Models of Political Representation: A Study of Village Chief Elections and Candidacies

Electoral contestations at the village level have seemingly been an ‘isolated’ phenomenon in social and political studies. Most studies have focused on local executive and legislative elections, as well as the political representations they involve. This article, instead, looks to the village level, examining the political representation involved in the village chief elections of Dlingo, Bantul, Yogyakarta. Qualitative research methods (interviews, live-in observations) were conducted before, during, and after the elections. This study finds that the rise of the two candidates could be traced to various factors and tendencies, and that the models of political representation at the village chief (executive) level are similar to those in legislature.