An analysis of policy implementation of counter violent extremism (CVE) in Malaysia

Abstract

Terrorism has continuously become a global issue, in which it has resulted in the death of innocent people around the world. Malaysia is not excluded from being affected by terrorism. Malaysia is listed as the country with the highest number of citizens recruited as members of the terrorist group, such as the Islamic State in Southeast Asia through the social media such as Telegram. Malaysia has also been identified to be the hideout and ideological hub for terrorist groups such as ISIS, Daesh, and LTTE. Also, it has been mentioned that fear has increased among citizens of this country when the government of Malaysia welcomes citizens who happened to joined ISIS back to the homeland. Therefore, this paper aims to look into the implementation of the Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) from a bureaucratic perspective. This paper adopts and employs a top-down approach analysis, which emphasizes the ability of the decision-makers to produce unambiguous policy objectives and control the implementation stage. The reason is due to Malaysia’s highly centralized bureaucratic function. This paper identifies the flow of policy implementation of Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) in Malaysia. This study interviewed policy-makers and experts. For the findings of this study, even though Malaysia has highly-centralized bureaucratic function, especially in managing security and defence issues stated in the Ninth Schedule (legislative List) of Federal Constitution, but the delegation of power from top (legislative and executive body) to bottom (government agencies and society involvement) often happens to ensure the comprehensive implementation of the government policy. So, during the process of policy implementation, there are indicators identified at each phases of policy implementation.