No abstract

No abstract

We explore how street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) as 'agents of the state' operate in circumstances where there is very little state, at least as state form is understood in the context in which street-level bureaucracy theorising has developed. Using the example of post-conflict Bougainville, we suggest SLBs actually construct the state through their wide-flung and deep networks of relationality. We propose that SLBs in the majority world may be helpfully understood through utilising two different lenses of the state, both of which tell an accurate but only partial story. The first lens is the edifice of the Weberian or Bureaucratic state and the second lens is that we term the Relational state. We illustrate how these two lenses together provide a more complete understanding and analytical insights into the role of SLBs through drawing upon our empirical data.

Increasingly, significant numbers of personnel are deployed in field missions either to serve as police officers or to assist in reforming national police capacity. Reforming and building a police system -in this article termed 'policebuilding' -is exceedingly difficult, demanding the condensing of diverse training skills in a very short period and fast-forwarding the development of skills that are ideally built up over generations. This article examines the Australian initiative of 2004 that broke with the makeshift pattern of international police reform by forming an International Police Deployment Group (IDG). It assesses the deployment to the Solomon Islands in order to draw out lessons for future instances in which IDG officers may be called upon. The IDG appears to offer an apt structure, depth of planning, continuity of staffing and steadiness of resourcing that past missions have lacked. Yet, while relative calm and basic levels of law and order have been restored to the Solomon Islands, transferring authority and successfully supporting local police reform has proven to be more difficult.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Asia's newest nation--Timor-Leste--has an unenviable track record of two Australian-led military stabilisation missions, five United Nations (UN) missions, and a vast humanitarian and international response over the course of the past decade. Two distinct approaches to stabilisation can be observed on this small half-island. The first is a 'security-first' approach, where development activities are complementary and serve to support security sector assistance, while the second emphasises traditional development activities and institution-building as the foundation for a stable country. Whereas these different approaches highlight various interpretations of the underlying problems and the task at hand, efforts aimed at stabilisation have crystallised the challenges of coordinating and integrating activities that are clearly interlinked and interdependent, whether within a UN integrated mission or implemented by bilateral actors. Consequently, the question of whether, or how, to measure progress towards this shared objective has gone largely unaddressed.