The Faces of Conflict in a Political Organization: The case of the Indonesian Democracy Party of Struggle (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan/ PDI-P)

The conduct of a political party as an organization is suffused with culture with its own values, concepts and meanings. Indonesia is an interesting case in point. In this paper, the writers expound on the dynamics of organizational conflicts experienced by the Indonesia Democracy Party of Struggle (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan/PDI-P) as an opposition party in Indonesia for two decades. By utilizing a phenomenographic approach to capture the participation, perception and understanding of party leaders and members, this paper focuses on three research problems, namely the levels of internal party conflicts, styles of conflict management and factors that influences the process of conflict resolution. There are several highlighted findings. First, the level of conflict occurs on the levels of inter-organizational, intergroup, intragroup, and interpersonal. Secondly, the styles of conflict management adopted by individuals in the party consist of collaborative, competitive, accommodating, compromising and avoidance styles, which vary according to character, political needs, and ideology. Lastly, conflict resolution in the party is heavily influenced by (1) personal factors such as individual member’s conceptions on internal party conflicts as well as their references to how conflicts have been solved before (2) relational factors, i.e. relationships between members of the party which are fostered by an interdependence to reach a common goal as an opposition party, and (3) PDI-P’s organizational culture which is built around a juxtaposition between the heterogeneity of geographical and ideological backgrounds and the authority of a charismatic leadership.