Local peace governance in post-war Timor-Leste: reconceiving governance ambiguity as a formalised political unsettlement

Abstract

The article makes a new contribution to understanding peace governance, using the concept of formalised political unsettlements to explain enduring local governance ambiguities as a constructive, rather than detrimental, feature of a hybrid post-war political order. Drawing on original fieldwork, the article examines the contested interactions between an international governance reform programme and competing national and sub-national political actors in post-war Timor-Leste. International donors to and scholars of Timor-Leste have argued that an institutional ‘gap’ between national and local governance blocked post-war development and democratisation. I take a new approach, using the concept of ‘formalised political unsettlement’ to reconceive this ‘gap’ as a political space allowing competing visions of post-war governance to co-exist. I demonstrate that the ‘gap’ was not a failure of governance, but a form of transitional political order, sustaining peace while avoiding a formal resolution. In attempting to fix the ‘gap’, the international intervention had unexpected consequences in this complex post-war environment.