A liberal-local hybrid peace project in action? The increasing engagement between the local and liberal in Timor-Leste

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 735-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOANNE WALLIS

AbstractThe liberal peace project has dominated state-building operations since the end of the Cold War, including in Timor-Leste. However, the attempt to institutionalise the liberal peace faced significant challenges in Timor-Leste's fragmented subsistence-based society. This resulted in the creation of shallowly rooted and poorly-understood liberal state institutions that were disconnected from the majority of Timorese, who continued to follow their local sociopolitical practices. In response, the state has increasingly engaged with these local practices in order to create state institutions that make sense to the people they seek to govern. This engagement has occurred through the formalisation of local sociopolitical institutions, the recognition of local justice systems and the utilisation of local ceremonies and practices. Therefore, this article argues that a liberal-local hybrid peace project has emerged to guide state-building in Timor-Leste, which may indicate how similar projects could develop in the future.

2016 ◽  
pp. 7-38
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Gil

Following the end of the cold war, the incidence of statebuilding interventions has visibly increased in the case of dysfunctional (failed) states. Today, such interventionism in a good faith promotes liberal values and is believed to be in line with international legal regimes that makes it distinctive from neo-imperial politics. Even if state-building does not generally refer to regular warfare, it often takes analogous forms to occupation, which was codified in jus in bello at the beginning of the XXth century. While the occupation law requires occupants to maintain status quo on the occupying territory (article 43 of Hague Regulations), armed state-building is transformative by definition that seems to undermine conservative provisions of the former. The article presents traditional criteria for occupation in the Hague and Geneva conventions as well as prospects and limitations of its refinement (jus post bellum). In theory, such a redefinition could launch the formulation of the statebuilding regime, which aims to reduce deficits or double-standards in international state-building by focusing on the interests of local stakeholders of transformative projects. Hence, the Author addresses three interlocking issues: occupation within state-building, the occupation law and state-building, and transformative occupation as state-building.


Author(s):  
Matthieu Leimgruber

This chapter explores the trajectory of social policy development in Switzerland and its interactions with state-building and military conflict from the Franco-Prussian war of the early 1870s to the end of the Cold War. This analysis confirms that, despite the fact that Switzerland has remained untouched by war for more than 150 years, military preparation and the world wars have had a crucial impact in the shaping of the distinctive public–private mix that distinguishes the Swiss welfare state from its immediate neighbours. Periods of war thus coincided not only with an expansion of state social insurance but also witnessed the consolidation of existing private social provision. The chapter also highlights how Switzerland’s distinctive militia-based conscription contributed to forge a male-centred social citizenship that lasted for decades after 1945.


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-134
Author(s):  
Daniela Popescu

"The Escape to Turkey. Ways and Methods of Illegal Border Crossings into Turkey from the perspective of SSI documents (1945-1948). Romania`s first years after the communist regime took political power in Romania, concurrent with the onset of the Cold War, meant a reshuffle of the state institutions at first and later a dramatic impact on people`s lives. The political and institutional purges were the first signal that soon repression and terror will follow, thus prompting numerous Romanian citizens to leave the country. Yet, due to the strict surveillance of the Secret Police Services which did not easily allow traveling to Western countries, the only way to escape was through illicit border crossings. One of the most common destinations was Turkey, with documents issued between 1945 and 1948 by the Secret police services revealing an impressive number of such cases. Keywords: Illegal border crossings, escape, communism, Romania, Turkey. "


Author(s):  
Rob Ruck

Though the Cold War ripped apart the almost century-long sporting connection between Cuba and the United States, Major League Baseball’s (MLB) color line and interference in Cuban and Mexican baseball had already stressed this relationship to the breaking point. The Cuban Revolution triggered the island nation’s final departure from the sporting empire that MLB had created and opened the way for the Dominican Republic to become the most important source of talent in professional baseball. Cuba, however, set its own course, building a noncommercial alternative in which sport became a right of the people and a means of statecraft.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-89
Author(s):  
Adie Edward Ugbada

Democracy as a concept of government became universal after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the disbanding of the USSR in 1991, the crumple of communism and the end of the Cold War. Ever since then, this global phenomenon called democracy became the central and most preferred system of government worldwide. It has also been embraced in its entirety though in some cases modified based on the dominant/peculiar cultural and political structure of the people till this present day; except of course for a very few and negligible number of countries that have fervidly refused to embrace it as the best means of leading a people. This pervasive acceptance is predicated on two key elements- which are; globalization and the media. Though the concept of globalization is shrouded in strong arguments between a school of thought known as the skeptics and the other school of the argument known as the globalizers, McLuhan’s Global Village postulation unraveled this controversy by a simple analogy which links the media as the vehicle with which the concept was made popular and acceptable to the clinch of a large followership. In a symbiotic reward, the media was able to carry out its function of news dissemination in democracy, due to higher information technology occasioned by the consequences of globalization. Despite this advantage, the Nigeria democratic experience is one that has not been able to draw from the advantages herein. The country’s democracy is been overwhelmed by different challenges that has affected its emergence since the country attained independence in 1960. However happening in the 2015 general elections portend a ray of hope for the growth of democracy in the country after which it can then shift its efforts to the consolidation of its democracy.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Kevin Duong

This chapter introduces redemptive violence and situates its appeal in a paradox intrinsic to modern revolutionary democracy: enthroning the people as sovereign came at the price of dissolving them into a multitude of abstract individuals. It focuses readers’ attention on redemptive violence in nineteenth-century French thought, outlines the structure of the book, and formalizes the book’s main claims. It shows why this book’s argument forces us to rethink inherited accounts of political violence, especially those generated during the Cold War. Where liberal antitotalitarian critics have drawn teleological connections between redemptive violence and totalitarianism, this chapter resists those connections to invite readers to consider what redemptive violence can reveal about democracy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-358
Author(s):  
Joanne E Wallis

Abstract When Timor-Leste (re)gained its independence in 2002, it appeared to be a triumph of international state building. In a relatively short period, a massive United Nations (UN)-run mission had purportedly built the institutions of a liberal democratic state. State building took place in a highly globalized context; there was a large UN presence as well as international non-governmental organizations, academics, journalists, and activists. In addition, many exiled Timorese leaders returned to play a role. While constitution making was central to state building, there are questions about the legitimacy, effectiveness, and stability of the Timor-Leste Constitution and the state institutions that it created. This article focuses on three aspects of the interplay between the global and local during the constitution-making process. First, it considers the relationship between the UN and Timorese elites, finding that the UN adopted a hands-off approach that created space for certain elites to dominate and politicize the process. These returning exiles engaged in ‘cut and paste’ constitution making, with much of the Timor-Leste Constitution based on the 1989 version of the Portuguese Constitution (modified to an extent by the 1990 Mozambican Constitution). Second, it analyses whether the constitution-making process was a true exercise of the constituent power of the Timorese people and concludes that the dominance of certain elites contributed to social division. Third, it discusses the significance of public participation, noting that minimal participation has meant that the Constitution does not reflect the views of most Timorese people. This is even though the principle of ‘popular sovereignty’ implies that, at least in states that aspire to be liberal democracies, people should be given the opportunity to participate in making their state’s Constitution. It concludes by arguing that the Timorese people missed the opportunity for their Constitution to define the political bond between them and embed state institutions in the local context.


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