Riots, ruptures and power contests under Prabowo

Indonesia has witnessed waves of protests in response to anti-democratic policies, culminating in violent riots, as in August 2025. Traditional views see riots as criminal disorder, while social movement scholars interpret them as protest repertoires. Both perspectives tend to portray protests-turned-riots as mainly reflecting the agency of societal actors, either adversely or sympathetically. Our findings suggest that, as contending political elites often influence such escalations – especially when the interests of certain factions are at stake – riots are better understood as a rupture, an event that creates openings for extra-institutional spaces where multiple actors recalibrate their strategic positions. Therefore, attributing violence solely to economic factors or protest tactics, as observers suggest, overlooks aspects of power contests among dominant political forces that often exploit social unrest for strategic gains. The current contests intensified as rival factions were marginalised following President Prabowo Subianto's attempts to further re-centralise power and dismantle old patronage networks.