In this seminar, Dr. Kentaro Fujikawa (Nagoya University) explores the various positive, negative, and often unexpected impacts post-conflict referendums have on conflict resolution and peacebuilding based on his new book, Post-Conflict Referendums and Peace Processes: Pathways to Peace and Democracy? (Routledge 2025). East Timor’s 1999 referendum has been notorious for its violence during and after the referendum, and some argue that violence occurred due to the zero-sum nature of referendums that only allow for two options. But is the violence really attributable to the holding of the referendum? Moreover, did this monumental event of holding a referendum have any impact on Timor-Leste, which emerged as a result of the referendum? The talk will discuss opposing views on the utility and dangers associated with referendums, offer close scrutiny of the case of East Timor, and compare it with other cases of post-conflict referendums outside Southeast Asia.
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Speaker and Chair Biographies:
Dr. Kentaro Fujikawa is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of International Development at Nagoya University, Japan. He previously worked as a Fellow in International Relations at the London School of Economics where he also obtained his PhD in March 2021. Working at the intersection of International and Comparative Politics, he is primarily interested in the issues surrounding self-determination conflicts. His articles have appeared in the Pacific Review, Global Policy, the Journal of Global Security Studies, and Territory, Politics, Governance. His new book is based on his PhD thesis and is titled Post-Conflict Referendums and Peace Processes: Pathways to Peace and Democracy? (Routledge, 2025).
Prof. John Sidel is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, and the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Professor Sidel received his BA and MA from Yale University and his PhD from Cornell University. He is the author of Capital, Coercion, and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines (1999), Philippine Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century: Colonial Legacies, Postcolonial Trajectories (2000), Riots, Pogroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia (2006), The Islamist Threat in Southeast Asia: A Reassessment (2007), Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines (2020, with Jaime Faustino) and Republicanism, Communism, Islam: Cosmopolitan Origins of Revolution in Southeast Asia (2021).