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The securitization of terrorism in Indonesia : 2001-2006

University of British Columbia

This thesis looks at the Indonesian government’s strategy for managing the threat of terrorism between 2001 and 2006. Various socio-political factors such as the importance of Islam in Indonesian society and politics, ongoing democratization and important civil-military reform all contribute to an environment where counterterrorism efforts are both necessary and politically risky. In order to better address the many complexities of the Indonesian case study, this thesis uses a modified securitization theory framework which gives increased weight to the political and social context in which securitization decisions are made. The modified framework disaggregates the decision of an agent to rhetorically securitize an issue from the decisions behind subsequent policy actions, and considers separately the motivations behind each. When applied to the Indonesian case study this modified framework reveals that between 2002 and 2006, President Megawati Soekarnoputri and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono managed terrorism by employing a combination of securitizing and criminalizing strategies. It additionally reveals that for each president the non-discursive policy action was not solely result of the success or failure of discursive securitization, but was also dependent on the specific political environment each faced.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2008-12-15

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/2900

Political Science

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/