Local Governance in Timor-Leste by Deborah Cummins

Author:Deborah Cummins [Cummins, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317634669
Google: dEGLBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-11-20T05:58:32+00:00

Gendering of the suku council

While it crosses across customary relationships and norms, the suku council is clearly a state-based body, and community members consider direct election to be the most important source of legitimacy for suku council members (The Asia Foundation 2013, 7). However, as has also been explored, customary ideas of legitimacy for local leadership play an important role in shaping voting patterns, resulting in various hybrid forms of authority that emerge. As a result, some of the norms of customary governance have been translated into the suku council’s structure and work, resulting in the reproduction of power relationships – and existing inequalities – from customary to state-based governance. While the suku council is the acknowledged body representing the community, in practice, the relative effectiveness or otherwise of the council is highly dependent on how well the authority structures of the council reflects the already existing power dynamics within the suku more broadly. This is partly because suku council members need to work closely with customary authorities in the suku – and so need to gain their respect and trust, and work in ways that make sense to them. This dynamic affects different council members in different ways, which goes a long way towards explaining why some are effective within the local sphere and others are not, depending on whether they represent a continuation of previous governing arrangements or are, in fact, a departure from these pre-established customary modes of authority.

The suku council is composed of a mixture of ‘old’ and ‘new’ institutional figures. The old institutional figures include the xefe suku, the xefe aldeia, the elder and the lia-na’in. The new institutional figures include the women’s representatives and the youth representatives. The trust that the ‘old’ authority figures compared to the ‘new’ can command in the community is generally pretty high, with the xefe suku and the suku lia-na’in being especially well-trusted (The Asia Foundation 2013, 9). As was also noted, these institutional figures often must satisfy customary ideas of legitimacy in order to take on the position – xefe suku must fulfil the requirements for co-incumbency or authorisation, and the lia-na’in must be able to ‘speak with lisan’ on the council, a key reason for him being appointed rather than elected to the council. By contrast, the new institutional figures represent a ‘modernising’ addition to governance arrangements, and do not need to satisfy customary notions of cultural legitimacy. The capacity (indeed, the requirement) of old institutional figures to draw on customary notions of legitimacy goes some way towards explaining the greater level of trust that they are able to command from community members. Because much of their role relies on the community trusting in their lead, this then impacts on their effectiveness in carrying out their leadership responsibilities. And their effectiveness or otherwise in leading the community then snowballs into greater or lesser levels of trust that they are then able to command.

While the combining of customary and state-based legitimacy has assisted the xefe suku, xefe aldeia,

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