ISBN: 978-9819811960, World Scientific Publishing, July 2025, 261 pages, $98.00 (Hardcover)
Reviewed by: Joe Cheravitch, Verizon, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
Former FBI officer Tim Pappa’s upcoming book, Influencing the Influencers: Applying Whaley’s Deception and Communication Frameworks to Terrorism and Insurgent Narratives, offers a unique perspective on cross-cultural communication, its relevance to international security, and the legacy of Barton Whaley, a Cold War–era scholar focused on denial and deception. Much of Whaley’s research featured in Influencing the Influencers was unearthed by Pappa, including materials drawn from restricted archives. Yet the framework guiding this book extends well beyond Whaley, incorporating a multidisciplinary collection of research from anthropology, communications, psychology, and related fields. Pappa applies this framework to his regional and temporal focus: religious educational institutions in Java, Indonesia, in the early to mid-2000s.
As an undergraduate student dissatisfied with widespread mischaracterizations of Islam after September 11, 2001, Pappa traveled to Java to observe religious education and its connections to both progressive and traditional movements. His book is enriched by these personal experiences, which distinguish his work as “autoethnographic.” Especially important is the mutual admiration between Pappa and Maman Imamulhaq Faqieh, a progressive leader of a Javanese pesantren. This relationship shapes their cultural perceptions of one another, with Pappa increasingly mirroring Maman’s speech and behavior. A memorable anecdote describes visiting a rural home adorned with posters of Osama bin Laden. Far from honoring him, the posters’ placement on bathroom doors signaled contempt. Conversely, Pappa recounts encountering a kiosk owner at a Central Java book fair who displayed videos of insurgents killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq—an awkward exchange that left both men “strangely embarrassed” and profoundly affected the author. These experiences sharply contrasted with the typically isolated presence of U.S. officials in Indonesia, whom Pappa describes as living “in a barbed wire building.”
The methodological hybridity of Influencing the Influencers is as comprehensive as it is innovative. Pappa rejects the conventional separation of observer and subject in ethnographic fieldwork, retroactively describing his approach as “action ethnography.” His aim was not only to debunk misconceptions about Islam but also to ensure his research had practical relevance for U.S. intelligence studies. By openly acknowledging that his field notes were partly shaped with an eye toward intelligence utility, Pappa challenges assumptions about researcher neutrality and embraces a candid, self-aware style of ethnography.
This reflexivity is grounded in a strong command of existing literature. He draws, for example, on anthropologist Barbara Tedlock to illustrate anthropology’s broader shift toward recognizing how research experiences affect the researcher—a form of “observation of participation.”[1] Similarly, he cites Martyn Hammersley’s 2018 argument that shorter, focused studies were increasingly replacing the intensive, years-long ethnographic tradition.[2]
Returning to Whaley, Pappa applies the latter’s concept of “key communicators” to Javanese religious education. Both Whaley’s research and Pappa’s fieldwork underscore the effectiveness of face-to-face engagement over mass media in communities where literacy levels vary and trusted interlocutors remain the most credible source of information. Drawing from one of Whaley’s unpublished manuscripts, Pappa also highlights “unexpected players”—third parties with ambiguous or undefined roles—as significant influences on pesantren dynamics. For example, Pappa notes that his public presence alongside Maman may have lent the latter an added measure of authority. He then inductively connects this personal experience as an “unexpected player” to broader questions of public diplomacy and strategic influence.
Influencing the Influencers recalls David B. Edwards’ Caravan of Martyrs (2017), which examined suicide bombing in Afghanistan through anthropological and socio-cultural lenses. While Edwards explored the role of poetry in Afghan traditions of martyrdom, Pappa focuses on the sermons and lectures delivered by spiritual leaders, or kyai, such as Maman. Both works highlight the importance of local cultural expression in shaping extremist and counter-extremist narratives, underscoring the need for more literature employing similar methods in regional security contexts.
Pappa’s book is ambitious in its disciplinary scope, personal engagement, and application of Whaley’s frameworks. Its title perhaps understates the breadth of material covered, which ranges from an Indonesian terrorist’s online manifesto to observations of pesantren architecture and its influence on openness to outsiders. This integrative quality reflects the author’s diverse professional and academic background. While essential reading for specialists on Indonesia, Influencing the Influencers has broader relevance for ethnography, political science, and intelligence studies. Even readers with deep experience in cross-cultural engagement will find Pappa’s work both valuable and rewarding.
[1] See: Tedlock, Barbara. 1991. “From Participant Observation to the Observation of Participation: The Emergence of Narrative Ethnography.” Journal of Anthropological Research 47 (1): 69–94. https://doi.org/10.1086/jar.47.1.3630581.
[2] See: Hammersley, Martyn. 2018. “What Is Ethnography? Can It Survive? Should It?” Ethnography and Education 13 (1): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2017.1371042.
