Why did Imam Samudra explode bombs in Balinese nightclubs? It is not possible to answer this question regarding the Bantenese Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra, “field commander” of the Bali bombing of 12 October 2002, without paying due attention to the social and political context provided by his experiences as a youthful member of Darul Islam both in Indonesia and Pakistan, where he studied at the Akademi MiliterMujahidin Afghanistan, and by the outbreak of religious violence in Indonesia from 1999. Yet these same factors also influenced his colleagues within Jema’ah Islamiyah(JI), and most of them strongly disapproved of what he did in Bali. The failure of these contextual factors to fully explain his behaviour encouraged this writer to introduce the personality of Imam Samudra as relevant to the question posed above, not in place of the abovementioned factors, but in interaction with them.

This pioneering study of the Indonesian presidency significantly redefines our understanding of Indonesian politics from independence to the present. Angus McIntyre blends political biography with constitutional history to locate Indonesian leaders within both Indonesian cultural frameworks and the global biographical literature on political leaders.

Why did Imam Samudra explode bombs in Balinese nightclubs? It is not possible to answer this question regarding the Bantenese Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra, “field commander” of the Bali bombing of 12 October 2002, without paying due attention to the social and political context provided by his experiences as a youthful member of Darul Islam both in Indonesia and Pakistan, where he studied at the Akademi MiliterMujahidin Afghanistan, and by the outbreak of religious violence in Indonesia from 1999. Yet these same factors also influenced his colleagues within Jema’ah Islamiyah(JI), and most of them strongly disapproved of what he did in Bali. The failure of these contextual factors to fully explain his behaviour encouraged this writer to introduce the personality of Imam Samudra as relevant to the question posed above, not in place of the abovementioned factors, but in interaction with them.

This pioneering study of the Indonesian presidency significantly redefines our understanding of Indonesian politics from independence to the present. Angus McIntyre blends political biography with constitutional history to locate Indonesian leaders within both Indonesian cultural frameworks and the global biographical literature on political leaders.