The Pacific Way: Where `Non-Traditional' is the Norm

Abstract

Traditional security is not a major concern for Pacific Island countries and has not been for at last 50 years. Instead, the region has for some time identified non-traditional issues, especially relating to the environment and resources, as among those that could affect the security of its members, collectively and individually. Non-traditional security issues in this region are generally externally imposed. These vulnerabilities are generally beyond the ability of individual states to control or mitigate. As a result, there is little need for conflict and a considerable reliance on cooperative processes to resolve the issues. The main arena for resolving issues is the Pacific Islands Forum (until recently, the South Pacific Forum). Forum decisions are based on consensus decision making in which standard setting and norm-based behavior have taken root. There are signs, though, that as issues of traditional "high politics" become more salient within the region, consensus could become strained.

Regional Service Delivery among Pacific Island Countries: An Assessment

“…This has led some commentators to describe the Pacific's 'network of cooperative institutions' as 'unmatched elsewhere in developing economies in terms of effectiveness' (Rolfe 2000, cited in Fry 2005. There are many examples of cooperation in the Pacific, both formal and informal, that are deemed successful.…”

Pacific Islands Regional Integration and Governance

“…This describes recent economic chaos in Russia. The rapid dissolution of communism suddenly enhanced Russia's investment potential (point E), but Yeltsin's government could not implement a system of property rights and transparent (Rolfe 2000). Countries pooled public investments to create a regional airline, Air Pacific; a regional shipping company, the Forum Shipping Line; and a regional university, the University of the South Pacific .…”

“…Smallness and remoteness generated strong incentives for cooperation between island governments, and the region became a forerunner of transnational collective action in the developing world. While not all regional ventures met expectationssuch as the failure of Air Pacific to be a regional instead of Fijian airline (see Shibuya 2003)-Oceania's 'network of cooperative institutions is unmatched elsewhere in developing economies in terms of effectiveness (Rolfe 2000).…”

“…While regional coordination has been a successful venture in Oceania, cooperation has not become integration-there is as yet no precedent for national sovereignty transfer to a regional supra-national body. In the Pacific Islands Forum, discussion of members' internal affairs of a member is taboo unless invited or approved by the country of focus (the Solomon Islands government's desire, for example, for intervention by RAMSI) (Rolfe 2000). Cooperation without integration, though, does not preclude future fusion of political institutions.…”