Professor Greg Barton
Research Professor in Global Islamic Politics
Institution
Deakin University
Research Area Keywords
Radicalisation, recruitment and disengagement; Countering violent extremism; Salafi jihadi terrorism; Indonesia; Southeast Asia; Islamic thought; Islam and civil society; Democracy and reform in the Muslim world.
Contact: greg.barton@deakin.edu.au
About Greg
Professor Greg Barton is one of Australia’s leading scholars of Islam, Muslim society, terrorism and countering violent extremism with thirty-five years of experience researching Islam and social movements in Indonesia and broader Southeast Asia. He is Research Professor in Global Islamic Politics in the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI), where, since August 2015, he has led research on Islam and civil society, democratisation, and countering violent extremism. From 2007 to 2015 he was the Herb Feith Professor at Monash University where he led research on radicalisation in the Global Terrorism Research Centre (GTReC). He taught at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu from 2006 to 2007, and at Deakin University from 1992 to 2006. He is a Senior Fellow with the UAE-based Hedayah Center in Abu Dhabi working on CVE, and Scholar-in-residence at Asia Society Australia. Prof Barton has near-native fluency in Indonesian.
Since 2016 Professor Barton has been leading the Home Affairs’ Southeast Asian Network of Civil Society Organisations (SEAN-CSO) working together against extremism. Extensively published, for three decades he has conducted research on Indonesian religion, politics and society, especially the role of Islam as both a constructive and a disruptive force. At ADI Deakin he is a key researcher and leader in both the Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism (AVERT) network and in the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS) where is engaged in research into hate and hateful extremism and the interactions between hateful extremism and violent extremism, both in Australia and in Southeast Asia.
His biography of Indonesia president Abdurrahman Wahid and his study of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah have been widely influential. He has been active in the inter-faith dialogue initiatives and has a deep commitment to building understanding of Islam and Muslim society. The central axis of his research interests is the way in which religious thought, individual believers and religious communities respond to modernity and to the modern nation state. He also has a strong general interest in international relations, security studies and comparative international politics. Beginning in 2004 he has made a comparative study of progressive Islamic thought in Turkey and Indonesia. Prof Barton is a frequently interviewed by the Australian and international electronic and print media on Islam, Islamic and Islamist movements, security and terrorism around the world, and on Southeast Asia and the politics of the Muslim world.
His most recent book (co-edited and written with Matteo Vergani) is Countering Violent and Hateful Extremism in Indonesia: Islam, Gender and Civil Society (Palgrave 2022). He is currently working on an ARC Linkage project on Appropriate International Development Intervention Responses to Address Violent and Hateful Extremism in Asia, researching hateful and violent extremism in Indonesia, the Philippines, Mozambique and Kenya; an ARC DP project on Religious Populism, Emotions and Political Mobilisation in Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan; and ARC DP project on Religious diversity in Australia: Strategies to maintain social cohesion.
Publications
Books
Countering Violent and Hateful Extremism in Indonesia: Islam, Gender and Civil Society (2021)
Barton G, Vergani M and Wahid Y (eds.)
The Muslim World and Politics in Transition, Creative Contributions of the Gulen Movement (2013)
Barton G, Weller P and Yilmaz I (eds.)
Jemaah Islamiyah: Radical Islamism in Indonesia (2005)
Barton G
(Also published in 2004 as Indonesia’s Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and radical Islamism)
Abdurrahman Wahid: Muslim Democrat, Indonesian President – a view from the inside (2002)
Barton G
Gagasan Islam Liberal: Telaah terhadap Tulisan-tulisan Nurcholish Madjid, Djohan Effendi, Ahmad Wahib dan Abdurrahman Wahid, 1968-80 (1999)
[Liberal Islamic Thought: A study of the writing of Nurcholish Madjid, Djohan Effendi, Ahmad Wahid and Abdurrahman Wahid]
Barton G
Journal Articles
Holding to account or amplifying extremist hate? A mixed methods analysis of newspaper reporting on far-right crime in Australia (2024)
Richards I, Smith C and Barton G
Development NGO responses to countering violent extremism and hate (2023)
Ware A, Kelly L M and Barton G
Political Mobilisation of Religious, Chauvinist, and Technocratic Populists in Indonesia and Their Activities in Cyberspace (2021)
Yilmaz I and Barton G
Authoritarianism, Democracy, Islamic Movements and Contestations of Islamic Religious Ideas in Indonesia (2021)
Barton G, Yilmaz I and Morieson N
Santri with attitude: support for terrorism and negative attitudes to non-Muslims among Indonesian observant Muslims (2021)
Barton G, Vergani M and Wahid Y
Religious and Pro-Violence Populism in Indonesia: The Rise and Fall of a Far-Right Islamist Civilisationist Movement (2021)
Barton G, Yilmaz I and Morieson N
The Islamic Defenders Front: The Face of Indonesia’s Far Right Islamism (2021)
Yilmaz I and Barton G
Populism, Violence, and Vigilantism in Indonesia: Rizieq Shihab and His Far- Right Islamist Populism (2021)
Yilmaz I and Barton G
Bonding Social Capital, Afghan Refugees, and Early Access to Employment (2021)
Vergani M, Barry J, Yilmaz I, Bashirov G, Barton G, Barton SM
Religious Diversity in Australia: Rethinking Social Cohesion (2020)
Ezzy D, Bouma G, Barton G, Halafoff A, Banham R, Jackson R and Beaman L
The 3 Ps of radicalisation: push, pull and personal. A systematic scoping review of the scientific evidence about radicalisation into violent extremism (2020)
Vergani M, Iqbal M, Ilbahar E and Barton G
Does the awareness of mortality shape people’s openness to violence and conflict? An examination of Terror Management Theory (2019)
Vergani M, O’Brien K, Lentini P and Barton G
Local service provision to counter violent extremism: perspectives, capabilities and challenges arising from an Australian service mapping project (2018)
Cherney A, Sweid R, Grossman M, Derbas A, Dunn K, Jones C, Hartley J and Barton G
Beyond social relationships: investigating the differences between violent & non-violent protesters within the same social movement (2017)
Vergani M, Barton G and Iqbal M
Book Chapters
Examining the Relationship Between Alienation and Radicalization into Violent Extremism (2021)
Vergani M, Iqbal M, O’Brien K, Lentini P and Barton G
in Islam and Security in the West, Bonino S and Ricucci R
Contesting Indonesia’s Democratic Transition: Laskar Jihad, the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and Civil Society (2021)
Barton G
Chapter 13 in Security, Democracy, and Society in Bali, Vandenberg A and Zuryani N (eds.)
The Historical Context and Regional Social Network Dynamics of Radicalisation and Recruitment of Islamic State Foreign Terrorist Fighters in Indonesia and its Southeast Asian Neighbours (2020)
Barton G
in United by Violence, Divided by Cause: A Comparison of Drivers of Radicalisation and Violence in Asia and Europe, Waha LT (ed.)
Salafist-jihadism in Southeast Asia (2020)
in Counterterrorism Yearbook, Kfir I and Coyne J
Barton G
Understanding Key Themes in the ISIS Narrative: An Examination of Dabiq Magazine (2019)
Barton G
in Contesting the Theological Foundations of Islamism and Violent Extremism, Mansouri F and Keskin Z (eds.)
Jihadi-Salafi terrorism and violent extremism in the era of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (2018)
in The Routledge international handbook on human aggression Ireland J (ed.)
Barton G
Australia, Turkey, and understandings of Islam in a secular age: the Islamic State movement and the challenge of rising extremism (2015)
Barton G
in Reconciling Cultural and Political Identities in a Globalized World: Perspectives on Australia-Turkey Relations, Michalis M (ed.)
Islam and democratic transition in Indonesia (2015)
Barton G
in Religious Organizations and Democratization: Case Studies from Contemporary Asia, Cheng T and Brown D
Islamic State, Radicalisation and the Recruitment of Foreign Fighters in Australia: making hijrah from Lucky Country to God’s Nation (2015)
Barton G
in Panorama - From Desert to World Cities – The New Terrorism, Stiftung K
Preaching by example and learning for life: understanding the Gülen hizmet in the context of religious philanthropy and civil religion (2013)
Barton G
in The Muslim World and Politics in Transition, Creative Contributions of the Gulen Movement, Barton G, Weller P and Yilmaz I (eds.)
Towards a conclusion: Fethullah Gulen, the Hizmet and the Changing Muslim World (2013)
Barton G, Weller P and Yilmaz I
in The Muslim World and Politics in Transition, Creative Contributions of the Gulen Movement, Barton G, Weller P and Yilmaz I (eds.)
BJ Habibie: an unlikely engineer of reform (2013)
Barton G
in Democracy Take-off? The Habibie Period, Anwar DR and Welsh B (eds.)
Political Legitimacy in Indonesia: Islam, Democracy and Good Governance (2011)
Barton G
in Political Legitimacy in Asia: New Leadership Challenges, Kane J, Loy HC and Patapan H (eds.)
Indonesia (2010)
Barton G
in Guide to Islamist Movements, Barry Rubin (ed)
Grants and Projects
‘Appropriate International Development Intervention Responses to Address Violent and Hateful Extremism in Asia, researching hateful and violent extremism in Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Bangladesh’
Barton G and Ware A, with Husy D and Sonrexa J
Plan International Australia, 2021-2025
$520,377
‘Tracking the evolution of the Indonesia-China relationship in a post-COVID-19 context’
Roose J, Akbarzadeh S and Barton G
Australian Department of Defence 2021 Strategic Policy Grants Program (SPGP), 2021- 2022
$175,097
‘Collaborative Centre of Excellence for Resilient Communities and Inclusive Societies: A five-year research and program agenda’
Grossman M, Akbarzadeh S, Harris A, Mansouri F, Paradies Y, Elias A, Gerrand V, Halafoff A, Keddie A, Vergani M, Walton J, Whelan C and Barolsky V
Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies, 2019 - 2024
$3.19 million
‘Southeast Asian Network of Civil Society Organisations working together against violent extremism’
Barton G and Vergani M
Attorney-General’s Department 2016 - 2022
$470,000 +
‘Religious diversity in Australia: Strategies to maintain social cohesion’
Ezzy D, Bouma G, Barton G, Halafoff A, Beaman L, Jackson R
Australian Research Council Discovery Project, 2016-2021
$450,000
‘Understanding contemporary terrorism and developing policy responses, Australia Awards in Indonesia’
Barton G and Vergani M
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – Australian Aid, 2017-2018
$292,000
‘Australian Intervention Support Hub’
Barton G and Jones C
Attorney-General’s Department, 2015-2016
$957,000
‘Under New Leadership: A study of the composition, behaviour and interactions of cultural, religious and political elites in democratic Indonesia’
Barton G and Reuter T
Australian Research Council Discovery Project, 2010-2014
$194,000
‘Glocalisation and sub-national Islams in Indonesia: neo-traditionalism, local Islam and the commemoration of regional Islamic legacies’
Barton G, Mille J and Moriyama M
Australian Research Council Discovery Project, 2010-2014
$189,000
‘Radicalisation, Counter-Radicalisation, and De-Radicalisation: Developing a New Understanding of Terrorism in the Australian Context’
Barton G, Lentini P, Moss S, Gaetano G and Ilardi J
Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, 2009 - 2014
$958,000
‘The Making and Unmaking of Indonesian Mujahidin’
Barton G, Chalmers I, Adnan Z and Horgan J
US Ambassadors Fund for Counterterrorism, 2012 - 2014
$140,000
‘Capacity-building in Indonesian Islamic NGOs’
Barton G and Kenny S
Australian Research Council Discovery Project, 2004 – 2007
$200,000
‘Islam and Civil Society in Indonesia: Muslim NGOs, intellectuals and generational change in a society in crisis’
Barton G and Budiman A
Australian Research Council Large Grant, 1999 – 2001
$110,000
‘The Influence of Islamic neo-Modernism on Islamic thought and social attitudes in Indonesia’
Barton G and Saeed A
Australian Research Council Discovery, 1997 – 1999
$90,000