Download or read book Independent Timor-Leste written by Douglas Kammen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-11 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 (2002–06), 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).