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Risa Toha, Ph.D.

risatoha@gmail.com

Yale-NUS College

Country: Singapore

Research Interests

Ethnic Politics

Political Violence

Identity Politics

Electoral Violence

Southeast Asian Politics

Countries of Interest

Indonesia

Singapore

Malaysia

Philippines

Publications:

Journal Articles:

(2021) The Normalization of Intolerance: The 2019 Presidential Election in Indonesia (with D. Gueorguiev & A. Sinpeng), Electoral Studies

The perceived social acceptability of intolerance is believed to drive individual intolerance, a process we refer to as normalization. Social intolerance can be particularly high during election campaigns, when divisive candidates are likely to disparage minorities and outgroups in their rhetoric. Despite the electoral connection, it remains unclear how normalization interacts with partisanship. Does normalization only affect supporters of intolerant candidates, or does normalization spread across the population—even among supporters of the opposition? Relatedly, are the targets of intolerance group-specific, or are all minorities and outgroups at risk? To address these questions, this paper draws on results from a survey experiment conducted during the 2019 Indonesian presidential election. Our findings suggest that normalization affects all voters, albeit in ways that reflect partisan affiliation and rhetoric, which has implications for the study of identity politicization and the conditions under which intolerance is likely to propagate.

(2019) A New Typology of Electoral Violence: Insights from Indonesia (with S.P. Harish), Terrorism and Political Violence

Existing literature on election violence has focused on how violence suppresses voter participation or shapes their preferences. Yet, there are other targets of election violence beyond voters who have so far received little attention: candidates and government agencies. By intimidating rival candidates into dropping out of the race, political hopefuls can literally reduce the number of competitors and increase their likelihood of winning. Likewise, aspiring candidates can target government agencies perceived to be responsible for holding elections to push for electorally beneficial decisions. In this paper, we introduce a new typology of electoral violence and utilize new data of election violence that occur around executive elections in Indonesia from 2005 through 2012. The types of violence we identified differ in these ways: a) Of all cases of electoral violence observed in this article, most incidents were targeted towards candidates and government bodies; b) candidates are generally targeted before elections, whereas voter-targeting incidents are spread out evenly before and after elections and government-targeted violence tends to occur afterwards; c) pre-election violence is concentrated in formerly separatist areas, but post-election violence is more common in districts with prior ethnocommunal violence. These distinctions stress the importance of examining when and why different strategies are adopted.

(2017) Political Competition and Ethnic Riots in Democratic Transition: A Lesson from Indonesia, British Journal of Political Science

Conventional wisdom recognizes the prevalence of intergroup clashes during political transition. Most explanations of ethnic riots, however, are based on clashes in mature democracies, and are therefore silent on the dynamics at work during democratic transition. Using district-level data in Indonesia from 1990 through 2005, this article argues that riots tend to occur in ethnically divided districts with low electoral competition because uncompetitiveness in the first democratic elections signals continued regime entrenchment and local political exclusion. As such, riots often follow uncompetitive elections, and dissipate after elections become more competitive and opposition candidates secure electoral victory.

Books Written:

(2021) Rioting for Representation: Local Ethnic Mobilization in Democratizing Countries., Cambridge University Press

Ethnic riots are a costly and all too common occurrence during political transitions in multi-ethnic settings. Why do ethnic riots occur in certain parts of a country and not others? How does violence eventually decline? Drawing on rich case studies and quantitative evidence from Indonesia between 1990 and 2012, this book argues that patterns of ethnic rioting are not inevitably driven by inter-group animosity, weakness of state capacity, or local demographic composition. Rather, local ethnic elites strategically use violence to leverage their demands for political inclusion during political transition and that violence eventually declines as these demands are accommodated. Toha breaks new ground in showing that particular political reforms―increased political competition, direct local elections, and local administrative units partitioning―in ethnically diverse contexts can ameliorate political exclusion and reduce overall levels of violence between groups.

Book Chapters:

Book Reviews:

Media Appearances:

TV Appearances:

(2016) Channel 8

FOCUS interview on the 2017 Jakarta governatorial race

(2016) Channel News Asia

INSIGHT interview on the 2017 Jakarta governor race

Newspaper Quotes:

(2019) Rice Media

Comments quoted on increasing illiberal practices in Indonesia