It is timely to consider how the nation-building project is progressing in Timor-Leste seven years after independence and after two rounds of democratic elections, six UN missions and around US$ 825 million in official development assistance from OECD countries. This is an opportunity both to discover how well lessons from countries such as Cambodia have been learnt, and to explore how the various contextual factors in post-independence Timor-Leste have impacted on the international agenda.

This special issue considers questions of security, development and nation-building from a range of perspectives, illustrating the complexity of the task facing those deeply concerned with Timor-Leste and its people. Doing so allows a broader conceptualisation of the multifaceted entity that is Timor-Leste than might occur within a single discipline, and takes a step closer to developing responses that reflect the diversity and interconnectedness of the various facets of people's lived reality. This collection arises from a workshop held in Adelaide, Australia in September 2008 which drew together practitioners, policy makers and academics to address security, development and nation-building in Timor-Leste.

View the table of contents and read two free articles:
1. Integrating security, development and nation-building in Timor-Leste
2. Anatomy of a conflict: the 2006–2007 communal violence in East Timor