Reluctant Spies: The Role of Neighbourhood Leaders in Indonesia’s PVE Strategy

Abstract

Despite a wealth of existing knowledge about intelligence gathering through community policing programs for preventing violent extremism (PVE) in Western countries, relatively little is known about how these initiatives are implemented in Muslim-majority countries: What kinds of community leaders are mobilised? What are they asked to do? How do they respond? This paper answers these questions by examining community policing initiatives for PVE in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country. It focuses on the role of a ubiquitous network of neighbourhood leaders at the centre of Indonesia's efforts to counter threats from pro-ISIS groups. Based on qualitative data collected in two of Indonesia's largest cities, we find that a set of social, institutional, and political factors constrain neighbourhood leaders' ability to monitor and report extremist activity to authorities. Several of these factors are similar to the barriers identified in cross-country reporting threshold studies. However, the responsibilisation of neighbourhood leaders for PVE, mixed with their reluctance to report, produces unique adverse effects in Indonesia by incentivising the use of extra-legal measures against suspects. Our findings emphasize the need to repair public trust in law enforcement agencies as a prerequisite for effective community policing and categorise information that communities can effectively provide. Show more