ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the political environment that surrounds the development of formal land tenure systems, which encompasses political theories, aspirations, visions, and values of the elite, but also the contextual factors that guide debates around land tenure. The first part of the chapter looks at ideology regarding land tenure in Timor-Leste, visible in the policies of the political parties; the connections between visions of development, high-modernistic ideology, infrastructure, and investment; and the post-authoritarianism and the authoritarian temptation that have marked the country since independence. This part shows that the Timorese political elite favours strong state control of land to the detriment of people’s land rights. The second part of the chapter analyses the contextual and interconnected factors that, together with ideology, influence the development of the formal land tenure system. Factors such as the weak rule of law; the Indonesian land administration legacy; and corruption, rent-seeking, clientelism, patronage, and elite capture give politicians and state officials little incentive to improve the formal land tenure system. The effects of the ‘resource curse’ further constrain improvements in administrative practices. Difficult dilemmas posed by post-colonial and post-conflict debates, the potential for land tenure to (re)ignite violence, and the prevalence of customary systems further disincentivise politicians and state officials from improving the formal land tenure system. The chapter shows the importance of looking into the political environment that surrounds the development of a formal land tenure system and the key role of this environment in developing systems that effectively protect people’s land tenure.
