The article argues for the utility of infusing the literature on Islamic politics in Southeast Asia with insights that may be gained from the literature on Islamic politics in North Africa and the Middle East. It suggests that such infusion, particularly of more explicitly historical sociology and political economy concerns, could reinvigorate the study of Islamic politics in Southeast Asia, which has been mostly dominated by cultural politics approaches and a concern for issues of doctrinal interpretation. Though this sort of literature has a rich and established tradition, it has lately succumbed to a more superficial security-oriented approach that has grown in influence since the advent of the War on Terror, in which Southeast Asia supposedly acts as a second front. Ironically, security-oriented analysts draw much of the material for their observations about Islamic ‘moderation’ and ‘radicalism’ from cultural politics analyses of Southeast Asian Islamic politics. Analyses based on historical sociology and political economy may provide alternative ways of understanding the evolution of Islamic politics in Southeast Asia by integrating such matters as post-colonial state development, Cold War era conflicts and the transforming effects of capitalist development on its social bases.