"State building, state fragility and state failure phenomena have been the target of growing interest and have promoted the appearance of an expanding group of scholars, practitioners, experts and otherwise interested people who engage in a continuous and productive debate on these issues. The research project State Building-State Failure Debate in International Relations: The Case of East Timor, financed by FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) and hosted by the School of Social and Political Sciences - Technical University of Lisbon and the Orient Institute, was created in order to analyse and participate in this debate and has tried to be a hub for the discussion of these issues between academics, specialists and the general public. This book is the outcome of this project. It presents several perspectives on political, security, economic and cultural features of State-building in East Timor."

Nuno Canas Mendes, PhD, is an assistant professor at the School of Social and Political Sciences, Technical University of Lisbon (ISCSP/UTL) and a researcher at the Orient Institute (ISCSP/UTL). André Saramago is a PhD student at Aberystwyth University (Wales)