeches, books, and media texts produced mainly between 2008 and 2020. Textual analysis traces themes, backgrounding, denial, pronouns, and metaphors; social cognition reconstructs the beliefs and role perceptions of text producers; and social-context analysis examines power, access, and the circulation of competing discourse. The findings show that reformists lexicalized openness through modernization, renewal, Indonesianization, and intellectual independence, while conservatives defended the terms da'wah party, cadre party, leadership loyalty, and organizational discipline. These competing vocabularies did not merely describe a pre-existing split; they produced factional boundaries, legitimized exclusion, and transformed discursive disagreement into organizational separation through GARBI and eventually Gelora. The study contributes by distinguishing ideological conflict from clientelistic factionalism and ideological fragmentation, and by showing that the Indonesian trajectory does not reproduce a linear post-Islamist model: Gelora adopts Pancasila and a national orientation while retaining Islam as political identity, while PKS subsequently appropriates elements of openness itself.
Recommended Citation
Argenti, Gili; paskarina, caroline; Darmayanti, Nani; and Deliarnoor, Nandang Alamsah
(2026)
"Discourse of Open Party Contestation in Jemaah Tarbiyah in Indonesia,"
Jurnal Wacana Politik: Vol. 11:
Iss.
3, Article 4.
DOI: https://doi.org/Need for author approval
Available at:
https://journal.unpad.ac.id/wacanapolitik/vol11/iss3/4
