Author : Donald R. Shuster
Publisher : National Centre for Development Studies Research S Acific St
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 15,59 MB
Release : 1998
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN :
Author : Jack Corbett
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 41,13 MB
Release : 2015-01-31
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0824854586
Politicians everywhere tend to attract cynicism and inspire disillusionment. They are supposed to epitomize the promise of democratic government and yet invariably find themselves cast as the enemy of every virtue that system seeks to uphold. In the Pacific, "politician" has become a byword for corruption, graft, and misconduct. This was not always the case—the independence generation is still remembered as strong leaders—but today's leaders are commonly associated with malaise and despair. Once heroes of self-determination, politicians are now the targets of donor attempts to institute "good governance," while Fiji's 2006 coup was partly justified on the grounds that they needed "cleaning up." But who are these much-maligned figures? How did they come to arrive in politics? What is it like to be a politician? Why do they enter, stay, and leave? Drawing on more than 110 interviews and other published sources, including autobiographies and biographies, Being Political provides a collective portrait of the region's political elite. This is an insider account of political life in the Pacific as seen through the eyes of those who have done the job. We learn that politics is a messy, unpredictable, and, at times, dirty business that nonetheless inspires service and sacrifice. We come to understand how being a politician has changed since independence and consider what this means for how we think about issues of corruption and misconduct. We find that politics is deeply embedded in the lives of individuals, families, and communities; an account that belies the common characterization of democracy in the Pacific as a "façade" or "foreign flower." Ultimately, this is a sympathetic counter-narrative to the populist critique. We come to know politicians as people with hopes and fears, pains and pleasures, vices and virtues. A reminder that politicians are human—neither saints nor sinners—is timely given the wave of cynicism and disaffection. As such, this book is a must read for all those who believe in the promise of representative government.
Author : Richard Marles
Publisher : In the National Interest
Page : 96 pages
File Size : 40,11 MB
Release : 2021-08
Category : Australia
ISBN : 9781922464590
As the many nations of the Pacific deal with the threat of climate change, including rising sea levels and lessening access to fresh water, they are also suffering from some of the slowest rates of development of any region on earth. Now more than ever, the Pacific needs a champion, and that champion needs to be Australia. The Pacific is where our foreign policy starts, yet for too long we have failed to take the lead. Our country has a long and significant history in the Pacific, but our attention has wandered over the last decade, both through lacklustre foreign policy and cuts to foreign aid, and this has left our role in the region poorly defined. We need to have a greater sense of purpose and a greater sense of intent when it comes to supporting our Pacific neighbours. This is the part of the world in which we have the clearest voice, and we simply cannot allow it to languish. In Tides that Bind: Australia in the Pacific, ALP Deputy Leader Richard Marles implores us to step up our support for and commit to building better relationships with our friends in the Pacific, assisting their development and securing peace in the region.
Author : Greg Fry
Publisher : ANU Press
Page : 327 pages
File Size : 30,25 MB
Release : 2015-12-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 192502282X
Since 2009 there has been a fundamental shift in the way that the Pacific Island states engage with regional and world politics. The region has experienced, what Kiribati President Anote Tong has aptly called, a ‘paradigm shift’ in ideas about how Pacific diplomacy should be organised, and on what principles it should operate. Many leaders have called for a heightened Pacific voice in global affairs and a new commitment to establishing Pacific Island control of this diplomatic process. This change in thinking has been expressed in the establishment of new channels and arenas for Pacific diplomacy at the regional and global levels and new ways of connecting the two levels through active use of intermediate diplomatic associations. The New Pacific Diplomacy brings together a range of analyses and perspectives on these dramatic new developments in Pacific diplomacy at sub-regional, regional and global levels, and in the key sectors of global negotiation for Pacific states – fisheries, climate change, decolonisation, and trade.
Author : Geoffrey Miles White
Publisher :
Page : 343 pages
File Size : 41,16 MB
Release : 1997
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780804728492
Explores the relationship between traditional leadership and new forms of government in 13 Pacific societies. In some, traditional perquisites and political authority have overlapped so that the state is a contemporary form of chiefdom; in others chiefs operate as a mechanism of local accommodation to centralized state authority, facilitating state operations in the local community; in still others, local chiefs have risen up against central authority and led their communities in opposition to the state and depredations. The studies illuminate processes of social change. Paper edition (unseen), $18.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author : Graeme Smith
Publisher : ANU Press
Page : 520 pages
File Size : 26,48 MB
Release : 2021-03-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1760464171
In this collection, 17 leading scholars based in Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and China analyse key dimensions of the changing relationship between China and the Pacific Islands and explore the strategic, economic and diplomatic implications for regional actors. The China Alternative includes chapters on growing great power competition in the region, as well as the response to China’s rise by the US and its Western allies and the island countries themselves. Other chapters examine key dimensions of China’s Pacific engagement, including Beijing’s programs of aid and diplomacy, as well as the massive investments of the Belt and Road Initiative. The impact of China’s rivalry for recognition with Taiwan is examined, and several chapters analyse Chinese communities in the Pacific, and their relationships with local societies. The China Alternative provides ample material for informed judgements about the ability of island leaders to maintain their agency in the changing regional order, as well as other issues of significance to the peoples of the region. ‘China’s “discovery” of the diverse Pacific islands, intriguingly resonant of the era of European explorers, is impacting on this too-long-overlooked region through multiple currents that this important book guides us through.’ —Rowan Callick, Griffith University ‘The China Alternative is a must-read for all students and practitioners interested in understanding the new geopolitics of the Pacific. It assembles a stellar cast of Pacific scholars to deeply explore the impact of the changing role of China on the Pacific islands region. Significantly, it also puts the Pacific island states at the centre of this analysis by questioning the collective agency they might have in this rapidly evolving strategic context.’ —Greg Fry, The Australian National University
Author : Raeburn Lange
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 446 pages
File Size : 12,52 MB
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN :
"Presented in narrative form and moving across the Pacific from east to west, the history follows the chronological movement of Christianity across Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia". ... "The author explores the extent to which the role of minister in this almost universally Christian region is rooted in traditional Pacific culture and society".--BOOKJACKET.
Author : Peter Larmour
Publisher :
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 21,69 MB
Release : 2012-03-31
Category : History
ISBN :
This book reflects on the upsurge in talk about corruption in the region, and takes a skeptical view of anti-corruption campaigns. It considers who is doing the talking, what they count as corruption, efforts to quantify how much corruption there is in the region, and ideas about culture and politics used to explain, justify or condemn corruption.
Author : Jeremy Dorovolomo
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 41,61 MB
Release : 2020-07-08
Category : Education
ISBN : 9811564833
This book explores a range of educational issues in the Pacific Islands, from school leadership in various contexts to the importance of forging cordial school and community partnerships. By presenting perspectives from a wide range of stakeholders, including community leaders, teachers, parents and students, it adds to the ongoing dialogue on educational issues in the Pacific Islands. Moreover, it promotes the forging of healthy school ecosystems that value equality, diversity, community engagement, fruitful citizenship, proactive school leadership, and valuable student learning, to drive an educated Pacific Islands population into the future.
Author : Greg Fry
Publisher : ANU Press
Page : 419 pages
File Size : 34,67 MB
Release : 2019-10-25
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1760463159
Since its origins in late eighteenth-century European thought, the idea of placing a regional frame around the Pacific islands has never been just an exercise in geographical mapping. This framing has always been a political exercise. Contending regional projects and visions have been part of a political struggle concerning how Pacific islanders should live their lives. Framing the Islands tells the story of this political struggle and its impact on the regional governance of key issues for the Pacific such as regional development, resource management, security, cultural identity, political agency, climate change and nuclear involvement. It tells this story in the context of a changing world order since the colonial period and of changing politics within the post-colonial states of the Pacific. Framing the Islands argues that Pacific regionalism has been politically significant for Pacific island states and societies. It demonstrates the power associated with the regional arena as a valued site for the negotiation of global ideas and processes around development, security and climate change. It also demonstrates the political significance associated with the role of Pacific regionalism as a diplomatic bloc in global affairs, and as a producer of powerful policy norms attached to funded programs. This study also challenges the expectation that Pacific regionalism largely serves hegemonic powers and that small islands states have little diplomatic agency in these contests. Pacific islanders have successfully promoted their own powerful normative framings of Oceania in the face of the attempted hegemonic impositions from outside the region; seen, for example, in the strong commitment to the ‘Blue Pacific continent’ framing as a guiding ideology for the policy work of the Pacific Islands Forum in the face of pressures to become part of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
