Unpacking the hidden state via everyday stateness in Timor-Leste

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to discover the sphere of the everyday state by identifying images and practices related to people’s community life in Timor-Leste. This study argues that previous research on the state, including Southeast Asian states, has been built on the power-oriented Weberian notion. Instead of focusing on the centralisation of power at the national level, this study proposes to discover the sphere of the everyday state by emphasising people’s daily experiences, particularly through an analysis of welfare, which is the moral dimension of the state. Based on Timor-Leste’s life in sucos, this study shows the everyday stateness of unveiling the relationship between state images and practices in village life. This study argues that narratives on rewards for ordeals during the Indonesian occupation and elites’ vision for prosperity illustrate what people expect from the state and images of the state at the everyday level. Furthermore, this study emphasises the activities of various public agencies to meet these expectations and indicates the significant role of village councils in managing the level of expectations.

KEYWORDS:

• Stateness
• everyday politics
• welfare
• Timor-Leste
• post-conflict societies

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers who helped me clarify my argument and approach more. I also thank Oliver Richmond, Suk Jin Yoon, and Suhyun Youk for their constructive comments and insightful discussions in developing this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Kammen, ‘Fragments of Utopia’, 391.

2. Silva, ‘Reciprocity, Recognition and Suffering’; Traube, ‘Unpaid Wages’; Viegas, ‘Ancestors and Martyrs’.

3. Kammen, ‘Fragments of Utopia’, 390–393.

4. Roll, ‘Street Level Bureaucrats’, 271–274.

5. Scheiner, ‘The “Resource Curse”’, 1.

6. Bovensiepen, ‘Opening and Closing’, 56–58.

7. Trindade and Barnes, ‘Expressions of the “Good Life”’.

8. Gupta, ‘Blurred Boundaries’.

9. Hansen and Stepputat, States of Imagination.

10. e.g., Auyero, ‘Routine Politics and Violence’; Brown, ‘Entangled Worlds’; Brown and Gusmao, ‘Peacebuilding and Political Hybridity’; Lund, ‘Twilight Institutions’; Simião and Silva, ‘Playing with Ambiguity’.

11. Thelen et al., ‘Introduction’.

12. Ibid., 8.

13. Poulantzas, ‘The Problem’; Miliband, ‘The Capitalist State’.

14. Dahl, ‘Who Governs?’

15. Domhoff, ‘The Power Elite’.

16. Mann, The Source of Social Power; Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions; Tilly, ‘The Formation of National States’; Tilly, ‘Coercion’.

17. Scott, Seeing like a State.

18. Scott, ‘The Art’’.

19. Roll, ‘Street Level Bureaucrats’.

20. Bovensiepen and Nygaard-Christensen, ‘Petroleum Planning’.

21. Nettl, ‘The State’.

22. Ibid, 560–562.

23. Abrams, ‘Notes on the Difficulty’.

24. Ibid, 58.

25. Migdal and Schlichte, Rethinking the State.

26. Ibid, 11.

27. Shils, Center and Periphery, 74.

28. Migdal and Schlichte, Rethinking the State.

29. Hansen and Stepputat, States of Imagination.

30. Ibid., 7.

31. Ibid., 6.

32. Weber et al., ‘From Max Weber’.

33. Brinkerhoff et al., ‘Service Delivery and Legitimacy’.

34. Dagher, ‘Legitimacy and Post-Conflict State-Building’.

35. Thelen et al., ‘Introduction’, 9.

36. Kammen, ‘Fantasy and Fossilisation’, 126, 129.

37. RDTL, ‘Decree Law 3/2016’, 8950 − 8998; Simião and Silva, ‘Playing with Ambiguity’, 3–4.

38. Kammen, ‘Fantasy and Fossilisation’, 126.

39. Simião and Silva, ‘Playing with Ambiguity’, 3.

40. Boege et al., ‘Hybrid Political Orders’; Brown, ‘Entangled Worlds’; Cummins, ‘Local Governance’.

41. RDTL, ‘Law No. 9/2016 of 8 July’.

42. Ibid., article 5.

43. Ibid., article 5.g.

44. Wallis and Neves, ‘Evaluating the Legacy’, 23.

45. An interview with a Timorese INGO worker, 24 June 2015.

46. An interview with an ordinary Timorese, 13 July 2015.

47. Kammen, ‘Fantasy and Fossilisation’; Simião and Silva, ‘Playing with Ambiguity’.

48. Thelen et al., ‘Introduction’.

49. Brown, ‘State Formation’, 115.

50. I conducted field research for my PhD thesis in Dili and suco Letefoho of Same sub-district in Manufahi District, Timor-Leste, which took place from 28 May to 27 July 2015. During the field research, a focus group session and interviews were conducted. In total, I organised one focus group session and conducted 32 interviews with international elites (6), local elites (8) and ordinary Timorese (18), and six interviews with local elites (2) and the ordinary Timorese (4). Approval was gained from the University of Manchester Research Ethics Committee in April 2015 to undertake fieldwork in Timor-Leste.

51. An interview with an ordinary Timorese in Dili, 7 July 2015.

52. An interview with an ordinary Timorese in Dili, 8 July 2015.

53. Interviews in Dili with ordinary Timorese, 13 July 2015; 15 July 2015.

54. An interview with an ordinary Timorese in Dili, 10 July 2015.

55. Hansen and Stepputat, States of Imagination, 7.

56. Interviews with ordinary Timorese in Dili, 7 July 2015; 10 July 2015; 12 July 2015; 13 July 2015.

57. RDTL, About PNDS.

58. Habermas, ‘Structural Transformation’.

59. An interview with an international aid worker in Dili, 10 June 2015.

60. An interview with a local NGO worker in Dili, 24 June 2015.

61. An interview with an international aid worker, 10th June 2015.

62. An Interview with an ordinary Timorese in Dili, 14 June 2015; 8 July 2015.

63. An interview with a local businessman in Dili, 7 July 2015.

64. Braithwaite et al., ‘Networked Governance’, chapter 5; Hodge, ‘The Catholic Church’; McGregor et al., ‘Overcoming Secularism?’; Lyon, ‘The East Timorese Church’.

65. Braithwaite et al., ‘Networked Governance’, 64; Carey, ‘The Catholic Church’, 86.

66. An interview with an ordinary Timorese in Dili, 10 July 2015.

67. Loch, ‘Nation Building’.

68. Winch, ‘La iha fiar’; Winch, ‘Vernacular Human Security’.

69. McWilliam, ‘Exchange and Resilience’.

70. Trindade and Barnes, ‘Expressions of the “Good Life”’.

71. Kehi and Palmer, ‘Hamatak Halirin’, 447; Trindade, ‘Matak-Malirin’.

72. An interview with an international aid worker, 11 June 2015.

73. An interview with an international aid worker in Dili, 3 July 2015.

74. Nettl, ‘The State as a Conceptual Variable’.

75. Abrams, ‘Notes on the Difficulty’.

76. Migdal and Schlichte, Rethinking the State.

77. Hansen and Stepputat, States of Imagination.

78. Kammen, ‘Fragments of Utopia’, 391.

79. Meitzner Yoder, ‘The Development Eraser’.

80. Bovensiepen, ‘Visions of Prosperity’, 77.

81. Bovensiepen et al., ‘Expectations of Development’.

82. Nygaard-Christensen, ‘When Utopia Fails’.

83. Lister and Wilder, ‘Strengthening Subnational Administration’; Paris, ‘NATO’s Choice in Afghanistan’.

84. Dagher, ‘Legitimacy and Post-Conflict State-Building’.

85. The Asia Foundation, ‘Timor Tatoli Survey’.

86. An interview with an international aid worker, 11 June 2015.

87. e.g., Paris, At War’s End; Fukuyama, ‘Nation-Building’

88. The former would be denoted as big S whereas the latter as small s.

89. Richmond, ‘Peace Formation’.

90. Axtmann, ‘The State of the State’.

91. Concerns regarding the effectiveness of bottom-up approaches exist. In their study on Tara Bandu, a local environmental peacebuilding method, Ide et al. (2021) observe that external funding sources, such as the state and NGOs, have often exerted control over the practices of Tara Bandu. This has led to a loss of local ownership and diminished effectiveness. The authors argue that external involvement may result in tensions between local and external values/actors and can serve as a symbolic political instrument to advance state interests. In a similar vein, Simião and Silva (2020, 6) also contend that the behaviour of village heads, for instance, citing ‘the codes of the nation’ during village negotiation processes, may serve to reinforce the existence of the state. Furthermore, the Asia Foundation’s Tatoli survey (2014) implicitly suggests that satisfaction with public services, even if provided through multiple agencies, can be construed as satisfaction with the state. Given the intricate relationship of many groups from the local and national levels in Timor-Leste society (Scambary 2019), an examination of the interplay between the daily state, the central state, and the conventional concept of the state (big S) may be a remarkable topic for the study. Nonetheless, such an investigation is outside the scope of this paper and is left for future research.

92. Thelen et al., ‘Introduction’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Minji Yoo

Minji Yoo is a Visiting Fellow at Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, Jeonbuk National University.