【Webinar Report】Studying Counterterrorism Policies in Indonesia: Unraveling the Hidden Political Interests

On Thursday, 2021 November 11th, an online lecture by Ph.D. student, Ms. Chaula Rininta Anindya, from the Graduate School of International Relations (GSIR) of Ritsumeikan University was provided during the seminar under the presentation title "Studying Counterterrorism in Indonesia: Unraveling the Complexities."

In the lecture, Chaula explained about her initial research plan, “The Military’s Role in Counterterrorism: Comparative Studies on Indonesia and the Philippines,” and how her research changed from a government focus to intergovernmental interactions. In the journey of her research experiences, she found that there were opportunities and difficulties that came with meeting high-rank officials for interviews, accessing police investigation reports, establishing relationships with Civil Society Organizations, the politics of Non-Governmental Agencies leading to unhealthy competitions, etc. She also discovered that there is a “sectoral ego,” which hampers the effectiveness of long-term deradicalization programs. After sharing her research, she elaborated on her experiences with maximizing research activity by collaborating with other researchers and producing publications from it.

The lecture concluded with a Q&A session, during which Chaula and students spoke on several topics, such as how to use process tracing as a research methodology, why she changed her research from comparative to analyzing one country, what her difficulties were in interviewing respondents, considering her research theme as a delicate issue, and so on.

 

 

Written by Yami Roca and Yusy Widarahesty (Doctoral Students at the Graduate School of International Relations)