The North down under: antinomies of conflict and intervention in Solomon Islands

Pillars and Shadows: Statebuilding as peacebuilding in Solomon Islands

“…One debate that RAMSI and the donor community more generally sought to choke off was over federalism. There was widespread post-conflict popularity among political leaders from most provinces for replacing the centralised political system with a federal model (Allen and Dinnen 2010), albeit with considerable resistance from Malaitan elites. There are reasons to be wary of federalism as a quick fix to excessive centralism.…”

“…An intractable part of the problem so far has been the resilience of norms of Solomon Islands 'political culture' (Morgan 2005) that leave national politics available to the highest bidder, and therefore vulnerable to the kinds of crises and breakdowns in the confidence in institutions that we saw between 1998 and 2006. 4 Formidable resources have been pumped into rebuilding state institutions with inattention to Melanesian realities that compel politicians to be servants of networks of obligation and reciprocity with their wantoks much more than servants of the nation and its institutions (Allen and Dinnen 2010). We see the current Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the transformation of education, effective national regulation and ownership of fishing and logging and a 'raising-the-bar' approach to anti-corruption enforcement (as opposed to an across-the-board assault on corruption) 5 as gradualist opportunities for that nation building.…”

The Naturalist and his "Beautiful Islands": Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific

“…The open conflict between these groups became known as the Tensions. In July 2003 intervention forces, called RAMSI (Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands) composed of military and police from Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific nations, reestablished law and order (Allen and Dinnen 2010). RAMSI has now been in the country for more than a decade and this policing component will be there for some time to come.…”

“…There have been some excellent examinations of the crisis and the intervention, but they are not the focus of this book. The reader interested in the Tensions and RAMSI's role in the reconstruction is referred to Allen (2005Allen ( , 2009Allen ( and 2011, Dinnen (2002), Allen and Dinnen (2010), Dinnen and Firth (2008), Fraenkel (2004), and Braithwaite et al (2010). The reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, recently made available despite the government embargo, contain much important information on the nature and extent of the civil unrest, its aftermath and the need to confront the truth as an act of healing (Solomon Islands Government.…”

Building State Capability

“…computers) or trainings ("capacity building") or "upgrades" that appeal to internal constituencies, independently of their impact on outputs or outcomes. In the Solomon Islands, for example, a consortium of donors help finance the construction of an expensive state-of-the-art courthouse as a response to civil war in the early 2000s, one cause of which was deemed to be a weak criminal justice system (Allen and Dinnen 2010). The courthouse was built with local labor, sourced with local Building State Capability materials, completed with few setbacks, and situated to capture on-shore breezes (thereby eliminating the need for air-conditioning, thus ensuring its compliance with "green" building codes and enabling it to boast that it had a "low carbon footprint").…”