Book Launch: The Politics of Counter-Terror by Nicholas Chan

There is a fundamental paradox in counter-terrorism: while Muslim state elites insist that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, the way Muslim states deal with terrorism has everything to do with Islam. In this theoretically innovative and empirically rich book with Stanford University Press, Nicholas Chan argues that Malaysia's 'Islamised' counter-terrorism is not just a product of Muslim states seeking to maximise their control over religion for regime security purposes. Rather, counter-terrorism is also an ontological-security seeking enterprise filtered through a matrix of factors, including postcolonial elite status-seeking, modernist state-building, and the immediacies of governmental problem-solving. The book fills a void in the Western-centric Global War on Terror literature that often fails to examine what happens when Muslim actors must wage a 'war' not of their making but strongly tied to their identity, security, and status. This book's original findings will interest scholars and students of security, international relations, area studies, and Muslim politics.

About the author

Dr Nicholas Chan is the Deputy Director of the ANU Southeast Asia Institute, a Board Member of the ANU Malaysia Institute, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. His research interests lie at the intersection of religion and politics, with a particular focus on ontological security, counter-terrorism, right-wing politics and social media, and the role of millenarian thinking in political life. He also specialises in the study of Muslim politics and Malaysian politics.

Chair

Associate Professor Amy King, Head, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs

Discussants

Dr Sarah Logan, Senior Lecturer, the Department of International Relations, ANU Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs
Emeritus Professor Greg Fealy, Board Member, ANU Malaysia Institute

This event is co-hosted by ANU Malaysia Institute and Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, ANU.

You can purchase the book here.

This is an in-person only event, 5.30pm reception for 6-7.30pm launch.

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