Terrorism in Southeast Asia: expert analysis, myopia and fantasy

Abstract

Most of the major studies of terrorism in Southeast Asia emphasize international terrorist links and religious ideology, while more locally-embedded accounts draw attention to historical and political context. Despite this plurality in terrorism studies, flaws and omissions across four issues are common: the nature of terrorist links and information on them, Islam, the United States and the causes of terrorism. A substantial section of studies of terrorism are based on compromised information and substitute descriptive detail for analysis. They frequently depict Islam and anti-American views as incipiently threatening precursors to terrorism and underplay political grievances, particularly as they relate to the United States. Valuable work has drawn attention to local political contexts and grievances, and has begun to explore the ideas and perceptions of militant groups. However, most of the leading experts on terrorism in the region are engaged in academically unproductive attempts either to reconstruct the trail of terrorist activity on the basis of official information or to explain terrorist violence as the product of individual pathology.