By May 2011 the international community[1]
had accompanied Timor-Leste[2]
through its first nine years of independence. The state’s wide-ranging and extensive partnerships with a diverse set of agencies and institutions have had important implications for the trajectory of the state and its relationship with its citizens. The international community’s approach to macroeconomic development policy and the provision of technical support has had considerable impact as, despite considerable focus on institution-building, it failed to strengthen the legitimacy of the state at a crucial period in the country’s history. A mixture of perceived resource constraints and ideological preferences prevented the international community from encouraging an adaptation of the Indonesian “state-led” development model, which was seen as inefficient and bureaucratic according to the World Bank and members of the first Joint Assessment Mission, which surveyed reconstruction needs in 1999.[3]
This conclusion reinforced the preference for market-driven development and made the pursuit of a state-led/-assisted model impossible. While a discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of orthodox macroeconomic policies is beyond the scope of this paper, the consequences of a harsh and unassisted transition from the previous model to that adopted by the new nation did little to foster a critical sense of alliance and trust between the people and the state. Despite efforts by local actors to shape the country’s macroeconomic policy and institutional framework, the inexperience of many in government, the initial trust placed on international technical advice and early dependency on external financial assistance limited the scope for a Timorese voice in policymaking. While the Timorese leadership may have shared the assessment of the Indonesian civil service, it does not follow that the international community supported the Timorese leadership to explore a wider range of economic development options outside the orthodox consensus.
The World Bank’s World Development Report 2011
, subtitled Conflict, Security and Development
,
explicitly links state legitimacy and violent conflict, and focuses on institution-building as central to the establishment of sought-after legitimacy. Although Timor-Leste was the beneficiary of substantial institution-building support, in effect the absence of the state was nonetheless felt by many of the country’s citizens. While its predecessor provided a guaranteed market for agricultural production, supplied extension services and had substantial numbers of civil servants throughout the country, the new state lacked a physical and economic presence. The market-led economic development policies advocated by the international community failed to deliver the expected results, as they vastly underestimated the obstacles to private-sector development in the country. Meanwhile, the fruits of institution-building efforts required more time to blossom than anticipated. The push for a limited state and a market-driven model had pernicious consequences in a post-conflict environment in which the development of state legitimacy was essential in supplanting antagonism and regionalism previously obscured by the struggle against a common enemy. In retrospect, the failure of the international community to identify and incorporate pre-existing and newly arising cleavages into policymaking considerations significantly hampered its state-building efforts.
This paper recognises the key and active role played by Timorese actors in all aspects of the state-building process generally and in the conflict dynamics associated with the 2006 crisis in particular. It is concerned, however, with the role of the international community in shaping the environment that enabled the old and new antagonisms to manifest themselves in the shape of the 2006 crisis. It is therefore not meant as an in-depth study of the internal political dynamics of the crisis, which can be found elsewhere.[4]
The paper argues that widely held attitudes of the international community regarding the absence of conflict in the post-independence period; its efforts to transpose international “best practice” onto a perceived blank slate; and the application of a “limited-state” model and reliance on market-driven economic growth reduced the ability of the state to shape its relationship with the population. These factors are therefore seen to have challenged the legitimacy of the state and contributed to the creation of conditions that enabled the 2006 crisis.
[1]
By no means monolithic, development partners, represented by a series of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions, international financial institutions, UN agencies, international non-governmental organisations and bilateral donors, arrived in Timor-Leste with divergent assumptions about the role of the state and the requirements of a state-building process that were not always explicitly articulated or aligned.
[2]
Timor-Leste is the Portuguese translation of East Timor and is widely used as the official name of the state. As such, it will be used herein. On occasion, the paper will use the English version, East Timor, primarily when quoting sources that continue to use this version.
[3]
James J. Fox and Babo Dionisio Soares, Out of the Ashes: Destruction and Reconstruction of East Timor
, Adelaide, Crawford House, 2000.
[4]
See, for example, the report of the UN Independent Special Commission of Inquiry for Timor-Leste, http://unmit.unmissions.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=sBQns2vB4mk%3D&tabid=431.
