Denying the accusation of plagiarism: power relations at play in dictating plagiarism as academic misconduct

In academia, plagiarism is considered detrimental to the advancement of sciences, and the plagiarists can be charged with sanctions. However, the plagiarism cases involving three rectors of universities in Indonesia stand out, as they could defend their stand for not committing academic misconduct despite evidence found. By analyzing the three rectors’ cases, the present study aims to answer how power relations take a role in plagiarism discourse in Indonesia, particularly in determining what is considered academic misconduct and what is not. By employing critical discourse analysis, we found that when the accusation of plagiarism appears during rectorial elections, the accused could equivocate that the accusation was meant to undermine them as a political opponent. When the accused plagiarists win the election, they have more power to deny and tackle the accusations of plagiarism. The findings indicate that plagiarism issues can be politicized, in which by those in power it can be used as a tool to undermine their political opponents, whereas the accused plagiarists can claim that the actual problem is personal and not about plagiarism. It is also shown that in the real context, whether something is called plagiarism or not is subject to interpretation by those in power. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.