Research Outline
Cluster on “State Responses to Extremism in Post-Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia”
3 October 2019

I.
Background
In Southeast Asia, we had already witnessed many tides of incidents which states consider“extreme”. Contrary to moderate and pluralist characteristics underpinning societies inthis region, that emphasize co-existence among the people with diverse backgrounds,
extremist challenges to the state portray acute criminality, such as killings of innocents,and violence. To this, the states in Southeast Asia responded to the tides of extremist
incidents by various means: through strengthening legal frameworks and law
enforcement, policies that reaffirm socio-culture diversity, tackling economic disparity
among citizens and ensuring equitable income distribution, and other political measures
which engage challenges from opposition political parties and civil society. These
measures successes and failures. Hence, we believe that there is a need for assessing
how states responded to various kinds of extremism in Southeast Asia and provide policy
recommendations. This research hopes to deepen our understanding of policy responses
to extremist threats to the state foundations, and contribute to the dialogue on containing
extremism in the region.
II.
The Research
A state needs to respond to its social demands of various kinds while its responses carrydifferent strategies and intentions. Depending on regime types (liberal democracy,authoritarianism, sultanate, dictatorship, etc.), state responses may vary but we assume
that the ultimate goal of state response is regime survival. We, therefore, assume that astate is resilient if its responses achieve the goal of regime survival despite the extremist
challenges whereas a state is vulnerable if the extremist challenges influence to change
the “shape” (extremist-preferred new law is introduced, for example) of the state. We also
recognize state responses do not always achieve intended goals.
In this research, we define “extremism” as challenges by groups seeking to overturn thevery foundation of state. As for the foundation of the state, we define it as any policy,
doctrine, actions to ensure co-existence of people with diverse backgrounds. Given theacute sensitivities of inter-ethnic relations in this region, it is appropriate to locate1maintenance of diversity (or social cleavages such as ethnic, religious, racial, and class,for example) as the foundation of the state. Different maritime Southeast Asia states adopt
different ideologies to cements its foundation: Pancasila and Bhineka Tunggal Ika forIndonesia; Rukunegara for Malaysia; Republicanism for Philippines; andmulticulturalism and meritocracy for Singapore. In other words, any disturbances ofsocial cleavages seriously challenge the existence of the state in this region. For
example, because Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore consist of sociallydiverse population, the critical state policy has been to ensure the people’s co-existence– in other words, logically, any provocations of social cleavages to divide a society almost
always require state responses.
As for the extremist cases in this research, we choose the following two: (1) Religious
challenge that seeks to install alternative systems of government (eg global caliphate
regime, or Islamic constitution with hudud laws) and (2) Seeking alternative institutions(eg to establish own educational institutions, and banking systems).
As for the former,
the alternative Islamic governance does not recognize democratic political systembecause the governing mandate must come from god, not from the people. Therefore,
the revivalist challenge aims to overturn the existing representation system, and given theattachment of Islamism to a particular racial group, the challenge provokes to divide thesociety into ethnic lines. As for the latter, instilling Islamist principles in existingeducational institutions also carries significant divisiveness among diverse populations,hence, being another example of provoking social cleavages and potentially overturn thestate foundation.
This research is three-fold. (1) We first identify the cases of above-described two Islamist
challenges in the following maritime Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, thePhilippines and Singapore.
In our view, it is important to pick at least 3 cases of each challenge in each country inorder for us to see the process during which state is “shaped” as a result of thesechallenges. By looking at the process, we hope to see the trajectories of state formationin these countries.
These countries are selected for obvious relevance to the theme, and in addition, two(Indonesia and Malaysia) are Muslim majority countries while the other two (Singaporeand the Philippines) are Muslim minority countries. The section of these countries may2

highlight interesting insights into the discussion on majoritarianism – key characteristics
of democratic governance. The proposed time period in this research is from thedemocratic openings (1997/98 financial crises in some countries) to present because thiscovers reasonable years during which political opening in these countries become visible,that there is enough material for the research, and allows the team to finish the research
to meet the early 2021 project deadline.
(2) Second, after identifying the cases of extremist challenges, we then assess the state
responses in the areas of law enforcement, socio-culture, economy and politics. In thisanalysis, we categorize the types of state responses as: suppression, cooptation,adaptation, and any combination of above. In this analysis, we pay close attention to
the international dimensions in which key international actors are, to a certain degree,“involved” in the process of state responses.
(3) Third, in order to provide policy recommendations, we evaluate how “effective” these
responses were, and in that, our goal is to decide with careful nuance that if the given
state is resilient or vulnerable in each case, and why. Here, Fukuyama’s work on state
scope and capacity will be useful for comparative purposes. As mentioned above, we areaware that different regime types at different times employ available methods forresponding to these challenges, and not all responses achieve intended objectives. By
describing the trajectories of state formation overtime, we hope to capture dynamic
interaction between extremist challenges and state responses.
III.
Timeline
September 2019
Kickoff meeting among the team and decide on the research concept and direction
26 June 2020
SKYPE meeting among the teamFebruary 2021
Presentation at Tokyo Forum
IV. The Team
Dr. Takeshi Kohno of Japan (Toyo Eiwa University, GRIPS Alliance)
Dr. Jamhari Makruf of Indonesia (Universitas Islam Negri Syarif Hidayatullah)3Dr. Kamarulnizam Abdullah of Malaysia (Universiti Utara Malaysia)
Prof. Julkipli Wadi of the Philippines (University of the Philippines, Diliman)
Dr. Norshahril Saat of Singapore (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute)--References
Fox, Jonathan. 2015. Political Secularism, Religion, and the State: A Time Series Analysisof Worldwide Data. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Fukuyama, Francis. 2005. State Building: Governance and World Order in the TwentyFirst Century. Great Britain: Profile Books.
Vidhu, Verma (ed.) (2020). Secularism, Religion and Democracy in Southeast Asia. Delhi& London: Oxford University Press.

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