Kumar Ramakrishna is Associate Professor and Head of the Centre of Excellence for National Security at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has been a frequent speaker on counter-terrorism before local and international audiences, a regular media commentator on the issue and published in numerous internationally refereed journals. He has co-edited two well-received books on counter-terrorism, The New Terrorism: Anatomy, Trends and Counter-Strategies (2002) as well as After Bali: The Threat of Terrorism in Southeast Asia (2004). His first major book, Emergency Propaganda: The Winning of Malayan Hearts and Minds, 1948-1958, (2002) was described by The International History Review as “required reading for historians of Malaya, and for those whose task is to counter insurgents, guerrillas, and-terrorists”. In May 2012, his most recent book, Radical Pathways: Understanding Muslim Radicalization in Indonesia (2009), was identified by Perspectives on Terrorism as one of the top 150 books on terrorism and counter-terrorism as well as “an important and insightful case study on the pathways to extremism and violent jihad in Indonesia”.

• Acknowledgements.- Chapter 1: Is Ideology the ‘Root’ of Islamist Terrorism in Indonesia?.- 1.1: An Encounter with a Terrorist – And an Epiphany.- 1.2: The Overall Argument at a Glance.- 1.3: The Three Limitations of Extant Scholarship on Islamist Militancy in Indonesia.- 1.4: Research Note.- 1.5: The Plan of the Book.- References.- Part 1: The Human Nature Triad Unpacked – The Manichean Mindset, Embattled Religiosity and Violent Fundamentalism.- Chapter 2: The Origins of the ‘Manichean Mindset’.- 2.1: Introduction.- 2.2: The Great Human Nature Debate.- 2.3: Evolutionary Psychology and our Ancestral Shadow.- 2.4: Darwin, Individual Selection and the Thorny Issue of Cooperation.- 2.5: The Rise of Human ‘Groupishness’.- 2.6: Social Categorization, Group Selection and the Uncomfortable Logic of Between-Group Competition.- 2.7: Binary Oppositions, the Human Need for Control and the ‘Group Tent’.- 2.8: The Manichean Mindset Deconstructed.- 2.9: Conclusion.- References.- Chapter 3: The Embattled Religiosity of Religious Fundamentalism.- 3.1: Introduction.- 3.2: The Religiosity Instinct and the Cultural Artefact of Religion.- 3.3: Religion as an Evolutionary By-Product, Part I: The Pattern-Seeking, Storytelling, Mythmaking Individual.- 3.4: Religion as an Evolutionary By-Product, Part II: The Hyper-Active Agency Detection Device.- 3.5: Religion as an Evolutionary Adaptation for the Group: Beyond Kin and Direct Reciprocity.- 3.6: Enter the Meme.- 3.7: The Manichean Mindset, Religious Fundamentalism and the Potential for Violence.- 3.8: Conclusion.- References.- Chapter 4: Six Steps Towards Violent Fundamentalism.- 4.1: Introduction.- 4.2: Violent Radicalization, Extremism or Fundamentalism: What’s in a Name?.- 4.2.1: A New Synthesis: Cognitive Radicalization as Drastic Identity Simplification.- 4.2.2: Cognitive Radicalism and Cognitive Extremism.- 4.3: A Tight Counterculture.- 4.3.1: Understanding Culture.- 4.3.2: Culture’s EvolutionaryRationale.- 4.3.3: ‘Tight’ Cultures.- 4.3.4: Relevant Dimensions of Culture.- 4.3.5: Tight Countercultures.- 4.4: An Enabling Ideology.- 4.5: The Protean Charismatic Group: Converging Perspectives.- 4.5.1: The Complexity Element of the Human Nature Triad.- 4.5.2: The Charismatic Group as Complex Adaptive System.- 4.6: Intragroup Psychic Dynamics.- 4.6.1: The Power of the Situation.- 4.6.2: The Impulse to Conform.- 4.6.3: De-individuation.- 4.6.4: Obedience to Authority.- 4.6.5: The Dispositionist Objection.- 4.6.6: The Echo Chamber Effect.- 4.6.7: Online Groups, Optimal Group Size, and Fuzzy Boundaries.- 4.7: The Power of Social Humiliation.- 4.8: The Enabling Environment.- 4.9: Conclusion.- References.- Part 2: The Human Nature Triad Applied - Violent Islamist Terrorism and Militancy in Indonesia: Origins, Evolution and the Counter-Ideological Response.- Chapter 5: The ‘Glocalized’ Origins of the Darul Islam Counterculture.- 5.1: Introduction.- 5.2: Islam: A Capsule History.- 5.2.1: The Socioecological Milieu.- 5.2.2: The Sufi Emergence.- 5.3: Islam in Southeast Asia.- 5.4: The Glocalization of Southeast Asian Islam and the Emergence of the Traditionalist-Modernist Binary Opposition.- 5.4.1: Glocalization Part I: The Traditionalists Emerge.- 5.4.2: Glocalization, Part II: Three Modernist Responses.- 5.4.2.1: The Wahhabi Tendency.- 5.4.2.2: The Salafi Tendency.- 5.4.2.3: The Islamist Tendency.- 5.5: The Emergence of Violent Islamism.- 5.5.1: Sayyid Qutb.- 5.5.2: ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj.- 5.5.3: Abdullah Azzam.- 5.6: Conclusion.- References.- Chapter 6: The Darul Islam Charismatic Group and its Violent ‘Mutations’.- 6.1: Introduction.- 6.2: SM Kartosoewirjo and the Origins of the Darul Islam Charismatic Group.- 6.3: Abu Bakar Ba’asyir and the Origins of the Jemaah Islamiyah Network.- 6.4: The Many Changing Faces of the Darul Islam Charismatic Group.- 6.5: The Turn to Violence.- 6.5.1: Three Recent Mutations of the Darul Islam Charismatic Group.- 6.5.1.1:Fahrul Tanjung Group in Bandung.- 6.5.1.2: Kumpulan Mujahidin Indonesia in Medan.- 6.5.1.3: Tim Ightiyalat in Klaten.- 6.6: Conclusion.- References.- Chapter 7: Muting Manichean Mindsets in Indonesia: A Counter-Ideological Response.- 7.1: Introduction.- 7.2: Terrorism and Islamist Violence in Indonesia: The Power of the Manichean Mindset.- 7.3: Muting Manichean Mindsets through a Counter-Ideological Response.- 7.3.1: Ideology: Not the Root, but the Center of Gravity.- 7.3.2: Exploiting Ideology to ‘Steer’ the DICG in Desired Directions.- 7.3.3: Steering the DICG via the Counter-Ideological Response Model.- 7.3.4: Sender.- 7.3.5: Message.- 7.3.6: Mechanism.- 7.3.7: Recipient.- 7.3.7.1: The Individual Militant.- 7.3.7.2: The Need for a Systematic Approach to Early Warning of the Individual Transition to Violent Cognitive Extremism.- 7.3.7.3: Cognitive Immunization of the Wider Community: The Challenges.- 7.3.7.4: The Problem with the Neo-Wahhabi Meme.- 7.3.7.5: The Need for Lived and Not Imaginary Islam – and Religion for that Matter.- 7.3.8: Context.- 7.3.8.1: Diminishing the Opportunity to be Violent.- 7.3.8.2: Ameliorating Social Humiliation.- 7.3.8.3: Rethinking Group Tent Status.- 7.4: Three Possible Futures.- 7.4.1: Collapse.- 7.4.2: Evolution.- 7.4.3: Containment.- 7.5: From the General to the Particular – And Back to the General. -References.- Index.