Cultural Civic Engagement and Typologies of Political Participation in the 2024 Gorontalo City Mayoral Election

Abstract

Studies on political participation in Indonesian regional elections generally continue to interpret non-voting as an indicator of political apathy, while local cultural values are treated merely as a social background that complements institutional analysis. This article offers a conceptual correction to both assumptions through a case study of the 2024 Gorontalo City Regional Election. Using a qualitative case study approach and involving in-depth interviews with voters, non-voters, election organizers, and cultural figures, this study formulates the concept of Cultural Civic Engagement: civic engagement mediated by local cultural values (lipu, pohalaa, huyula, adab, tanggomo, and eeya), which shape who is considered a legitimate actor of participation, which arenas are perceived as meaningful, and what goals citizens seek to achieve through political engagement. This framework is manifested in three modes of participation that differ in their cultural motivations: normative (voting as a form of service to the lipu), ambivalent (voting while restraining criticism in order to preserve adab and social harmony), and resistive-reflective (withdrawing from the polling station as an ethical rejection when tanggomo and adab are perceived to have been violated by the political process). The findings indicate that non-voting in the third mode does not represent an absence of political awareness, but rather a conscious ethical assessment of the legitimacy of the electoral process. This article argues that measures of the success of local democracy need to shift from merely considering voter turnout to assessing the extent to which electoral systems are capable of accommodating civic engagement rooted in citizens’ cultural values.