On the Spatial-temporal Diffusion of Community Based Policing from Japan to Peninsula Southeast Asia: The Case of Timor-Leste

ABSTRACT

This article traces the legacies and variances of ‘community based policing’ in Timor-Leste, and inquires about historical trajectories and cross-cultural sociopolitical influences which forged and determined the idea of policing in Timor-Leste. By drawing on diffusion theory, the article investigates the changing interpretations and transformations of ‘community based policing’ from the Imperial Japanese koban policing, to its Indonesian babinsa- and bimpolda-variant through to the current Timorese ofisial polísia suku approach. It delivers a historically based explanation for the difficulties and challenges of implementing an approach to ‘community based policing’ in Timor-Leste during UNTAET and following missions of the United Nations.