Timor-Leste’s membership to ASEAN: The Political Process and its discontents

Nuno Canas Mendes Instituto de Ciências Sociais e Políticas - Universidade de Lisboa (ISCSP-UL), PORTUGAL; Instituto do Oriente - Instituto de Ciências Sociais e Políticas - Universidade de Lisboa (IO-ISCSP-UL), PORTUGAL
Paulo Castro Seixas Instituto de Ciências Sociais e Políticas - Universidade de Lisboa (ISCSP-UL), PORTUGAL; Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia Program (CRISEA); Projeto FCT "As Crianças e o seu Direito à Cidade" (CRICITY)
Nadine Lobner Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia Program (CRISEA)

This research, based on qualitative fieldwork in Timor-Leste and on document analysis, presents a chronology of the political process of the ASEAN membership for the small country since its resistance in times of the Indonesian occupation. The main internal and external turning points are pinpointed as time-constellations for understanding how ASEAN’s centrality is being displayed through the political and geostrategic realm of Timor-Leste as a small island state in the midst of several global players. The turning points constellations of the still ongoing membership procedure are being put into the flashlight of global-local discontents, proposing the membership case of Timor-Leste to be an epitome of the region itself. Lastly, it will be analysed how all of this may be influenced by the current global crisis of covid-19; trying to understand its impact towards re-framing the region’s (des)integration dynamics.