The Transformation of Political Islamic Terrorism in Indonesia. The Darul Islam & Jema’ah Islamiyah through Terrorism Theory

Abstract

This master thesis explores the utility of terrorism theory in explaining the transformation of Islamic terrorism in Indonesia. In doing so, it focuses on two terrorist movements: the Darul Islam (DI) and the Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI), and four theories on terrorism that were formulated by the academics David Rapoport (2004), Louise Richardson (2007), Randall D. Law (2016) and Alex P. Schmid (2011). By (1) presenting an historical overview of Islamic terrorism in Indonesia, (2) analysing the narratives of the DI and JI and (3) testing the models of these scholars with the Indonesian case, this master thesis explores the following question: to what extent could the transformation of the DI to the JI be explained through common academic models of terrorism research?

The terrorist tactics from the DI and JI are clarified by Rapoport’s, Law’s, Richardon’s and Schmid’s academic models on terrorism. Rapoport’s theory provides an explanation for the transformation of Indonesian terrorism. Law’s theory provides clarity with his alternative to ‘religious terrorism’: ’jihadi terrorism’. Richardson’ theory illustrates what leads individuals to join a terrorist movement and what the DI and JI exactly aim to achieve through their terrorist attacks. Schmid furthermore provides a scheme to test these theories. His book Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research functions as an overarching theoretical framework for this thesis. However, the case study of terrorism in Indonesia illustrates that even though terrorism theory is helpful in explaining certain aspects of terrorism, terrorism theory remains of limited value to understand the involute nature of complex terrorist movements and the transformation of and connections between such movements. The historical analysis of the transformation of terrorism in Indonesia and the analysis of the narratives of Indonesian terrorists that this thesis provides, illustrate how terrorism theory fails to grasp important aspects of the phenomenon. Furthermore, this thesis illustrates how general theories on violence, in specific the analysis of narratives as described by Jolle Demmers (2012) and the theory of a civil war within Islam by David Kilcullen (2009), could fill the academic gap in terrorism theory. Both theories explain what terrorism theory often neglects: other factors that - in combination with the factors Richardson, Rapoport, Law and Schmid present - might lead to terrorism. Therefore, this thesis argues for the merging of general theories on violence and terrorism theory in order to thoroughly understand complicated movements.