Statebuilding and State Formation in the Western Pacific: Solomon Islands in Transition? by Matthew Allen & Sinclair Dinnen

Author:Matthew Allen & Sinclair Dinnen [Allen, Matthew & Dinnen, Sinclair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138206847
Google: 03ADkAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 30092062
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

WEAK STATE, STRONG SOCIETY

Both advocates and critics of neoliberal state-building in the RAMSI decade have highlighted the importance of what are variously called informal, customary, traditional or Indigenous political structures – part of the strong society that endured in the face of state weakness and failure. Scholarship on state-building in the Solomons has not been dominated by the language of ‘resilience’; nevertheless these ‘weak state/strong society’ discourses resonate with ideas of resilience, because customary institutions are seen as coherent systems that persist despite external disturbances.

Proponents of neoliberal state-building tend to depict the strength of Indigenous political structures as a problem to be overcome with the expansion of a stronger state. For example, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute report that made the case for regional intervention depicted the modern nation-state as a shallow overlay:

In the South Pacific, the introduced institutions of the modern nation-state have been overlaid on top of a multiplicity of indigenous political structures. The latter have proven to be remarkably adaptable and their resilience in the face of colonial and post-colonial transformations provides the broader basis for the continuing weakness of the state.24

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