WHEN RADICALISATION MEETS BUREAUCRACY: FLUID RADICALISATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES ON POLICY ALTERNATIVES IN INDONESIAN DE-RADICALISATION POLICIES

Abstract

The increasing attention to counter-terrorism practices through counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation policies has not been matched by in-depth and comprehensive studies on terrorism and radicalisation.As a result, there is a misconception of both, leading to discriminatory counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation policies, which allow certain groups and the state to commit violence and take freedom from groups stigmatised as radical.This study seeks to examine terrorism and radicalism by exploring the interpretation of the government as an institution, which has the authority to interpret terrorism and radicalism,resulting in de-radicalization and counter-terrorism policies. A dataset consisted of news items about government activities on terrorism and radicalisation from three ministries/non-ministerial institutions wasused for corpus linguistics (CL) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) assisted by AntConc application. We found that the three agencies developed interpretations of radicalisitonas part of their main duties and functions. Radicalisation has become a very flexible concept, adapting to bureaucratic spaces, not to be solved but to obtain budget spaces. Finally, the government responded to the entry of radicalism as a public issue by fragmenting the whole concept of radicalisation and splitting it into various agencies, where it is suitable to be resolved,rather than unifying it comprehensively inthe National Counter-Terrorism Agency's mission.