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Abstract
Indonesia has seen excessive political violence in the first years since the end of autocratic rule under former president Suharto. Documented violence has ranged from separatist struggle to communal strife to terrorist attacks. The International Crisis Group (icg) has reported extensively on the conflicts underlying this violence and has formulated policy advice on how to overcome them. While the icg’s reports on Indonesia have been acknowledged for their detailed and accurate account of micro-level violence, their recommendations reveal their political objectives. The icg’s panacea for overcoming violent conflicts is institution building and security sector reform, which are centrepieces of the ‘standard programme’ of liberal peace- and state building. However, it is not only its policy advice but all the icg’s publications in general that aim to diffuse the liberal governance agenda. This article argues that, through the narrative technique of epideictic oratory, the icg is aiming to educate its audience into a liberal governmentality characterised by practices and procedures which effect a de-politicisation of violence, foster liberal forms of governance and self-government and thus contribute to sustaining liberalism as a global ‘regime of power’.
Acknowledgements
Research for this article was carried out within the context of the Postdoc ‘Brückenförderung für Wissenschaftlerinnen’, a German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt research grant.
Notes
1. Jones, “State-building vs State-formation,” 95–118; Molnar, Timor Leste, 46–83; and Savage, Dancing with the Devil.
2. Schulze, The Free Aceh Movement; and Aspinall, The Helsinki Agreement.
3. Pringle, Understanding Islam, 143–154. See also van Klinken, Communal Violence and Democratization; McRae, A Few Poorly Organized Men; and Sidel, Riots, Pogroms, Jihad.
4. Pringle, Understanding Islam, 158–159. See also Abuza, Political Islam.
5. Abuza, Political Islam, 39–40; and Sidel, Riots, Progroms, Jihad, 5.
6. Ferdowsi and Matthies, Den Frieden gewinnen, 32.
7. Church, “Epideictic without the Praise.”
8. Abelson, Do Think Tanks Matter?
9. Bell and Evans, “Post-interventionary Societies,” 363–370; Park, “Peacebuilding,” 413–432; and Duffield, Global Governance.
10. Rouse, “Power/Knowledge,” 106.
11. Church, “Epideictic without the Praise,” 1.
12. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Die neue Rhetorik, 70–73.
13. Church, “Epideictic without the Praise,” 4.
14. DuBois, “The Governance of the Third World,” 8.
15. icg, The Deadly Costs of Poor Policing, i.
16. icg, Rethinking Internal Security Strategy.
17. icg, The Deadly Costs of Poor Policing, i.
18. icg, How Indonesian Extremists Regroup.
19. Rouse, “Power/Knowledge,” 99.
20. Foucault, cited in Simons, Power, Resistance, and Freedom, 313.
21. icg, How Indonesian Extremists Regroup.
22. Ibid.
23. icg, The Deadly Costs of Poor Policing, i.
24. icg, How Indonesian Extremists Regroup.
25. Cf. Church, “Epideictic without the Praise,” 50.
26. icg, Annual Report 2010, 45–46.
27. Cf Bliesemann de Guevara’s introduction to this issue.
28. icg, Next Steps in Military Reform, ii–iii.
29. icg, Indonesia’s Shaky Transition, i.
30. Ibid., ii. The reforms in question are aimed at building a modern, liberal democratic state.
31. Ibid.
32. Rouse, “Power/Knowledge,” 106.
33. icg, Annual Report 2004, 4.
34. Ibid.
35. Almost all cited scientific studies on extremist terrorism and communal violence use, or explicitly refer to icg reports in their analyses.
36. icg, Annual Report 2010, 45; and McGann, Citation2009 Global Go To Think Tanks, 30. icg was listed third among the ‘Top 50 Think Tanks – Worldwide (Non-US)’ in 2009. In 2010 the group dropped to ninth place, in 2012 it was placed sixth in the same survey. McGann, 2011 Global Go To Think Tanks; McGann, Citation2012 Global Go To Think Tanks.
37. icg, Annual Report 2010, 46.
38. icg, Annual Report 2004.
39. Ibid.
40. The icg’s founding fathers were Morton Abramowitz (former US ambassador to Turkey and Thailand and former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Mark Malloch-Brown (former head of the undp, then UN deputy secretary-general and UK minister), and George Mitchell (former US Senator and Mediator in the Northern Ireland conflict). Malloch-Brown serves as co-chair of the board of trustees, of which Abramowitz is still a member. Mitchell is listed as chairman emeritus.
41. Former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans served as the icg’s president and ceo until 2009. Todung Mulya Lubis is an icg board member.
42. Sidney Jones was banned a second time from entering the country in 2005 because of her ‘attitude’ (Jakarta Post, November 29, 2005).
43. Church, “Epideictic without the Praise,” 169.
44. Ibid., 170.
45. icg, National Police Reform.
46. icg, How Indonesian Extremists Regroup, ii (emphasis added).
47. icg, The Deadly Costs of Poor Policing, ii (emphasis added).
48. Aspinall and van Klinken, State and Illigality; and van Klinken and Barker, State of Authority.
49. Church, “Epideictic without the Praise,” 64.
50. icg, The Deadly Costs of Poor Policing, i (emphasis added).
51. Ibid (emphasis added).
52. icg, Preventing Violence in Local Elections, i (emphasis added).
53. icg, Averting Election Violence, i (emphasis added).
54. Ibid (emphasis added).
55. Perelman and Tyteca, Die neue Rhetorik, 75.
56. Aspinall and van Klinken, The State and Illegality; van Klinken and Barker, State of Authority; and Sidel, Riots, Progroms, Jihad.
57. Zimmerli, cited in Saretzki, “Demokratisierung von Expertise?,” 382.
58. Saretzki, “Demokratisierung von Expertise?”, 281–348. Saretzki identifies four immanent limits – the normative, the local, the disciplinary and the epistemic limit – to expert knowledge, which those in policy consulting principally and necessarily have to cross to formulate policy recommendations based on scientific insights.