Becoming Jihadis: Radicalization and Commitment in Southeast Asia
Why does someone join an extremist group? What are the pathways via which individuals join such groups? How does one show commitment to an extremist group? Why does someone participate in acts of terrorism? Drawing on 175 interviews with current and former members of Islamist extremist groups in Indonesia and the Philippines, Becoming Jihadis: Radicalization and Commitment in Southeast Asia answers these questions by exploring the socio-emotional underpinnings of joining an extremist group. This book argues that social ties play a critical role at every juncture in the joining process, from initial engagement to commitment to participation in jihad experiences, paramilitary training and terrorism. It unpacks the process by which members build a sense of community, connection, solidarity and brotherhood; how they come to trust and love one another; and how ideology functions as a binding agent, not a cause. Becoming Jihadis draws its conclusions from broad patterns data based on nearly a decade of iterated interviews with current and former members of Islamist extremist groups between 2010 and 2019 as well as partial life histories detailing the journeys of specific men and women from joining to commitment to participation in high risk activism.
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Speaker and Chair Biographies:
Julie Chernov Hwang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Goucher College. She received her PhD in 2007 from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Her research focuses on how social networks facilitate entry into and exit from jihadist groups in Southeast Asia. She analyzes the processes and pathways via which individuals join and become active in Islamist extremist groups; what motivates inter-group switching; how jihadists disengage from violence and the various permutations of disengagement; and what factors enable successful reintegration and deradicalization. Prior to embarking on this research trajectory, her research centered on Islamist party behavior and state-Islamist group relations.
Dr Kirsten Schulze is Associate Professor in International History at LSE. She works on communal and separatist conflicts as well as Islamism in Indonesia and the Middle East. Her publications on Indonesia include: The ‘Ethnic’ in Indonesia’s Communal Conflicts: violence in Poso, Ambon and West Kalimantan (2017), The Islamic State and Southeast Asia (2016), and Transforming the Aceh Conflict: From Military Solutions to Political Agreement (2013).
From 2014-2016 Dr Schulze was the Deputy Director of LSE SEAC, from 2012-14 she was the head of the LSE IDEAS Southeast Asia Program, and from 2004-2012 she ran the Indonesia seminar series at Chatham House.