This Element explores the primary modes by which rulers have exercised power and shaped political relations in Timor-Leste across four distinct periods. The contrast between coercion under colonial rule and consent expressed through the 1999 referendum on independence exerted a powerful influence on scholarship on Timor-Leste's politics and future. Since the restoration of independence in 2002, however, politics in Timor-Leste are best understood in terms of powerful economic constraints during the first Fretilin government (2002–6), and thereafter, thanks to revenue from the country's petroleum reserves, a ruling strategy based on a wide range of inducements (rather than genuine consent).
The violence directed against the political left in Indonesia from 1965 until 1968 has been the subject of intense speculation. The large number of deaths and brutal interrogations, as well as rape, t
One of the most troubling but least studied features of mass political violence is why violence often recurs in the same place over long periods of time. Douglas Kammen explores this pattern in Three
