Independent Timor-Leste
Between Coercion and Consent

Explores the primary modes by which rulers have exercised power and shaped political relations in Timor-Leste.

Douglas Kammen (Author)

9781108457583, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 April 2019

75 pages, 2 tables
23 x 15.3 x 0.5 cm, 0.13 kg

This Element explores the primary modes by which rulers have exercised power and shaped political relations in Timor-Leste across four distinct periods. The contrast between coercion under colonial rule and consent expressed through the 1999 referendum on independence exerted a powerful influence on scholarship on Timor-Leste's politics and future. Since the restoration of independence in 2002, however, politics in Timor-Leste are best understood in terms of powerful economic constraints during the first Fretilin government (2002–6), and thereafter, thanks to revenue from the country's petroleum reserves, a ruling strategy based on a wide range of inducements (rather than genuine consent).

1. Introduction
2. A violent past
3. The impossible dream: East Timor under the UN
4. Independence with constraints
5. Timor's purchase
6. Hitching-post
7. Future research agendas.

Subject Areas: Geopolitics [JPSL], Political parties [JPL], Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Political leaders & leadership [JPHL], Elections & referenda [JPHF], National liberation & independence, post-colonialism [HBTR], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ]