Comprehensive Peacebuilding in Timor-Leste

Timor-Leste became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on 20 May 2002, but with ongoing United Nations (UN) and other international security support for another decade. It has been championed as a paradigmatic success story of UN-led peacekeeping operations ( pko s), liberal peacebuilding, and statebuilding. Since the withdrawal of UN actors, the Government of Timor-Leste has adopted a more “Eastphalian” perspective focused on non-interference by external actors, national stability, security, and development. This article identifies, however, the extent to which such narrow approaches to the building of peace can undermine its long-term resilience. It uses the ongoing state of “unpeace” in Timor-Leste to highlight latent challenges in even the apparently most successful case studies. It embraces multistakeholder hybrid approaches to peacebuilding, intersectoral approaches like the humanitarian-development peace nexus ( hdpn ), and related “positive” conceptualizations of peace. Yet it argues that further expansion towards comprehensiveness is required, including a greater focus on vulnerable individuals and groups (human-centering), and the inclusion of everyday, social capital, resilience, and welfare-related perspectives. Only through the implementation of governance measures informed by such perspectives can a truly sustainable peace be constructed in Timor-Leste, or in other conflict-affected societies in Southeast Asia.