This chapter will focus specifically on the political and radical Islamic movements in Indonesia and Malaysia, which are predominately Muslim states and will conduct major electoral campaigns in 2004; it will briefly survey the radical Islamic activities in the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. It will explore three different approaches to understanding the radicalization of political Islam: as a transnational terrorist threat; an indigenous national movement and a rational choice explanation. It will discuss the strengths and weakness of each approach, and what insight they might provide in understanding the impact of terrorism on the development of civil society. The chapter thus will provide a competing paradigm to simplistic Manichean interpretations, and challenges, far-reaching consequences, and uncertainties of dealing with ...
