Manuscript, please dont circulate without the authors permission.

Hegemonic Distortions in the Securitisation of Separatist Movements in

Thailand and Indonesia

Nicole Jenne and Jun Yan Chang1

Introduction

Non-traditional security (NTS) threats have blazed headlines, filled policy papers and
crammed academic journals in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. For instance, at
the time of writing, newspapers headlines are full of the ongoing war on crime being
conducted by Duterte, the newly elected President of the Philippines. After the end of the
Cold War and bipolarity, scholars and practitioners alike did not get tired of emphasising the
need to develop new strategies to meet a novel type of non-traditional security challenges
which confronted the world.2 The watershed of the new millennium, the September 11, 2001
attacks (henceforth 9/11), reinforced the emphasis on threats allegedly different in nature for
which the international community was unprepared.
What is commonly assumed under the banner of such non-traditional threats are a
potpourri of issues. Perhaps the most comprehensive definition of NTS threats is that by the
Consortium on Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia (NTS-Asia): NTS threats are those
challenges that affect the survival and well-being of peoples and states that arise primarily out
of non-military sources, such as climate change, resource scarcity, infectious diseases, natural
disasters, irregular migration, famine, people smuggling, drug trafficking and transnational
crime.3 NTS threats have three mutual features thus: (1) they are of a non-military character,
though this does not imply that the military is irrelevant; (2) they are transnational, hence
disrupting Westphalian norms of state sovereignty and non-interference; and (3) the referent
objects that which is to be secured from the threat faced goes beyond the sovereign state
to also embrace others, such as the individual or the community.4 These new threats are
often untraceable to an identifiable source of authority and are thus unable to be solved by a
unidirectional strategy ultimately relying on military means. Ideally, these challenges are met
in cooperation with other states. Herein, we focus on the two questions raised earlier by
Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones: what explains the current prominence of NTS issues on the

1
We were fortunate to have received an SAF-NTU Academy Research Grant, SNA2015(C1-01), to work on
this project. We are grateful to Dr Daniel Chua, Dr Evan Resnick, Dr Farish Noor, Emirza Adi Syailendra and
Francisco Urdinez for helpful comments; and would also like to acknowledge the support of the Millennium
Nucleus for the Study of Stateness and Democracy (RS130002), supported by the Millennium Scientific
Initiative of the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism of Chile.
2
See David A. Baldwin, "Security Studies and the End of the Cold War," World Politics, 48:1 (1995), pp. 117-
141; Stephen M. Walt, "The Renaissance of Security Studies," International Studies Quarterly, 35:2 (1991), pp.
211-239.
3
Mely Caballero-Anthony, "The New Security Agenda in Asia: Making Spaces for Non-Traditional Security
Formulations of Emerging Security Challenges," in The Routledge Handbook of Asian Security Studies, ed.
Sumit Ganguly, Andrew Scobell, and Joseph Chinyong Liow, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2010), p. 312.
4
Ralf Emmers and Mely Caballero-Anthony, "Introduction," in Studying Non-traditional Security in Asia:
Trends and Issues, ed. Ralf Emmers, Mely Caballero-Anthony, and Amitav Acharya, (Singapore: Marshall
Cavendish, 2006), p. xiv; Mely Caballero-Anthony, "Non-traditional Security and Infectious Diseases in
ASEAN: Going Beyond the Rhetoric of Securitization to Deeper Institutionalization," The Pacific Review, 21:4
(2008), p. 510.

1
security agendas of governments and international organization and what factors shape the
manner in which NTS issues are understood and managed in practice?5
Hameiri and Jones concluded that these non-traditional threats mirrored the nature of
the state, which is also turning non-traditional. 6 In this paper however, we start with
questioning the notion of the new and the traditional from the periphery. The new
security agenda was essentially a product of the West, but interestingly, it was rapidly
adopted across the developing world. One reason for this was the fact that the new agenda
fitted the realities of most developing countries far better than the old one emphasising
traditional threats external to the Westphalian state. For instance, though 9/11 had radically
changed the foreign and security agendas of the US and its European allies, for Southeast
Asia, the concern with internal political violence, its links to foreign actors and the
contestation of political identities, have been long-standing concerns.7 Hence, for the states in
the region, the new threat agenda was a case of packaging old wine in new bottles, but
nonetheless, it triggered a change in discourse and policy adaption.
Following from the two crucial questions Hameiri and Jones identified, we ask
specifically therefore how the dominant narrative of new/old threats was transposed to
Southeast Asia? Moreover, given the regions readiness in adopting the new agenda differed
across countries, how can we explain that Southeast Asian states adopted and implemented
new security policies to different degrees? Drawing on (neo)Gramscian notions of
hegemony/dominance and power,8 we argue that Southeast Asia adopted the hegemonic
narrative in a largely uncontested manner through a process of securitisation that reflected
alignment patterns of the respective state with the US. Specifically, the closer a state is
aligned with the hegemon (our independent variable), the stronger its security agenda will be
influenced by the NTS narrative (our dependent variable). The mediating variable in this
relationship is thus what we call hegemonic distortions, understandings that emerge within
incentive and belief structures defined by a hegemonic power in ways that prevent the
emergence of locally informed understandings.
We demonstrate our argument empirically using the example of one issue area of the
NTS agenda, namely separatist movements in Indonesia and Thailand. The cases were
selected with reference to an alignment measure that captures the two countries hierarchical
relation with the US in four dimensions: military, political, economic and social. Using
process tracing, we conclude that in Thailand, the stronger aligned country, the separatist
movement was subsumed under the hegemonic US discourse on NTS whilst in Indonesia,
which was less strongly aligned, the movement was not securitised but treated as an old
threat that has merely been politicised.
Hegemonic distortion in the NTS agenda in Southeast Asia has also been alluded to in
other studies. For example, Senia Febrica examined the role of the audience in Indonesia and
Singapore in securitising terrorism in response to the Global War on Terror (GWoT) initiated
by the US in the aftermath of 9/11, arguing that due to differences in domestic politics, in the
pluralistic system of Indonesia, it was difficult to securitise terrorism whereas Singapore, a
one-party state, was a relatively easy case since the government was not subject to the same

5
Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones, "The Politics and Governance of Non-Traditional Security," International
Studies Quarterly, 57:3 (2013), p. 622.
6
Ibid., pp. 462-463.
7
See for instance, Joseph Chinyong Liow, Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2016).
8
Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, Edited and translated by Quintin
Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, (New York: International Publishers, 1971); Robert W. Cox, Production,
Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History, (New York: Columbia University Press,
1987).

2
pressures. 9 Whilst such a conclusion is valid on its own, our study goes further in
considering the differences in the alignment of the state with the American hegemon. In line
with this reasoning, it can be suggested that Singapore, being closely aligned with the US,
would undertake more significant efforts to securitise terrorism despite not having suffered a
terrorist attack. In contrast, although Indonesia demonstrated solidarity with the US in the
immediate aftermath of 9/11, was crucial to American efforts in courting moderate Muslims,
and had suffered from terrorist attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings, it did not show the
same success nor effort in securitising terrorism as Singapore did because it was not as
closely aligned to the US. Hegemonic distortions thus resulted only in Singapore.
The hegemonic distortions thesis further echoes International Relations scholarship on
Southeast Asia. In many regards, the discipline is widely recognised as a hegemonic
discipline, and received wisdom in Asia-Pacific academic and policy circles has had it that
international relations (or IR) theory bears little, if any, relevance to the regions international
politics; scholarship on the regions international politics, as such, is simply a mimicry of
this American social science as See Seng Tan puts it.10 IR scholarship in the region
therefore suffers from hegemonic distortion as well, lacking a strong empirical basis
appropriate to the regions own uniqueness.
Before proceeding to the main part of the article, two caveats are in order. The US is
surely not the only actor influencing Southeast Asias security agenda. Several states in the
region have developed extensive links with other powers whose security policies may
complement or contradict the USs. Moreover, under the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) and other regional groupings, Southeast Asian states collaborate in
security matters with each other and as a group, and even with extra-regional strategic
partners. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to isolate the USs impact on Southeast
Asias NTS narrative. However, considering the USs preponderance in the region, we hold
that it is nevertheless possible to trace the NTS discourse and its resulting institutional
changes back to the US. Secondly, we do not deny the relevance of local interpretations and
brute facts such as geopolitical pressures, political events or material resources to the
securitisation or non-securitisation of NTS threats in the region. Without the enabling
hegemonic narrative and the politics it justified, however, these phenomena would have
radically different meanings and consequences. Security, in other words, is understood as a
social construct in which the US played a determining role.
The remainder of the article is divided into three substantive sections. The next part
reviews the literature on securitisation and discusses our operationalisation thereof. The
second section describes US hegemony in Southeast Asia and the rise of the NTS security
agenda in the region, along with the alignment patterns of Thailand and Indonesia. The third
section presents evidence from the case studies of the separatist movements in the Thai South
and Papua, Indonesia, before the article is concluded.

Copenhagen School Securitisation

The securitisation of separatist movements is used as a proxy for our dependent variable of
the influence by the NTS narrative on the states security agenda. Part of the Copenhagen
9
Senia Febrica, "Securitizing Terrorism in Southeast Asia: Accounting for the Varying Responses of Singapore
and Indonesia," Asian Survey, 50:3 (2010), p. 590.
10
See Seng Tan, "Human Security: Discourse, Statecraft, Emancipation," in The Human Face of Security: Asia-
Pacific Perspectives, ed. David Dickens, (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, 2002), p. 30.; see
also "Southeast Asia: Theory and Praxis in International Relations," in International Relations Scholarship
Around the World, ed. Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wver, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2009), pp. 120-133;
Peter Marcus Kristensen, "International Relations in China and Europe: The Case for Interregional Dialogue in a
Hegemonic Discipline," The Pacific Review, 28:2 (2014), pp. 161-163.

3
School, securitisation is a move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game
and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics, hence a more
extreme version of politicisation.11 Three units are relevant to securitisation: (1) the referent
objects; (2) the securitising actors invoking the securitising speech act; and (3) a third
category of other functional actors who affect the dynamics of the issue being securitised.12
Crucial in the process of securitisation is the speech act since for the analyst to grasp the act
of securitisation, the task is not to assess some objective threats that really endanger some
object to be defended or secured; rather it is to understand the processes of constructing a
shared understanding of what is to be considered and collectively responded to as a threat;
the utterance itself, therefore, is the act.13 For classical Copenhagen School securitisation
thus, the enunciation of security itself creates a new social order wherein normal politics is
bracketed.14 Consequently, the illocutionary speech act, and the exceptional measures that
follow in response to the threat are crucial elements in securitisation.
However, other scholars criticised both features. On one hand, they argue that
securitisation is better understood as a strategic (pragmatic) practice that occurs within, and
as part of, a configuration of circumstances, including the context, the psycho-cultural
disposition of the audience, and the power that both speaker and listener brings to the
interaction; the pragmatic speech act is therefore perlocutionary (the consequential effects
or sequels that are aimed at evoking the feelings, beliefs, thoughts, or actions of the target
audience) rather than illocutionary (the act performed in articulating).15 On the other, they
also disparaged the focus on exceptional measures, claiming that when dealing with a
security threat, exceptional measures may not be necessary or even preferred; often, it is
the mundane and repetitive which become important measures to guard against the threat that
is being securitised.16 Embracing these two criticisms, Rita Floyd proposed removing the
audience from securitisation theory altogether by contending that audience buy-in is a
normative notion rather than an analytical one, whilst also allowing for non-exceptional
measures so long as the securitising actor justifies these measures as a response to the threat
identified in the said actors securitising speech act. 17 In Floyds revised framework,
successful securitisation therefore consists of: a securitising move (the illocutionary speech
act), and a security practice rationalised with reference to the threat identified in the
securitising move.18
For the purposes of our study, viewing securitisation as comprising both a securitising
move and a security practice contingent upon the securitising move is most suitable because,
as we shall see, specific security practices (exceptional or otherwise) were not always
identical with illocutionary speech acts in Thailand and Indonesia. Moreover, Floyds focus

11
Barry Buzan, Ole Wver, and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, (Boulder, Colorado:
Lynne Rienner, 1998), p. 23.
12
Ibid., pp. 23-36.
13
Ibid., p. 26.
14
Thierry Balzacq, "The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and Context," European
Journal of International Relations, 11:2 (2005), p. 171, emphasis removed.
15
Ibid., pp. 172 and 180.; see also Holger Stritzel, "Security as Translation: Threats, Discourse, and the Politics
of Localisation," Review of International Studies, 37:5 (2011), pp. 2491-2517.
16
Didier Bigo, "Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease," Alternatives:
Global, Local, Political, 27 (2002), pp. 63-92; Jef Huysmans, "What's In an Act? On Security Speech Acts and
Little Security Nothings," Security Dialogue, 42:4-5 (2011), p. 371-383.
17
See Rita Floyd, Security and the Environment: Securitization Theory and US Environmental Security Policy,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 52-54; "Can Securitization Theory be Used in Normative
Analysis: Towards a Just Securitization Theory," Security Dialogue, 42:4-5 (2011), pp. 427-439; "Extraordinary
or Ordinary Emergency Measures: What, and Who, Defines the 'Success' of Securitization?," Cambridge
Review of International Affairs, 29:2 (2015)., doi: 10.1080/09557571.2015.1077651.
18
Security and the Environment: Securitization Theory and US Environmental Security Policy, pp. 52-54.

4
on policy elites as securitising actors is particularly fitting for the Southeast Asian region and
its authoritarian states since there is little or no separation between the political and the
security realms. 19 In operationalising our dependent variable therefore, we analyse the
discourse in search of securitising moves by the policy elites in terms of their speech acts
regarding the referent objects of the separatist threat, and investigate the resultant security
practices, particularly if these were justified by the former securitising moves.

The Rise of New Old Threats: US Security Agenda and Hegemony in Southeast Asia

In our study design, the US is a functional actor in the securitisation process. Its security
agenda and engagement in Southeast Asia can be summarised into three broad epochs: prior
the Second World War (WWII) when the US only had colonial ties with the Philippines;
during the Cold War as its involvement in Southeast Asia broadened significantly as
Washington was concerned with containing the spread of communism in a region it saw
prone to fall like dominoes under the influence of the Soviet Union and China; and after
winning the Cold War when the Washington Consensus policies of economic
liberalisation and democratisation were promulgated thereby making its relationship with the
ASEAN states much more complex, often exhibiting cooperation in some issue areas and
conflict in others. 20 The post-Cold War period freed the intellectual straightjacket of
bipolarity that had placed emphasis on hard power capabilities and external security
competition, accelerating a shift already underway in the field of Security Studies,21 to the
effect of deepening and widening security beyond its traditional, military interpretation,
with 9/11 subsequently reinforcing the focus on non-traditional threats, such as maritime
terrorism and its links to piracy, once again turning Southeast Asia into a strategic region for
the US, particularly as the second front in the GWoT.22
These challenges, however, were not new to the region. As Mely Caballero-Anthony
highlights, the evolution of non-traditional security both as a concept and an approach to
Security Studies owes much to the postcolonial approach and security thinking from the
Third World, such as the Japanese concept of comprehensive security, and was driven by
the desire of some scholars from the global South to make the language of security more
relevant to and representative of the kind of contemporary challenges that seriously affect
peoples security in the developing world.23 The novelty of the NTS approach was thus
hardly apparent in much of the developing world and the rise of the NTS agenda in Southeast
Asia is best seen as a distortion in line with US hegemony.
The claim that the United States is the most powerful country on the planet with
unprecedented scope and potential impact is not controversial.24 The US has been the

19
Joseph Chinyong Liow, "Malaysias Approach to Indonesian Migrant Labor: Securitization, Politics, or
Catharsis?," in Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemmas in Securitisation, ed. Mely Caballero-Anthony, Ralf
Emmers, and Amitav Acharya, (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 57-58.; see also the compilation of Southeast
Asian states freedom rating in Jun Yan Chang, "Essence of Security Communities: Explaining ASEAN,"
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 16:3 (2016), p. 341.
20
Ann Marie Murphy, "United States Relations with Southeast Asia: The Legacy of Policy Changes," in Legacy
of Engagement in Southeast Asia, ed. Ann Marie Murphy and Bridget Welsh, (Singapore: Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies, 2008), pp. 263-264.
21
Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009).
22
Amitav Acharya and See Seng Tan, "Betwixt Balance and Community: America, ASEAN, and the Security
of Southeast Asia," International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 6:1 (2006), pp. 37-59.
23
Mely Caballero-Anthony, "Understanding Non-Traditional Security," in An Introduction to Non-Traditional
Security Studies, ed. Mely Caballero-Anthony, (London: Sage, 2016), p. 5.
24
Mark Beeson, "American Ascendancy: Conceptualizing Contemporary Hegemony," in Bush and Asia:
America's Evolving Relations with East Asia, ed. Mark Beeson, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2006), p. 3.; for a

5
global hegemon since taking over that position from the United Kingdom post-WWII and
retains it notwithstanding Chinas rise. However, in theorising hegemony, different strands of
IR scholarship each offer their own interpretation of American hegemony. For realists,
hegemony is a unipolar distribution of material power enabling the hegemon to dominate the
international system.25 The US has certainly been preponderant in terms of material power,
including military resources, economic might and technological potential. Moreover, it has
been unafraid of using its power. Liberals favour the selfsame materialist considerations, but
see power as tamed within an institutional bargain with lesser states which exchange
consent against the hegemon limiting its power.26 The globalist explanation for hegemony
draws largely from the Gramscian tradition. Accordingly, material and non-material elements
create forms of domination that are not only pervasive but also insidious. As Robert Cox
famously suggested, pax americana came into being following a particular fit between
power, ideology and institutions. 27 Finally, constructivism emphasises the ideational
dimension of American hegemony in the form of the acceptance of American norms, values,
ideas, and soft power; resulting in a distinctively American international order that is liberal,
institutional, and multilateral.28
Nonetheless, in examining the status of US hegemony in Southeast Asia, two
contending perspectives are commonly found: American dominance and ASEAN centrality,
with the latter implying that ASEAN can lead and influence events and manipulate great
powers in the region.29 However, these two viewpoints are not mutually exclusive. The US
can be hegemonic, but still relinquish leadership to ASEAN under certain circumstances.30
Likewise, even if ASEAN occupies the position of the bridging node of a dense web of
networks in the region,31 this was only possible because such rules and norms had already
been set in place by the hegemonic US post-WWII. Disagreements in the US
hegemony/ASEAN centrality debate centre upon the principal meanings of domination and
leadership, that is, the degree of consent versus coercion between the hegemon and the
dominated,32 both modes of influence contingent upon the degree of alignment between a
state and the dominant power, our independent variable.

comparison of America and China, see Michael Beckley, "China's Century? Why America's Edge Will Endure,"
International Security, 36:3 (2011), pp. 41-78.
25
Stephen D. Krasner, "State Power and the Structure of International Trade," World Politics, 28:3 (April 1976),
pp. 317-347; Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1981); Barry R. Posen, "Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony,"
International Security, 28:1 (Summer 2003), pp. 5-46.
26
G. John Ikenberry, "State Power and the Institutional Bargain: Americas Ambivalent Economic and Security
Multilateralism," in US Hegemony and International Organizations: The United States and Multilateral
Organizations, ed. Rosemary Foot, Neil MacFarlane, and Michael Mastanduno, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003), pp. 49-70; "Liberalism and Empire: Logics of Order in the American Unipolar Age," Review of
International Studies, 30:4 (2004), pp. 609-630.
27
Robert W. Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory,"
Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 10:2 (1981), p. 144.; see also Gramsci, Selections from the Prison
Notebooks.
28
See John Gerard Ruggie, "International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the
Postwar Economic Order," International Organization, 36:2 (Spring 1982), pp. 379-415; Multilateralism
Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
29
For the former, see Beeson, Mark Beeson, "U.S. Hegemony and Southeast Asia," Critical Asian Studies, 36:3
(2004), pp. 445-462; Charmaine G. Misalucha, "Southeast Asia-US Relations: Hegemony or Hierarchy?,"
Contemporary Southeast Asia, 33:2 (2011), pp. 209-228.; for the latter, see Mely Caballero-Anthony,
"Understanding ASEAN's Centrality: Bases and Prospects in an Evolving Regional Architecture," The Pacific
Review, 27:4 (2014), pp. 563-584.
30
See Richard Stubbs, "ASEAN's Leadership in East Asian Region-Building: Strength in Weakness," The
Pacific Review, 27:4 (2014), p. 523.
31
Caballero-Anthony, "Understanding ASEAN's Centrality," p. 568.
32
See Ian Clark, Hegemony in International Society, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 18-23.

6
 For our study, alignment with the American hegemon is operationalised in four
dimensions which capture both material and non-material elements: the USs presence and its
bilateral relations with a state in the political, military, economic and social realms.33 To
allow for variation in the explanation, our analysis includes one separatist movement state
that has been strongly aligned with the hegemon, Thailand; and another only moderately
aligned, Indonesia. The study period spans the years 1995-2010, in which we should see
crucial shifts according to the USs NTS agenda.

Table 1: Indonesia and Thailand, Alignment with the US

Source: Compiled by authors.

As Table 1 shows, the difference in alignment is evident in all four dimensions, albeit to
varying degrees. First, for political alignment, one of the most widely used indicators is the
extent to which a countrys voting behaviour in the United Nations General Assembly
follows another.34 The corresponding data show that Thailand has voted more closely in
accordance with the US than Indonesia, except for the last two years under consideration,
when Indonesias voting behaviour was slightly more aligned with the USs. In the military
dimension, there is a stark difference regarding the formal alignment relationship between the
two Southeast Asian states and the US. Indonesia, a forerunner and historically strong
advocate of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), has no military treaties with the US nor
others. Thailand, on the other hand, relies upon the US as its only alliance partner since the
1954 Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty (the Manila Pact). The treaty was
strengthened by the 1962 Rusk-Thanat Agreement, in which the US pledged that it would
assist Thailand unilaterally in the event of aggression independent of consent by other
signatories to the Manila Pact. In 2003, Thailand was designated a Major Non-NATO Ally of
the US, and the 2012 Joint Vision statement for USThai relations underscored both sides
commitment to the defence alliance. The security relationship is clearly reflected in the USs
military presence in the two countries, although the amount of military assistance blurs this
pattern to a small extent.35 In Thailand, the US has used the airbase at U-Tapao for transit

33
Drawing on Michael Mastanduno, "Hegemonic Order, September 11, and the Consequences of the Bush
Revolution " in Bush and Asia: America's Evolving Relations with East Asia, ed. Mark Beeson, (Abingdon,
Oxon: Routledge, 2006), pp. 25-28.
34
Voting similarity index, 3-point scale; see Erik Voeten, "Data and Analyses of Voting in the UN General
Assembly," 2012, accessed 9 April.
35
Security Assistance Monitor, accessed 4 May, http://www.securityassistance.org/data/.

7
since the Vietnam War, and from 1996 to 2010, there were over one hundred US troops
continuously stationed in the country; in contrast, Indonesia has not allowed the US to
establish permanent military facilities and the number of US troops remained low. 36
Economically, we considered two factors: exports and foreign direct investment (FDI)
stocks.37 As shown in Table 1, between 1995 and 2010, Indonesian and Thai exports to the
US followed similar trends,38 as did the amount of US FDI stocks in the two countries.39
Considered individually, these numbers have limited informative value but in the overall
context of the alignment, they show that on two vital economic indicators, the US has been an
important partner for Indonesia, and above all, for Thailand. Lastly, on the social dimension,
data snapshots support analyses of elite opinions of the US, according to which Indonesia has
been more critical of Washingtons role than Thailand.40 A multinational poll found in 2007
that sixty-four percent of Indonesians as compared to fifty-six percent of Thais did not trust
the US to act responsibly in the world.41 If this result is interpreted in light of a survey
conducted in Indonesia in 2004, it is religion that explains why public perceptions of the US
were less favourable in mainly Muslim Indonesia as compared to mainly Buddhist Thailand.
The survey found that 23.5 percent of Indonesian Muslims identified the US as the most
unpopular country, and that anti-American sentiments were strongly correlated with
Islamism.42
Our hypothesis is therefore that subordinate Southeast Asian states adopt dominant
security narratives and securitise issues per their degree of alignment with the American
hegemon. We contrast this claim to the alternative hypothesis that securitisation follows
national imperatives. Specifically, and operationally, we examine the securitisation (or lack
thereof) of the NTS issue of separatist movements in Thailand and Indonesia. Cases of
securitisation from Southeast Asia are particularly well suited for the research question at
hand as the US has traditionally played a dominant role in the regions security relations.
Therefore, we can safely posit that a relationship between the USs security doctrines and
policymaking in Southeast Asian states exist. Furthermore, Southeast Asian cases can be
considered hard cases for the supposed mechanism to occur since the region is especially
fearful of outside interference.43 For our case studies, we elected to examine separatist
movements as an example of a non-traditional threat for three reasons: (1) these are threats
which have plagued the states for a long time as opposed to a more recently recognised threat
such as climate change; (2) despite their transnational linkages, the threat posed by separatist
movements is domestic in nature which makes our cases harder; and (3) these are often

36
Statistical Information Analysis Division (SIAD), Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (DIOR),
US Department of Defence (DoD). SIAD published the data on an annual basis on its website. The data
covering the years 1995-2001 are from Tim Kane, "Global U.S. Troop Deployment, 1950-2005,"(Center for
Data Analysis: CDA06-02, 24 May 2006)., who cites the same source.
37
Following David A. Lake, Hierarchy in International Relations, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press,
2009), pp. 74-75.
38
World Integrated Trade Solution, "Trade Stats," accessed 23 April, http://wits.worldbank.org.
39
FDI flows are highly volatile, and due to missing data prior to 2001, no reliable lagged predictor can be
calculated; see Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, "Bilateral Linkages Database," accessed 23 April,
http://statistics.apec.org/index.php/bilateral_linkage/index.
40
See for instance, Natasha Hamilton-Hart, Hard Interests, Soft Illusions: Southeast Asia and American Power,
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).
41
"World Publics Reject US Role as the World Leader," WorldPublicOpinion.org, 17 April 2007, accessed 8
September, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/views_on_countriesregions_bt/345.php?lb=btvoc.
42
Islamisme dan Sikap Anti-Amerika: Temuan dari Survei Nasional. PPIM, Freedom Institute, dan Jaringan
Islam Liberal, 2-3 November 2004. Report on file with the authors. We thank Prof. Bill Liddle for making the
report available to us.
43
Following Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones, Governing Borderless Threats: Non-Traditional Security and the
Politics of State Transformation, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 7.

8
understudied from an International Security perspective, thus whilst we benefit from a
significant number of case-specific studies, the analysis makes an original contribution to the
literature. The case studies were deductively chosen in accordance to variation in alignment
with the US hegemon. To illustrate our hypothesis, we selected from the pool of all Southeast
Asian separatist movement states one strongly aligned state and one lesser-aligned state.
Accordingly, we expect more pervasive processes of securitisation per the NTS agenda to
occur in the strongly aligned state. In addition to practical considerations of language and
data availability, we selected separatist movements that are broadly comparable in terms of
their duration and relevance to their host state. The following case studies each provide a
brief background to the respective movement before proceeding to the analysis. Beyond
Thailand and Indonesia, our argument about hegemonic distortions seeks to be generalisable
to NTS in the Southeast Asian region as a whole.

Thailand and the Deep South

The area of conflict in Thailands Deep South comprises three provinces: Narathiwat, Yala
and Pattani, plus four districts belonging to Songkhla province. About eighty percent of the
population is Malay-Muslim, and unlike the Muslim population in other southern provinces,
these are Malay-speakers. The region had formed part of the Sultanate of Patani before it was
formally brought under the direct rule of Siam (Thailand) in 1902. The organised insurgency
in the Deep South formed during the 1950s and 1960s in response to the states long-standing
assimilation policies.44 Following a peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a series of more
inclusive measures implemented under Prem Tinsulananda (1980-1988) de-escalated the
conflict. During the 1990s, public development programs and infighting between insurgent
groups further undermined the separatist cause. In 1998, Malaysia handed four senior leaders
over to Thailand and close to 1,000 militants accepted an amnesty offered by the
government.45 By 2000, elites in Bangkok believed the insurgency was close to termination
with no more than 300 supporters left.46 In 2001 however, violence increased again.
The goals of the insurgency have varied over time and across different groups,
ranging from autonomous rights for the southern provinces to the quest of an independent
Malay Islamic state. Although the organisation and structure of the recent armed resistance
remains little known,47 the conflict clearly carries an important ethno-religious component.
Muslims in the south hold a general perception of being treated as second-class citizens in
mainly Buddhist Thailand. Nonetheless, though religion is widely acknowledged to be
relevant to understanding the conflict,48 the relevance of international Islamic networks is
indirect at best. There is no clear evidence linking the insurgency to international Islamist

44
See Duncan McCargo, Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand, (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2008).
45
Peter Chalk, "Separatism and Southeast Asia: The Islamic Factor in Southern Thailand, Mindanao, and
Aceh," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 24:4 (2001), p. 245.
46
Senate Committee on Armed Forces Presentation, quoted in Human Rights Watch, "No One Is Safe:
Insurgent Attacks on Civilians in Thailands Southern Border Provinces," Human Rights Watch, 19:13 (August
2007), p. 17.
47
There are at least a dozen organisations and numerous splinter groups whose local cells operate with a high
degree of autonomy, see Sascha Helbardt, "Anatomy of Southern Thailand's Insurgency: Some Preliminary
Insights,"(Reproduced at New Mandala, 2010).
48
Joseph Chinyong Liow, Muslim Resistance in Southern Thailand and Southern Philippines: Religion,
Ideology, and Politics, Policy Studies 24, (Washington D.C.: East-West Center, 2006), p. 61; S. P. Harish and
Joseph Chinyong Liow, "The Coup and the Conflict in Southern Thailand," Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 19:1 (2007), pp. 161-184; Sugunnasil Wattana, "Islam, Radicalism, and
Violence in Southern Thailand: Berjihad di Patani and the 28 April 2004 Attacks," Critical Asian Studies, 38:1
(2006), pp. 119-144.

9
terrorist networks such as Jemaah Islamiah (JI) or Al-Qaeda. Furthermore, despite the south
being one of the poorest parts of the country, economic grievances have played a negligible
role in the insurgency.49
Building upon this brief history, 2001 constituted a marking point when a new wave
of violence began. 50 Until 2004, the conflict was characterised by sporadic, small-scale
attacks.51 Initially, the Thai government was in denial. The government under Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra did not acknowledge the existence of an insurgency but declared:
theres no separatism, no ideological terrorists, just common bandits.52 US officials, on the
other hand, uniformly portrayed the unrest as a domestic conflict lacking significant outside
involvement. Amongst the items on the NTS agenda, narcotics and their links to other
activities identified as security threats became the most consequential frame of reference that
influenced the southern conflict. Illegal substance trafficking and abuse had become a major
concern in 2001 when the number of methamphetamine users and the influx of pills mainly
from Myanmar underwent a steep surge.53 When Thaksin declared war on drugs in 2003,
the insurgency was effectively mapped onto what was presented to the nation as a threat to
national security. The insurgency was thereafter securitised in 2003. In January 2003,
Thaksin signed Order 29/2546 into effect stating that any person charged with drug offenses
will be regarded as a dangerous person who is threatening social and national security.54
Vilifying drug dealers as scum and vermin,55 the securitisation discourse thereby made it
possible to deal with criminals outside established frameworks. Within a period of three
months, security forces carried out an estimated 2,500 extra-judicial killings.56
Although the war on drugs was a national security policy, the crack-down affected
the south differently from the rest of Thailand. The insurgency became locked into the
securitisation of narcotics, making it possible to be identified as an existential threat
justifying exceptional measures. On one hand, being identified as one of the main smuggling
routes, the south was a major target of the anti-drug operations.57 On the other, under the
prevailing conditions of the insurgence violence, the anti-narcotics campaign set the scene for
further escalating the conflict. The government-sanctioned killings produced a climate of fear
generally,58 and in the South the campaign helped to further destabilize the situation.59 At
least two conflict-escalating consequences of the securitisation of the insurgency under the
war of drugs can be identified. Firstly, faced with the prospect of arbitrary arrests and
assassinations based on official black lists that people had no means to appeal against, Malay
Muslims in the three provinces sought protection from militant groups. Some officials
claimed that southern militants recruited drug addicts or used drug money to buy off Malay

49
Jitpiromsri Srisompob and Sobhonvasu Panyasak, "Unpacking Thailand's Southern Conflict: The Poverty of
Structural Explanations," Critical Asian Studies, 38:1 (2006), pp. 95-117.
50
Desmond Ball and Nicholas Farrelly, "Interpreting 10 Years of Violence in Thailands Deep South," Security
Challenges, 8:2 (2012), p. 5.
51
Ibid., pp. 5-7.
52
Quoted in Neil J. Melvin, Conflict in Southern Thailand: Islamism, Violence and the State in the Patani
Insurgency, SIPRI Policy Paper No. 20, (Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2007), p.
30.
53
Human Rights Watch, "Not Enough Graves: The War on Drugs, HIV/AIDS, and Violations of Human
Rights," Human Rights Watch, 16:8 (June 2004).
54
"No One Is Safe," pp. 30-31.
55
Matthew Z. Wheeler, "From Marketplace to Battlefield: Counting the Costs of Thailand's Drug War," ICWA
Letters, 28 May 2003, p. 8.
56
John Funston, Southern Thailand: The Dynamics of Conflict, Policy Studies 50, (Washington D.C.: East-West
Center, 2008).
57
Ibid., p. 35.
58
David Fullbrook, "Thai War on Drugs: Hollow Victory," Asia Times, 17 December 2003.
59
Melvin, Conflict in Southern Thailand, p. 30.

10
youth to carry out the attacks.60 In Bangkok, the war on drugs made no explicit reference to
the insurgency but reports show that the southern villagers perceived it to be used to target
Malay Muslims.61 The governments orders to clear the infamous black lists gave local
security forces free reign to target personal or political enemies by branding them suspect
drug dealers.62 In this way, secondly, the killings further eroded trust in the security forces
and the rule of law, setting the scene for the escalation of violence that followed.63 Finally,
some observers claimed that the nation-wide campaigns resulted in trafficking networks
being displaced from the north to the south, aggravating the existing problems related to
illegal narcotics there further.64
It is worth noting that most existing studies mention the beginning of the recent
insurgency as 2001, but put the start of the escalation in 2004 without making an explicit
connection of what happened in between.65 We argue that such an account ignores the crucial
securitising moves based on the war on drugs that had a direct impact on the further
escalation of the conflict. In effect, a few months after the anti-drug campaign the violence in
the south reached unprecedented levels. In January 2004, insurgents launched a series of
coordinated attacks to seize weapons from a depot in Narathiwat, killing four soldiers.66 In
April, lightly armed rebels raided eleven police and military posts. The governments
response, an official report later concluded, was a disproportionate use of force, with more
than one hundred people dying from the ensuing conflict.67 Two significant incidents with
peaking death tolls in particular heightened resentments in the south: the killing of thirty-two
insurgents in Pattanis Krue Se mosque,68 and six months later, in October 2004, the death of
seventy-eight protestors who suffocated whilst being transported from the village, Tak Bai
(Narathiwat), to a nearby army camp. 69 In both events, security officials claimed that
participants were acting under the influence of drugs.70
It is undeniable that the securitisation of the conflict was, to an extent, also a
necessary response to revived militancy, with the number of insurgency-related incidents
increasing from fifty in 2001 to 119 in 2003.71 Nevertheless, the NTS narrative played a
significant role in the securitising moves of the governments in that it linked the political
grievances in the south to a number of other, new threats even though none of these were
really new phenomena. As a result, Thailand adopted an ill-guided approach that at best

60
Marc Askew, "Thailand's Recalcitrant Southern Borderland: Insurgency, Conspiracies and the Disorderly
State," Asian Security, 3:2 (2007), p. 111; "Police: Drug Trafficking Supports Southern Insurgency," Bangkok
Post, 17 November 2005; Srisompob and Panyasak, "Unpacking Thailand's Southern Conflict," pp. 106 and 108.
61
Human Rights Watch, "No One Is Safe," pp. 30-31.
62
International Crisis Group, Southern Thailand: Insurgency, Not Jihad, Asia Report No. 98,
(Bangkok/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2005), pp. 35-36.
63
Human Rights Watch, "Not Enough Graves."; International Crisis Group, Southern Thailand, pp. 35-36;
Joseph Chinyong Liow and Don Pathan, Confronting Ghosts: Thailands Shapeless Southern Insurgency, Lowy
Institute Paper 30, (Double Bay New South Wales: Lowy Institute for International Policy, 2010), p. 57.
64
Michael K. Connors, "Thailand and the United States: Beyond Hegemony," in Bush and Asia: America's
Evolving Relations with East Asia, ed. Mark Beeson, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), p. 158.
65
See for example Zachary Abuza, "Borderlands, Terrorism, and Insurgency in Southeast Asia," in The
Borderlands of Southeast Asia: Geopolitics, Terrorism, and Globalization, ed. James Clad, Sean M. McDonald,
and Bruce Vaugh, (Washington D.C.: National Defence University Press, 2011), pp. 100-101.
66
International Crisis Group, Southern Thailand, p. 17.
67
Senate Committee on Armed Forces Presentation, quoted in Human Rights Watch, "No One Is Safe," p. 17.
68
International Crisis Group, Southern Thailand, pp. 22-23; Liow and Pathan, Confronting Ghosts, p. 65.
69
International Crisis Group, Southern Thailand, pp. 27-29.
70
Srisompob and Panyasak, "Unpacking Thailand's Southern Conflict," p. 106.
71
Melvin, Conflict in Southern Thailand, p. 30.; see also Aurel Croissant, "Unrest in South Thailand: Contours,
Causes, and Consequences Since 2001," Contemporary Southeast Asia, 27:1 (2005), pp. 21-43.

11
failed to stop the violence, and quite possibly created conditions that further fueled the
conflict.72
Thaksin proclaimed the first victory in the war on drugs in May 2003; the second
followed in December. 73 Although thereafter the narcotics-narrative in relation to the
violence in the south re-appeared only occasionally,74 the clamp down had marked a major
turning point in the securitisation of the insurgency. Following the escalation of violence in
2004, several exceptional measures were put in place.75 The southern provinces were put
under martial law and in 2005 Thaksin decreed a state of emergency. The special regulations
have been renewed on an almost continuous basis for most parts of the region. Subsequent
governments have mobilised additional security forces and several tens of thousands of
civilians have volunteered for militias operating at the village-level. Since 2004, the same
approach was maintained although a superficial modification in policy appeared to have
taken place after Thaksin was ousted in a coup in 2006. The interim government under
Surayud Chulanont reversed several of Thaksins policies, including an administrative
reshuffling,76 and Surayud began his tenure with a public apology for the Tak Bai incident.77
The everyday practices of securitisation, however, remained unchanged. The Thai army
maintained a de facto veto on the South during the premierships of Abhisit Vejjajiva and
Yingluck Shinawatra which followed Surayuds, and further consolidated its grip on the
south after installing a military dictatorship in 2014.78 Under its direct influence, it was
unthinkable that the insurgency could be moved out of the realm of security.
The hegemons role in the war on drugs was not straightforward. In line with a
Gramscian perspective, hegemony was rarely based on coercion but mainly on consent,
whether conscious or unconscious. In fact, the NTS agenda did not even require identical
interests. The high number of deaths and arrests drew international criticism including from
Washington. Nevertheless, in a speech at the Thai Army Headquarters, US President George
W. Bush praised the joint efforts with Thailand in combating drug trade and international
terrorism.79 Curiously, however, the GWoT did not emerge as an official narrative justifying
a hard line against the insurgency. This is especially surprising given the temporary
congregation of the upsurge of violence, on the one hand with the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the
US, and the subsequent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq on the other. Quite to the contrary,
observers unanimously note that the Thai officials framed the conflict in the south in the
rather abstract terms of injustice and disenfranchisement, denying it both a political as well
as a religious dimension.80 The failure of securitisation to rely on the most readily available
frame is puzzling given the obvious religious element in a number of symbolically charged

72
"Unrest in South Thailand," pp. 21-43; Melvin, Conflict in Southern Thailand, p. 30.; on forms of violence
indirectly related to the unrest, see Marc Askew, "Insurgency and the Market for Violence in Southern
Thailand," Asian Survey, 50:6 (2010), pp. 1107-1134.
73
Human Rights Watch, "Not Enough Graves," pp. 11-12.
74
See, for example, International Crisis Group, Southern Thailand, p. 26; Wichayant Boonchote and Waedo
Harai, "Smuggling Fuels UnrestSonthi," Bangkok Post, 25 June 2010.
75
International Crisis Group, Thailand: The Evolving Conflict in the South, Asia Report No. 241,
(Bangkok/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2012), pp. 10-11.
76
Askew, "Thailand's Recalcitrant Southern Borderland," pp. 99-120.
77
Harish and Liow, "The Coup and the Conflict in Southern Thailand," pp. 161-184.
78
Askew, "Thailand's Recalcitrant Southern Borderland," p. 99; Funston, Southern Thailand: The Dynamics of
Conflict, p. 6; Duncan McCargo, "Autonomy for Southern Thailand: Thinking the Unthinkable?," Pacific
Affairs, 83:2 (2010), p. 271.
79
White House, "President Discusses War on Terror in Thailand," 19 October, 2003.
80
Askew, "Insurgency and the Market," pp. 1107-1134; Duncan McCargo, "Thailand's National Reconciliation
Commission: A Flawed Response to the Southern Conflict," Global Change, Peace & Security, 22:1 (2010), pp.
75-91.

12
attacks against Buddhist targets.81 Although the insurgency has had no demonstrated links
with internationally operating Islamist terrorist networks, the potential for such influences has
been widely stressed. 82 Since 2003, for instance, the US Department of States annual
Terrorism Reports highlighted the Souths vulnerability to radical influences due to religious
sympathies or discontent among Muslim populations.83
While official illocutionary speech acts based on the GWoT frame were absent, de
facto securitisation, however, took place to some extent in the form of unofficial speech acts
and securitising practices drawing on the religious frame. Patrick Jory showed that other than
in official statements, the insurgency developed from one being defined as Malay into one
being identified as Muslim.84 Likewise, McCargo notes that anti-Muslim rhetoric became
widespread while media commentary and academic discussion portrayed the insurgency as
Islamic militancy in line with a global trend of Muslim radicalisation.85 Illustrative examples,
for how images of a conflict fundamentally religious in nature were created by the states
security policies, are the militarisation of Buddhist temples,86 and state-sponsored programs
that have sought to promote inter-religious dialogue and understanding, thereby further
emphasising religious differences. One such initiative was a 2003 US Fulbright grant for the
Promotion of Religious Tolerance in Southern Thailand.87 Thus, it is possible to conclude
that disquiet over possible links to global jihad did influence the governments approach in
the south.
The fact that the GWoT frame failed to be applied to the south is explained by
identical preferences on part of the Thai and US governments. In Thailand, the ruling elites
had no intention to allow the intervention of third actors in the conflict,88 and sought to assure
tourists that Thailand was a safe tourist destination. 89 Most importantly, framing the
insurgency in terms of injustice rather than as religious in nature reflected Thailands strife
for national unity through assimilation rather through the inclusion of different religious and
ethnic groups. 90 Together, these considerations were reflected in Thailands generally
supportive, yet not unconditional approach to security cooperation with the US in the wake of
9/11.91 On the USs side, the dominant security narrative with regards to radicalisation and
Islam internationally corresponded only in part with Washingtons policy stance in Thailand.
Washington feared that direct US involvement would further alienate southern Muslims and
prompt the involvement of international terrorist groups. 92 Therefore, official statements
stressed above all the domestic origins of the unrest. The USs stance reinforced the Thai
81
See Liow and Pathan, Confronting Ghosts.
82
Paul Ehrlich, "Southern Exposure," Asia Sentinel, 4 July 2006.
83
United States Department of State, "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003,"(United States Department of State,
April 2004).
84
Patrick Jory, "From Melayu Patani to Thai Muslim: The Spectre of Ethnic Identity in Southern Thailand,"
South East Asia Research, 15:2 (2007), pp. 255-279.
85
McCargo, "Autonomy for Southern Thailand," p. 267; "Thai Buddhism, Thai Buddhists and the Southern
Conflict," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40:1 (2009), p. 2.
86
Michael Jerryson, "Appropriating a Space for Violence: State Buddhism in Southern Thailand," Journal of
Southeast Asian Studies, 40:1 (2009), pp. 33-57.
87
United States Department of State, The U.S. Record 2003-2004, (Washington, D.C.: United States
Department of State, 2004), p. 106.
88
Askew, "Insurgency and the Market," p. 1117.
89
Ukrist Pathmanand, "Thaksin's Achilles' Heel: The Failure of Hawkish Approaches in the Thai South,"
Critical Asian Studies, 38:1 (2006), pp. 75-76.
90
Jory, "From Melayu Patani to Thai Muslim," pp. 255-279.
91
Murphy, "United States Relations with Southeast Asia," pp. 270-271; Connors, "Thailand and the United
States," pp. 141-142.
92
Matthew Z. Wheeler, "The USA, the War on Terror, and the Violence in Southernmost Thailand," in
Imagined Land? State and Southern Violence in Thailand, ed. Chaiwat Satha-Anand, (Tokyo: Research Institute
for Language and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 2009), p. 3.

13
states position denying the southern insurgency a political dimension despite the securitising
practices carried out. Refusing to acknowledge the militants political demands as legitimate
claims, Thailands official position has limited the range of policy options towards a narrow,
and in this sense a distorted approach.93
Since the early 2000s, in consequence of the escalation facilitated by the war on drugs,
the dominant approach to the insurgency has remained highly securitised. Following
Thaksins ouster in 2006, the official discourse put greater emphasis on reconciliation, but the
security frame of the GWoT continued to strengthen the tendency to downplay the religious
and political elements of the insurgency although these were for the first time tentatively
acknowledged in 2012. The prevailing approach has hindered open discussion of an
autonomy arrangement as a solution to the conflict, and can therefore be seen as a distorted
answer to a phenomenon that has become intertwined with hegemonic security readings. In
conclusion, securitisation does not constitute a linear causal arrow that runs from hegemonic
influence to violence in the Deep South. Through several speech acts and sustained practices,
the war on drugs frame had a direct influence on the conflict in that it legitimised exceptional
measures whose demonstrated impact created the conditions for further escalation of the
southern conflict. Under the GWoT frame, securitising moves took the form of unofficial
speech acts and again, substantial and sustained practices. Its impact was less direct, however,
as it helped to strengthen an erratic, though already existing approach, rather than enabling a
new policy.

Indonesia and Papua

Unlike the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, the western half was colonised by the
Dutch and was the easternmost part of the Dutch East Indies. Nevertheless, Papua94 was
largely neglected and prior to WWII, the colonial presence was a handful of administrative
posts whilst Christian missionaries had a more extensive infrastructure and network of
contacts in Papuan society than the colonial authorities, such that the importance of the
Christian churches in Papua today reflects this history.95 Hence, the colonial experience of
Papua was different from the rest of the Dutch East Indies, and therefore, the Papuans were
generally shielded from the independence movement and did not join the revolution.96
When the Dutch finally transferred sovereignty to Indonesia on 27 December 1949, Papua
was not included in the handover, with the Dutch citing various ethnic, cultural and religious
differences between Papua and the rest of Indonesia.97 Although US pressure over the Dutch
led to Indonesias independence, the USs initial reluctance to support the independence
struggle led to profound disillusionment among nationalist leaders with the US.98 The
Netherlands subsequently inaugurated the New Guinea Council and raised the Morning Star
Flag (which would thereafter come to symbolise the struggle for independence) in 1961 as a
first step towards independence for Papua (then Dutch New Guinea).
Nonetheless, the newly decolonised Indonesia was adamant in encompassing all parts
of the former Dutch East Indies, that being its nation-building narrative. President Sukarno

93
See McCargo, "Autonomy for Southern Thailand," pp. 261-281.
94
This article uses the more politically neutral Papua to refer to the western half of New Guinea as opposed to
the more connotative West Papua used by Papuan nationalists, and Papua province to refer to the central
administrative division of the Indonesian-held parts of the island.
95
International Crisis Group, Indonesia: Ending Repression in Irian Jaya, Asia Report No. 23, (Jakarta/Brussels:
International Crisis Group, 2001), p. 3.
96
Jacques Bertrand, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004), p. 144.
97
International Crisis Group, Indonesia: Ending Repression in Irian Jaya, p. 3.
98
Murphy, "United States Relations with Southeast Asia," p. 251.

14
set up Operation Trikora under the command of General Suharto, president after Sukarno, to
liberate Papua and further made Indonesias case to the United Nations (UN) General
Assembly, albeit unsuccessfully.99 Amidst the context of the Cold War and the fear of
Indonesia joining the communist block [sic], the United States lobbied other Western
governments to stop supporting the Dutch policy on Papua. 100 The 1962 New York
Agreement was eventually agreed upon between the Netherlands and Indonesia, and Papua
was first temporarily administered by the UN (renamed as West Irian), before being
transferred to Indonesia in 1963. The New York Agreement further referred to an
opportunity to exercise freedom of choice, and of consultations with representative
councils on procedures and methods to be adopted for ascertaining the freely expressed will
of the population with no mention made of the critical words referendum or plebiscite,
and in accordance, the Act of Free Choice was carried out in 1969 under the supervision of
the UN. 101 1,025 traditional leaders from Papua were brought to Jakarta where they
unanimously voted for Papua to join Indonesia, although most observers around 1962
agreed that a majority of urban Papuans preferred independence to the option of joining
Indonesia.102 Suharto subsequently banned the Morning Star Flag and changed the name of
the territory to Irian Jaya, which literally means Victorious Irian. Thus, Papua had not
shared much of the nation-building experience of the struggle against the Dutch or the
immediate post-revolution period years, having been the object of the struggle rather than
participants in it.103
Since the territory was transferred to Indonesia, its pattern of rule can be said to
consist of three core strategies: (1) modernisation, promoting large-scale development
projects and immigration that do not benefit ordinary Papuans; (2) isolationism, making
Papua a military operations area (DOM) from 1969 till the fall of Suharto in 1998; and (3)
repression by an occupying military and police force, including the widespread use of
torture.104 The Free Papua Organisation (OPM), essentially a low level guerilla resistance
movement arose especially as a reaction towards Suhartos repressive New Order when he
took over Sukarno to fight for Papuan independence.105 Though the OPM became the
principal institution to wage an armed resistance against the Indonesian government, it was
however sporadic, ad hoc and localized, never fully threatening Indonesian sovereignty
over the territory; indeed, its representation of Papuan identity and national aspirations was
of much greater importance. 106 Nevertheless, putting Papua under a DOM with the
declaration of a military emergency meant the dominance of the military in Papua under
Suharto, especially the Kopassus, the special branch of the Indonesian army, which has led
to large-scale violations of human rights, with allegedly more than 100,000 Papuans killed

99
Jim Elmslie, Irian Jaya Under the Gun: Indonesian Economic Development Versus West Papuan Nationalism,
(Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002), p. 19; John Saltford, "United Nations Involvement with the Act
of Self-Determination in West Irian (Indonesian West New Guinea) 1968 to 1969," Indonesia:69 (2000), p. 72.
100
The Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Current Asia, and The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Conflict
Management in Indonesia - An Analysis of the Conflicts in Maluku, Papua and Poso, (Geneva: Centre for
Humanitarian Dialogue, 2011), p. 33.
101
Saltford, "United Nations Involvement with the Act of Self-Determination in West Irian," p. 74.
102
Bertrand, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia, p. 147.
103
Richard Chauvel, "Violence and Governance in West Papua," in Violent Conflicts in Indonesia: Analysis,
Representation, Resolution, ed. Charles A. Coppel, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), pp. 180-191.
104
Jason MacLeod, "West Papua: Civil Resistance, Framing, and Identiy, 1910s-2012," in Recovering
Nonviolent History: Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles, ed. Maciej J. Bartkowski, (Boulder: Lynne
Rienner, 2013), p. 221.
105
Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, "Indonesian Nationalism Today and in the Future," Indonesia:67 (1999), p. 5.
106
Chauvel, "Violence and Governance in West Papua," 181, emphasis removed.

15
since May 1963.107 The ongoing separatist struggle in Papua can therefore be said to be
fueled by five mutually reinforcing grievances: (1) the original sin, the sham Act of Free
Choice; (2) state sanctioned repression and human rights violations; (3) economic injustice
whereupon Papuan resources were leeched, (4) migration into Papua diluting the Papuan
identity and culture, and (5) institutionalised racism and indigenous disadvantage and
marginalization in Papua against the Papuans.108
It was evident that during the period before Papua was transferred to Indonesia, the
issue was securitised. Sukarno, in his Independence Day anniversary address of 1950, the
first after the end of the War of Independence, stated quite unequivocally that:
[The Irian question] is not a trifling question; this is a major issue. I fear that the
Netherlands does not yet understand that the Irian question is a major issue to
us . . . The Irian question is a question of colonialism or non-colonialism, a
question of colonialism or independence. Part of our country is still colonized by
the Dutch . . . and we do not accept this . . . according to our Constitution, Irian
is also Indonesian territory . . . If a settlement by negotiation cannot be
arrived . . . a major conflict will arise over the issue of who will be in power in
that island . . . we will not stop fighting . . . until Irian has been returned to our
fold.109
The referent object herein was the unity of the newly independent state of Indonesia. The
security practices adopted thereafter included the aforementioned diplomatic and military
struggle against the Dutch, which further had broad support from all political groups in
Indonesia.110 This skillful mixture of diplomacy and threats of military force, including a
show of strength when Indonesia dropped 1,500 paratroopers into Papua, was ultimately
successful in getting the Dutch to concede Papua.111 Furthermore, the US played a not
insignificant role in pressuring the Dutch into doing so out of fear that failure would push
Sukarno and Indonesia into the communist camp, not that it did the US much good since
Indonesia remained out of the democratic-capitalist camp as well, becoming a founding
member of the NAM in 1961.
Once Papua was amalgamated however, the discourse shifted. During Suhartos New
Order, although separatist sentiments and the continuing activities of the OPM caused a
DOM to be declared over Papua with military repression unrelenting, if not worsening, such
practices were not a result of any overarching securitising move by the policy makers. Dave
McRae, analysing the discourse on separatists in Indonesia, found that although a nodal point
to this discourse was the idea of Indonesian national unity, this was mapped to an idea that
the territories wanting to secede and the people in them were less developed, or somehow
otherwise inferior, compared with other Indonesian territories where separatist movements
were inactive, 112 rather than an existential threat. Furthermore, separatists were also
frequently placed into three categories, the other nodal points of: (1) security disturbing
gang (GPK) which connotes criminality and threatening order, thereby depoliticising such
separatist movements and further dehumanising the separatists which in turn legitimised

107
Bilveer Singh, "Autonomy and Armed Separatism in Papua: Why the Cendrawasih Continues to Fear the
Garuda," in Autonomy and Armed Separatism in South and Southeast Asia, ed. Michelle Ann Miller, (Singapore:
ISEAS Publishing, 2012), 63.
108
MacLeod, "West Papua," pp. 220-221.
109
Quoted in Robert C. Bone, The Dynamics of the Western New Guinea (Irian Barat) Problem, (Ithaca, New
York: Modern Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Department of Far Eastern Studies, Cornell
University, 1958), pp. 85-86.
110
Chauvel, "Violence and Governance in West Papua," p. 180.
111
Saltford, "United Nations Involvement with the Act of Self-Determination in West Irian," p. 72; Elmslie,
Irian Jaya Under the Gun, p. 19.
112
Dave McRae, "A Discourse on Separatists," Indonesia:74 (2002), pp. 38-39.

16
violence by the state; (2) communist, since by invoking the specter of communism,
Suhartos government could resist dissent, justifying the need for state supervision of all
spheres of life, bearing in mind that the official narrative of the New Order coming into
being was consequent upon foiling a coup by the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI); and
(3) foreign pawns, which evoked the fear of neocolonialism.113 Thus, the Indonesian state
cast the separatist movements, and indeed, the people of those wantaway territories, as the
metaphorical inferior other. Not only was the Papuan separatist threat not securitised as an
existential threat, even by the military, it was indeed desecuritised and criminalised, although
admittedly, the separatist threat did not amount to much objectively. The actions of the
military were therefore more economically motivated, about exploiting Papua like the
colonial powers did to their Othered colonies an age past,114 rather than security oriented;
General LB Moerdani, then commander-in-chief of the Indonesia military, even declared in
1984 that the OPM was a big zero in military terms.115 Moreover, during the period of the
Cold War, the US was primarily concerned about communist influence in Indonesia rather
than the violations of human rights in secessionist territories in Indonesia.116 The Indonesian
military therefore continued to act with impunity in Papua, milking its resources.
Similarly, under the reformation era following the fall of Suharto, Papuan
separatism was more a political issue than a security issue. When B. J. Habibie became
president, he relaxed political controls in Papua, even lifting its DOM in October 1998, and
was willing to investigate Papuan grievances and propose some solution, culminating in
an unprecedented meeting of 100 Papuan representatives with President Habibie in
February 2009.117 In this meeting however, Habibie held fast to the idea of Indonesian unity
(although he had suggested a referendum for East Timor in the preceding months), telling the
delegates that founding a country isnt easy.118 Habibie was spooked by the demand for
independence the 100 Papuan representatives brought forth and political control hence
tightened again thereafter. The government planned to further divide the territory into three
administrative provinces, although this was scrapped after Abdurrahman Wahid succeeded
Habibie in late-1999. Wahid was more liberal. He sanctioned the use of the Morning Star
Flag as long as it flew thirty centimeters below the Indonesian flag, allowed the name
Papua to be used again, and also granted permission for the holding of a Papuan
Congress, further contributing money to that effect. 119 However, the Second Papuan
Congress, convened in June 2000, subsequently declared that Papua was an independent and
sovereign nation. 120 The governments response to the Congress thereafter was
inconsistent; although Wahid publicly denounced the Congress as illegitimate, he
continued to espouse an open approach, while military and police forces in Papua used a
more repressive one, cracking down on the flying of the Morning Star Flag and inciting a
spate of violence, such as the clashes in Wamena in October 2000.121 Nonetheless, a political
solution was still being sought in the form of special autonomy for Papua.
113
Ibid., pp. 41-45.
114
Timo Kivimki and Ruben Thorning, "Democratization and Regional Power Sharing in Papua/Irian Jaya:
Increased Opportunities and Decreased Motivations for Violence," Asian Survey, 42:4 (2002), pp. 654-655.
115
Quoted in McRae, "A Discourse on Separatists," fn 18.
116
Bruce Vaugh, "Indonesia: Domestic Politics, Strategic Dynamics, and U.S. Interests," in Congressional
Research Service Report for Congress(31 January 2011), p. 2.
117
Bertrand, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia, pp. 154-155.
118
Quoted in Human Rights Watch, "Indonesia: Human Rights and Pro-Independence Actions in Papua, 1999-
2000," Human Rights Watch, 12:2 (May 2000), p. 14.
119
Octovianus Mote and Danilyn Rutherford, "From Irian Java to Papua: The Limits of Primordialism in
Indonesia's Troubled East," Indonesia:72 (2001), p. 131.
120
The Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Current Asia, and The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Conflict
Management in Indonesia, p. 36.
121
Bertrand, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia, pp. 157-158.

17
 Such inconsistency continued after Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Sukarno
(who had won Papua from the Dutch), replaced Wahid in July 2001. In her 2001
Independence Day speech, she apologized for the Indonesian governments treatment of the
Papuans and stated her commitment to rectifying past injustices, but clearly affirmed her
strong opposition to Papuan independence.122 Megawati further signed Law 21/2001 on
special autonomy in Papua on 21 November 2001, although she made no secret of her deep
suspicion of the arrangement; the establishment of the Papuan Peoples Council (MRP), the
core element of the Papuan special autonomy provisions, was nevertheless delayed, which
further led to widespread frustrations with the central government in Papua and even turned
political moderates into proponents of a more radical stance.123 Nonetheless, there was no
major upsurge in violence requiring a potential securitisation of the issue, nor were they
pressures or demands to do so, not even when Megawati divided Papua into two by carving
out West Irian Jaya province (later renamed West Papua) under pressure from Indonesian
intelligence to block expansion of the separatist movement after a rise in pro-independence
activity.124 The MRP was only established after Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took over
Megawati. In his first Independence Day address to Parliament, he stated that: The
government wishes to solve the issue in Papua in a peaceful, just and dignified manner by
emphasising dialogue and persuasion. The policy for the settlement of the issue in Papua is
focused on consistent implementation of special autonomy as a just, comprehensive and
dignified solution.125 Greater autonomy and accelerated development was Yudhoyonos
twin-pronged political strategy to address Papuan secessionism thus. In the 2007
Independence Day address to Parliament, he emphasised wider autonomy for the West
Papua and Papua provinces, and in 2008, he noted that Papua had registered concrete
progress.126
Since the fall of Suharto, the Papuan issue has not been securitised, but simply
politicised. In all this, the US only played a marginal role. When the US placed an arms
embargo on Indonesia from 1991 to 2006 in response to human rights violations in East
Timor and Papua, Indonesia bought Russian military hardware instead; when the US House
of Representatives passed a bill requiring the secretary of state to submit a report on the
controversial Act of Free Choice, Yudhoyono, on a visit to China, warned the United States
not to intervene in domestic Indonesian affairs and a State Department spokesman
immediately reaffirmed U.S. recognition of Indonesian sovereignty within the countrys
current borders.127 There was therefore no hegemonic distortion of Indonesias treatment of
the Papuan separatist movement.

122
Ibid., p. 159.
123
Marcus Mietzner, "Local Elections and Autonomy in Papua and Aceh: Mitigating or Fuelling
Secessionism?," Indonesia:84 (2007), p. 6.
124
Cillian Nolan, Sidney Jones, and Solahudin, "The Political Impact of Carving Up Papua," in Regional
Dynamics in a Decentralized Indonesia, ed. Hal Hill, (Singapore ISEAS Publishing, 2014), p. 412.
125
Quoted in The Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Current Asia, and The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue,
Conflict Management in Indonesia, p. 38.
126
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, "State Address of the President of the Republic of Indonesia and the
Government Statement on the Bill on the State Budget for the 2008 Fiscal Year and its Financial Note Before
the Plenary Session of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia," 16 August 2007, accessed 6
June 2016, http://www.setneg.go.id/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=688&Itemid=129; "State
Address of the President of the Republic of Indonesia and the Government Statement on the Draft State
Revenues and Expenditures for the 2009 Fiscal Year and its Financial Note Before the Plenary Session of the
House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia," 15 August 2008, accessed 6 June 2016,
http://www.setneg.go.id/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2520&Itemid=26.
127
Damien Kingsbury, "Indonesia in 2007: Unmet Expectations, Despite Improvement," Asian Survey, 48:1
(2008), p. 44; R. William Liddle and Saiful Mujani, "Indonesia in 2005: A New Multiparty Presidential
Democracy," Asian Survey, 46:1 (2006), p. 139.

18
Conclusion

So-called non-traditional security threats have had long traditions in Southeast Asia. Piracy
has been a perennial concern for the maritime states; terrorism has been prevalent in various
countries; and often linked to various separatist movements which arose as a result of the
import of the concepts of Westphalian states and Western sovereignty with the advent of
the colonial powers into a region where before, conceptions of space and power were more
fluid and characterised as mandalas;128 just to name a few. Nevertheless, these old threats
took on a new NTS patina and came increasingly onto the security agendas of the Southeast
Asian states. We argue that part of the reason for this can be attributed to hegemonic
distortion, and the extent to which threats became securitised per an NTS agenda was a
function of the closeness in alignment of the state in question to the hegemon therefore.
Drawing upon a securitisation approach that takes into account both securitising speech acts
and security practices as a proxy to our dependent variable of the extent to which the
hegemonic NTS agenda is mapped domestically, and the alignment to the US as our
independent variable, we demonstrated this deductively in our case studies of the separatist
movements in Thailand and Indonesia. We traced how the separatist movement in the Thai
Deep South was securitised when mapped onto the war on drugs by Thaksin, enabling a
crackdown on narcotics. The potential relation between radicalised Thai Muslims and
international Islamist movements was avoided in the official narrative, due to overlapping
interests between the Thai and the US governments, and the approach by the Thai state
denying the insurgency a political and religious dimension was therefore wrongly guided by
the influence of the hegemonic NTS agenda, distorting Thailands policy towards the south,
leading to an escalation of violence. Indonesia on the other hand was a much more
straightforward case. The separatist movement in Papua was actually desecuritised after the
territory was ceded to Indonesia by the Dutch under pressure from the Americans. From time
to time, the Papuan question became politicised without, however, representing an existential
threat to the Indonesian republic, with the US sidelined despite its concerns over human
rights in Papua.
To be sure, we did not make the case that the USs security agenda has been
transplanted wholesale to the region. Discourses and ideas are adapted locally when
transmitted into distinct environments and adopted in relation to particular events. Moreover,
a claim that the NTS agenda was imposed in a one-to-one fashion to Southeast Asia would
overestimate the USs hegemonic influence, and also most likely overstating its intentions.
Instead, the article proposed a different interpretation of the rise of the NTS agenda in the
region where the degree of hegemonic distortion is a function of closeness in alignment that
affects the states response to such threats. As shown in the Thai case study, the fact that drug
trafficking and amphetamine consumption could readily be portrayed as a national security
threat requiring drastic measures escalated the southern conflict. Thereby, the subtle effects
of hegemonic distortion as a largely un-reflected set of beliefs were more powerful than was
the USs direct influence in the given context.
This article has therefore highlighted the side effects of alignment with the United
States. In order to find adequate responses to phenomena threatening the security of states in
Southeast Asia, and the well-being of their peoples thus, a more fundamental emancipation

128
See Wolters. O. W., History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives, Revised ed., (Ithaca, New
York and Singapore: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
1999); Alan Chong, "Premodern Southeast Asia as a Guide to International Relations between Peoples: Prowess
and Prestige in Intersocietal Relations in the Sejarah Melayu," Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 37:2
(2012), pp. 87-105.

19
from dominant ideas and a strategic rethink will be needed, which could potentially affect
current military and non-military cooperation with the hegemon as adjustments following
national imperatives are made.

20