Building the nation in Timor-Leste and its implications for the country's democratic development

Abstract

This article contributes to the discussion of the international democratisation of the so-called ‘post-conflict’ or ‘fragile’ countries by addressing one of the most important but least studied issues in the literature—the relationship between democracy and nation-building. It does so by analysing the major socio-political aspects of the democratic nation-state-building process in Timor-Leste in the post-1999 period. It argues that contemporary international democratisation policies and practices prioritise the ‘stateness’ problem, conceptualised by reference to a set of organisational, procedural and functional concerns. Little attention is, however, paid to the ‘nationness’ question. As the experience in Timor-Leste indicates, it is the national ideas that determine the structural and operational parameters of democratisation, which is, after all, a process of socio-political transformation by which political power and wealth are redistributed amongst a variety of competing societal interests.

Keywords:

• democratisation
• nation-building
• Timor-Leste

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Selver B. Sahin

Selver B. Sahin is a Research Fellow within the Global Cities Research Institute of RMIT University. She published in Asian Survey, the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies and Southeast Asian Affairs.