Power and the Security Organisations in Bali: Drug Gangsters, Neighbourhood Watch Groups, or What? In Democracy, and Society in Bali Trouble with Protection

This edited collection of chapters addresses many faces of the problem around the security groups in Bali. The authors draw upon diverse disci- plines to problematise the security groups in a wide range of ways. Different authors reflect on: the current security groups’ historical fore- bears; the way their operations resemble ‘twilight policing’ by security groups in other developing countries; the political sociology of oligarchy and money politics; the discursive construction of citizenship and civil– militia membership; the gendered politics of magico-realist protection of the community; the groups’ relationship to orientalism about the ‘island of the gods’; their standing in opinion polls and a democratic public sphere; the way social media works within them and similar groups; the peculiar phenomenon of their public relations campaigning; their relations with the police and the regulation of criminality; their relationship to the political parties’ claims to represent voters and the national interest; and their relationship to illiberal politicians and populist tendencies in national politics.