Sinclair Dinnen

Transnational police building: critical lessons from Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands

Abstract In this paper we begin by defining and examining the concept of police building. Its historical precedents and contemporary forms are briefly reviewed, showing a variety of motives and agendas for this kind of institution building. We argue that police building has been a relatively neglected dimension of nation- and state-building exercises, despite its importance to functions of pacification and restoration of law and order. The emerging literature on international police reform and capacity building tends to adopt a narrow institutionalist and universalistic approach that does not take sufficient account of the politics of police building. This politics is multilayered and varies from the formal to the informal. Using two case studies focusing on events in 2006 in Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands, the reasons for the fragility of many current police-building projects are considered. In both cases, we argue, police capacity builders paid insufficient attention to the political architecture and milieu of public safety.

Police-Building in Weak States: Australian Approaches in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands

Australia is engaged in a range of police-building exercises with its regional neighbours. The character of this assistance has changed across time and space reflecting, among other things, the development of new approaches to police-building in weak and post-conflict states. This article examines three such approaches adopted in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, respectively. Both countries comprise challenging development contexts marked by high levels of social diversity and topographical fragmentation, weak centralised states, resilient and largely self-regulating village-based societies, and police forces with limited reach, resources, and popular legitimacy. Among other things, the review of Australian police-building experience in the Pacific Islands indicates the need to engage more effectively with non-state actors and organizations in building appropriate and sustainable policing systems in such fragile national environments.

The Solomon Islands intervention and the instabilities of the post-colonial state

Shortcomings in the prevailing discourse of ‘failed states’ and the practical challenges of international state-building are examined in this article through a detailed case study of the Solomon Islands, a small independent Pacific island country that since mid-2003 has been the subject of a substantial Australian-led regional state-building exercise. The Solomon Islands intervention and the difficulties it has encountered are examined in the larger context of that countrys longer history of state-building and the particular challenges posed by its colonial legacies, the nature of its modern political development and the manner of its integration into the global economy.

Paradoxes of postcolonial police-building: Solomon Islands

Drawing upon recent fieldwork, we examine the paradoxical effects of the institutional transfer and capacity-building approach adopted by the ongoing regional intervention in post-conflict Solomon Islands. Taking the missions substantial police-building component as our focus, we argue that this engagement has done little to extend the functional authority of the local police in rural Solomon Islands and has, moreover, induced unsustainable levels of dependency on external assistance. We also argue that this engagement has inadvertently reinforced lack of public confidence in the local police, thereby undermining its legitimacy. The privileging of institutional capacity building and failure to engage with community-based providers of policing and justice services in rural localities has resulted in the neglect of critical issues of legitimacy and the extension of administrative power which are integral to the larger state-building process. In considering how these shortcomings might be addressed, we explore contemporary nostalgia for older administrative systems that appeared capable of sustaining vertical linkages between central government and the rural periphery, as well as horizontal linkages between state and local legal orders. We sketch the diverse configurations of current policing and justice practices in rural areas and the strong desire for greater engagement between the different orders and providers. Through reference to a nascent community policing project, we canvas some alternative imaginings of how Solomon Islands institutions might be transformed to produce more effective and sustainable policing and justice outcomes for rural-based citizens and that can simultaneously advance the larger state-building agenda.

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

Drawing upon recent critiques of the ways in which organised political violence in the global ‘South’ is interpreted and responded to, this paper examines the recent conflict and intervention in Solomon Islands. We argue that standardised liberal templates have served to frame both the aetiology of the Solomons conflict and the manner of its proposed resolution. Australias intervention in Solomon Islands can be said to represent the ‘local North’ as it seeks to impose a liberal peace over a ‘deviant’ and ‘unruly’ neighbour. We draw upon published material to highlight the social, cultural and historical contexts of the conflict. We then demonstrate how the ‘off-the-shelf’ intervention, with its emphasis on asserting a liberal peace, fails to account for these complex social dimensions of the conflict. The antinomies of conflict and intervention in Solomon Islands demonstrate how both the liberal interpretation of developing-country conflict and its bedfellow, the liberal peace, attempt to divorce conflicts from their social contexts. In doing so, the demonstrable potential for violent intrastate conflict to result in positive social transformation is reduced.

Reinventing policing through the prism of the colonial kiap

Few institutions globalised more quickly to every nation on earth than the one Sir Robert Peel invented in 1829. The argument of this essay is that the transplantation involved has very often lacked contextual attunement to local conditions. Consequently, a great many nations have police that are promoters of tyranny, privilege and corruption rather than defenders of liberty. The particular argument of our contribution is that there has been excessive transplantation of urban policing models into societies where village life is more the norm. In this regard, we suggest there is something to learn from pre-Peelian police in the first world and colonial policing in the third world.

A Comment on State-building in Solomon Islands

2006 was eventful in Solomon Islands even by the momentous standards of recent years. The first general elections since the deployment of the regional assistance mission (RAMSI) were held at the beginning of the year. In the light of RAMSI’s early achievements, voters had high expectations of continuing progress. The elections led, in turn, to the first change of government since 2001. Despite its unpopularity, the outgoing government of Sir Allan Kemakeza (2001–2006) was the first since independence to survive a full term in office. July 2006 also marked RAMSI’s third anniversary. However, the most widely reported events in 2006 were not the passing of these milestones but the public disturbances following the announcement of Snyder Rini as Prime Minister-elect and the subsequent deterioration in relations between Solomon Islands and Australia under the new Sogavare government. Two days of rioting and opportunistic looting on 18–19 April reduced much of Honiara’s Chinatown district to ashes, and overseas police and military reinforcements were needed to restore order in the national capital. For most observers, the unrest came as a complete surprise, not least because of the success of the regional mission over the previous three years. What lay behind the April disturbances, and what did they signify in terms of Solomon Islands’ post-conflict recovery? After the disturbances, Snyder Rini quickly lost support among members of the new Parliament and resigned after failing to secure the numbers required to survive a vote of no-confidence. In his place, Manasseh Sogavare became the new Prime Minister. In contrast to the compliant role adopted by Sir Allan Kemakeza in his dealings with RAMSI and the Australian government, Sogavare began openly to challenge various aspects of the mission. His more belligerent stance, undertaken in the name of reasserting Solomon Islands’ sovereignty, has been viewed by Australian officials and many of his fellow citizens as a brazen and cynical attempt to undermine external reform efforts and protect corrupt political and business interests. The second half of 2006 witnessed an increasingly intense and acerbic struggle between Prime Minister Sogavare, RAMSI and the Australian government over the control, shape and future of the regional mission. This short comment offers some reflections on the ambitious program of institutional engineering that lies at the core of Australia’s new Pacific policy. It does so in the context of the larger state-building exercise that RAMSI represents and the manner of its inherently difficult engagement within Solomon Islands’ domestic settings. It looks at the broader historical and international background of external state-building interventions, as well as the considerable difficulties such undertakings present, particularly in socially diverse and fragmented post-colonial societies such as Solomon Islands.

Policing Melanesia – international expectations and local realities

Substantial Australian assistance has been directed at strengthening state policing structures in the Melanesian countries of the Southwest Pacific, namely Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji. The scale and intensity of this assistance have increased in the post-9/11, 2001 period, as exemplified by the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands and the Enhanced Cooperation Program in PNG, both of which contain significant state policing components. However, the priority placed by international donors on reforming state police has not been matched by local demands for such reform. A key reason for this lies in the plurality of providers of policing and other justice services that exists in Melanesia. We argue that the Weberian ideal of the state monopolising security was never a smart idea in the Melanesian context and that police reform needs to engage creatively with the larger spectrum of policing and justice providers if it is to achieve real and lasting improvements to security.

More Than Just Policing: Police Reform in Post-conflict Bougainville

Against the generally disappointing outcomes of international police reform in fragile settings, this article examines a New Zealand-supported community policing programme in post-conflict Bougainville. While the programmes engagement with the regular police organization has struggled for traction, support provided to an innovative and socially embedded policing initiative has produced promising results. The reasons behind these divergent outcomes and their implications for international policing are explored in the context of Bougainvilles recent history, including the legacies of conflict and the new vision of hybrid policing in the post-conflict political settlement.

Praise the lord and pass the ammunition : criminal group surrender in Papua New Guinea

While PNGs raskol gangs attract increasing scholarly interest, much of this has been directed at entry to raskolism. This article specifically addresses exit from raskolism via the mass surrender. The rise and fall of raskolism are linked through the perennial quest for resources and prestige underlying both strategies. The mass surrender provides a spectacular illustration of how crime generates new opportunity structures beyond crime itself. It also illustrates the continuing importance of brokering parties in negotiations between local groups and national authorities.