1st Edition

The 2006 Crisis in East Timor Lessons for Contemporary Peacebuilding

By Rebecca E. Engel Copyright 2021
248 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

248 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

248 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book argues that the international community must share responsibility for contributing to the conditions that resulted in violent conflict in Timor-Leste, four years after it declared independence from Indonesia. Its failure to tailor interventions to Timor-Leste’s specific political economy and conflict dynamics distanced the state from its citizens and undermined its capacity to forge a... Read more

    Preface: why this book?  

    Acknowledgements

    1 Introduction

    2 Peace, violence and the political economy of development: critical concepts in post-war recovery

    3 Political settlement interrupted: Part I – Portuguese colonialism  

    4 Political settlement interrupted: Part II – Indonesian occupation  

    5 The mechanics and conceptualization of state-building

    6 The practice of aid: the agriculture sector

    7 The practice of aid: the private sector and CSOs

    8 The 2006 political crisis revisited  

    9 Implications for contemporary peacebuilding

    Postscript  

    Index 

Biography

Rebecca E. Engel is a Lecturer at the University of York, UK.

"Timor-Leste is small territorially. Its population is not large. Yet the learning that comes from it becoming independent is a precious gift to all. This book shows that peacebuilding is not a technical skill first. It is the product of engaged societies and effective political institutions. This book captures well how the interplay of actors can seriously constrain peacebuilding and how essential is the social contract at the core of any state project."Dr Andrea Bartoli, CORE Fellow, Seton Hall University and President of the Sant' Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue

"This is a hugely useful book, exploring how the fantasies of apolitical, technical international interventions in support of peacebuilding and statebuilding in East Timor helped to thwart a nascent political settlement within the country, contributing to the political crisis of 2006. It is also a rich addition to the mounting set of case studies on the profound limitations of international peacebuilding interventions, and a source of helpful thinking for how to rethink these interventions." – Christopher Cramer, Professor of the Political Economy of Development. SOAS, University of London. Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS)