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Article Excerpt
Issues surrounding legitimacy and the role of civil society are at the forefront of contemporary global governance debates. Examining the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and focusing on the specific issue areas of justice and gender, this article evaluates the effectiveness and accountability of the administration from the perspective of East Timorese civil society, whose voice is largely absent from previous analyses. Drawing on the archive of the prominent civil society group La'o Hamutuk. this study adds precision and nuance to an area of research characterized by broad-stroke assessments of the legitimacy of multinational interventions. It finds variations in the levels of overall legitimacy exhibited by particular issue areas and differences in terms of the configuration of accountability and effectiveness enjoyed by UNTAET. Although sounding a cautionary note about the degree of civil society influence in global governance, the study concludes that La'o Hamutuk nevertheless provided a more diffuse sense of discursive voice and accountability than would otherwise have been accorded the East Timorese during this crucial period in their history. KEYWORDS: global governance, legitimacy, civil society. East Timor. United Nations.
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On 25 October 1999, the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) was established as an integrated, multidimensional peacekeeping operation with full responsibility for the administration of East Timor during its transition to independence from Indonesia. (1) The Democratic Republic of East Timor (renamed Timor-Leste in 2002) was formally recognized as an independent sovereign state on 20 May 2002. (2) While the circumstances surrounding UNTAET's administration in East Timor were in many ways unique, a wider relevance emanates from the manner in which this mission, like other ad hoc multinational responses, was embedded within and constitutes an aspect of the wider set of institutionalised arrangements referred to collectively as global governance. (3) Although concerns about the legitimacy of this intervention pepper the literature, these concerns remain analytically underdeveloped and are partial to the extent that the voice of East Timorese civil society is frequently absent from the debate.
Recent scholarly contributions have outlined the positive contribution that civil society may bring to issues of global governance. According to Mary Kaldor, the great potential of civil society is that it offers "an alternative vehicle for deliberation, for introducing normative concerns, for raising the interests of the individual and not just the state" at global levels. (4) The possible benefits of civil society include: providing a global conscience; promoting the development of and respect for global legal rules; contributing to improved governance performance; and enhancing the democratic credentials of global governance. (5) Robust criticisms have been developed in response to these broadly optimistic orientations, emphasizing in particular the problems associated with transporting the concept of civil society into contexts beyond the formal boundaries of the territorial state. (6) Even proponents of civil society stress that "civil society enhancement of democratic accountability in global governance does not occur automatically," (7) that it "is not a substitute for formal democratic processes," (8) and that our evaluations must be based, in part, "on concrete evidence relating to specific contexts." (9)
Taking J. A. Scholte's cue, we provide the specific context of East Timorese civil society during UNTAET's administration as an opportunity to interrogate claims about both the legitimacy of UNTAET's governance and the promise of and limits to civil society as a bridging mechanism between global governance and the people subject to its rule. Our analysis reveals a mixed picture. By distinguishing between specific issue areas, we were able to discern variations between the configurations of input and output legitimacy or accountability and effectiveness exhibited across different domains of UNTAET's governance. This allows us to offer a more nuanced assessment of UNTAET's legitimacy credentials than is currently available in the literature and provides an opportunity to determine whether East Timorese civil society was able to improve the performance or effectiveness of UNTAET, and whether it was able to hold it accountable for its actions. In this regard, while accepting that East Timorese civil society indeed presented a critical voice toward UNTAET and thereby constituted a sense of wider discursive voice and accountability, we introduce two points of caution. First, problems of "representativeness" arise when one attempts to simply equate the voice of a selected civil society organization with that of the East Timorese citizenry more widely. Second, it is one thing for civil society to voice concern, another for that critical discourse to have an impact on UNTAET's governance. Finally, reflecting on our findings, we urge scholars to embed their analysis of civil society in real-world contexts in order to push forward critical understanding of its promise and limitations in contributing to legitimate global governance.
We develop these arguments in three steps. The first addresses some methodological issues surrounding our study. Much of the source material on which our analysis is based was gathered from the prominent East Timorese civil society organization La'o Hamutuk. Accordingly, we introduce readers to La'o Hamutuk, sketch its role during East Timor's move to independence, and indicate the considerable value of its archive materials for extending our understanding of civil society perceptions of UNTAET's governance. We also explain the basis on which we selected our specific issue areas for study, noting the benefits as well as the limit of our inquiry in the context of East Timor's transition to independence. As our second step, we develop a broad critique of the legitimacy of UNTAET's intervention using Fritz Scharpf's notions of input and output legitimacy where input refers to the accountability of UNTAET, and output refers to its effectiveness. Third, sharpening our analytical focus, we apply this framework to our two selected issue areas, justice and gender, where UNTAET governance was perceived to be crucial by East Timorese civil society.
Methodology: A Civil Society Perspective?
Much of the data we utilize in this article comes from the archive of the East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis, or La'o Hamutuk (which means "walking together") as it is called in Tetum. La'o Hamutuk has produced and distributed a bulletin for most months since June 2000 as well as midyear and annual reports. Copies of all this material are archived on its website. (10) We systematically reviewed each bulletin and report in the archive to identify which issues received most coverage, focusing specifically on the period 1999-2002. Five broadly defined issue areas emerged: timorization, security, justice, health, and gender (which also incorporated women's rights). We provide evidence from across these issue areas to support our analysis of accountability and effectiveness.
Of these five issue areas, justice and gender received significantly more coverage than the other three, and we focus most closely on these two issues in the final section of our study. Comparing specific issue areas allows us to provide a more nuanced assessment of UNTAET's legitimacy, by providing the opportunity to discern differences in the views expressed by civil society voices about the overall levels of legitimacy enjoyed across different governance domains. Moreover, distinguishing between input and output legitimacy allows us to map any differing configurations of these legitimacy dimensions across the various issue contexts, thereby helping us sharpen our analytical focus further still.
Nevertheless, two important limitations need to be acknowledged. The first concerns our extensive use of La'o Hamutuk's resources as the basis for our research and the consequential prominence we give its voice. The second limiting factor arises from problems associated with locating civil society within East Timor at this crucial time in its history. Following a brief sketch of La'o Hamutuk, we address each of these issues in turn.
La'o Hamutuk was established in April 2000 in Dili, East Timor. Its mission is to monitor, analyze, and report on the principal international institutions present in Timor-Leste as they relate to the physical, economic, and social reconstruction and development of the country. The activities of La'o Hamutuk range from monitoring and analyzing development issues in Timor-Leste, to facilitating relationships and understanding between the people of Timor-Leste, international solidarity networks, and international development institutions and donors. It maintains a website (www.laohamutuk.org); has published thirty-six bulletins since 2000; broadcasts a radio program (Igualidade)...
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