Faith-Sensitive Social Policy: Religious Social Capital and Moral Mediation in Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14421/jsa.2016.%25xKeywords:
faith-sensitive social policy, religious social capital, moral mediation, conditional cash transfer, religious copingAbstract
Religion is increasingly recognized as a resource in welfare provision, yet its role within the frontline implementation of state-administered social protection remains underexamined. This study investigates how religious values operate as social capital and moral mediation in Indonesia’s Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH), a conditional cash transfer program. A qualitative case study was conducted in four subdistricts of Cilacap Regency using in-depth interviews with six PKH facilitators and four beneficiary representatives, participant observation of Family Capacity-Building Meetings (P2K2), and analysis of program documents. Thematic analysis identified three interrelated mechanisms. First, religious rituals transformed P2K2 into relational spaces that fostered solidarity, mutual trust, and bonding social capital. Second, values such as amanah, syukur, and ikhtiar provided an ethical vocabulary for interpreting and managing assistance. Third, religious coping supported psychological resilience when combined with practical agency, although deferring coping could normalize hardship and inhibit demands for institutional change. Religious mediation was therefore ambivalent: it humanized bureaucratic encounters while potentially reinforcing power asymmetries, moralizing poverty, and excluding beneficiaries outside the dominant faith. The study advances faith-sensitive social policy as a voluntary, plural, rights-based, and accountable mode of implementation rather than religious incorporation into welfare conditionality, while preserving universal access and nondiscrimination across belief systems.
Keywords: faith-sensitive social policy, religious social capital, moral mediation, conditional cash transfer, religious coping, welfare governance, Indonesia
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