Institutionalising Legal Pluralism: Islamic, Customary, and State Legal Authority in Indigenous Muslim Local Governance

Abstract

Legal pluralism in Indonesia is constitutionally recognised, yet the coexistence of state, customary, and Islamic legal authorities does not necessarily produce effective institutional pluralism in local governance. The central problem lies not only in the recognition of multiple legal orders, but in the absence of a sufficiently articulated framework governing their interaction, jurisdiction, and mutual accountability. This study examines how Islamic and customary legal authority can be institutionally accommodated within Indonesia’s constitutional and local governance framework. Employing a normative legal research approach, the study analyses constitutional provisions, legislation, legal scholarship, and contemporary literature on legal pluralism, Indigenous legal orders, and substantive autonomy. The analysis demonstrates that formal recognition remains insufficient where customary and Islamic authorities lack clear jurisdictional boundaries and institutional mechanisms for interacting with state law. Building on relational legal pluralism and recent scholarship on substantive autonomy, the study develops a relational governance model comprising five interconnected elements: legal recognition, jurisdictional allocation, institutional linkage, reciprocal recognition, and constitutional accountability. The model advances the argument that substantive autonomy requires not only legal recognition and institutional capacity but also the relational capacity to engage with other legal authorities within a shared constitutional space. The study contributes to the literature by reframing institutionalised legal pluralism from the coexistence of multiple legal orders towards the institutional design of relationships among legal authorities. This framework provides a conceptual basis for integrating Islamic and customary authority into local governance without reducing either to subordinate extensions of state law.