The Politics of Counter-Terror - Studies in Asian Security by Nicholas Chan Hardcover

About the Book

"There is a fundamental paradox in counter-terrorism: while Muslim state elites insist that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, the way Muslim states deal with terrorism has everything to do with Islam. In countries like Morocco and Tunisia, terrorism is treated by governments as if it is a religious problem. Elsewhere, in Malaysia, Islamic actors are relied upon to conduct "deradicalization" programs, Islamic institutions are the key authors of counter-radicalization materials, and Islamic expertise is often considered interchangeable with counter-terror expertise. These findings draw attention to a security logic whereby Islam and Islamic interventions became central to solving the problem of terrorism. In this theoretically innovative and empirically rich book, Chan argues that Malaysia's "Islamized" counter-terrorism is an outcome filtered through a matrix of factors, including postcolonial elite status-seeking, modernist state-building, and the immediacies of governmental problem-solving. Drawing from historical as well as contemporary data, including interviews and discourse analysis of firsthand materials, Chan centers the Global War on Terror (GWOT) on Malaysia's experience and fills a void in the Western-centric GWOT literature that often fails to examine the social dynamics of the GWOT in Muslim-majority settings and its practical implications. This book's original findings will interest scholars and students of security, international relations, area studies, and Muslim politics"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

There is a fundamental paradox in counter-terrorism: while Muslim state elites insist that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, the way Muslim states deal with terrorism has everything to do with Islam. In countries like Morocco and Tunisia, terrorism is treated by governments as if it is a religious problem. Elsewhere, in Malaysia, Islamic actors are relied upon to conduct "deradicalization" programs, Islamic institutions are the key authors of counter-radicalization materials, and Islamic expertise is often considered interchangeable with counter-terror expertise. These findings draw attention to a security logic whereby Islam and Islamic interventions became central to solving the problem of terrorism.

In this theoretically innovative and empirically rich book, Chan argues that Malaysia's "Islamized" counter-terrorism is an outcome filtered through a matrix of factors, including postcolonial elite status-seeking, modernist state-building, and the immediacies of governmental problem-solving. Drawing from historical as well as contemporary data, including interviews and discourse analysis of firsthand materials, Chan centers the Global War on Terror (GWOT) on Malaysia's experience and fills a void in the Western-centric GWOT literature that often fails to examine the social dynamics of the GWOT in Muslim-majority settings and its practical implications. This book's original findings will interest scholars and students of security, international relations, area studies, and Muslim politics.

Review Quotes

"An original, extraordinary book. Nicholas Chan has expanded the debate over security and the role of the state by addressing the ontological root of the problem of postcolonial nation-building itself, and by doing so has offered a radically new and imaginative way of understanding the questions of security and terror in our times. This is a hugely important work." --Farish A. Noor, Indonesian International Islamic University

"Nicholas Chan sheds new light on the complex ways in which Islam has been understood and experienced in 'counter-terror' and 'counter-radicalization' programs. Solidly grounded in its empirics and sophisticated in its analysis, this book transcends the insights of related scholarship on African contexts and makes Malaysia highly relevant for understanding Islam in world politics today."--John T. Sidel, London School of Economics and Political Science

"Nicholas Chan's The Politics of Counter-Terror achieves the seemingly impossible feat of saying something original about both the politics of counter-terrorism and the politics of Muslim-majority states. This is a book that should travel well beyond its case study of Malaysia. A must-read." --Ayşe Zarakol, University of Cambridge

About the Author

Nicholas Chan is Research Fellow (Asian Security) at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University.