Conflict in Melanesia : Themes and Lessons
This case study examines contemporary experiences of conflict in four contexts: Papua New Guinea, with particular reference to the island of Bougainville and the Highlands region; Solomon Islands; and Vanuatu. We find common themes in these experie...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/970751468144280744/Conflict-in-Melanesia-themes-and-lessons http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27503 |
| Summary: | This case study examines contemporary
experiences of conflict in four contexts: Papua New Guinea,
with particular reference to the island of Bougainville and
the Highlands region; Solomon Islands; and Vanuatu. We find
common themes in these experiences, despite the regions
famous sociolinguistic diversity, fragmented geography and
varied experience of globalization. Melanesia offers
distinctive lessons about how conflict may be understood,
promoted and avoided. The paper is organized in two broad
parts. The first part is contextual. It provides a brief
account of conflict and violence in social life before and
after colonization. It then tracks, largely chronologically,
through the local, national and transnational dimensions of
contemporary conflict, how it was avoided, how it has
changed, and how it has been managed in different contexts.
Particular attention is given to global and regional
influences, and to how governments, local people, and
external security, development and commercial actors, have
worked to mitigate and, at times, exacerbate conflict. The
second part of the case study is more analytical. It steps
back from the particulars to address themes and propositions
in the overall conceptual framing of World Development
Report (WDR) 2011 about the nature of conflict, and the
underlying stresses and interests that may render it more
likely. Part two draws lessons from the histories and
contexts discussed in part one. The report organizes these
around three themes that reflect views shared with us by
people during consultations. The first highlights the need
to recognize conflict as an inherent part of social change
and thus the need to distinguish between socially generative
social contest, and forms of conflict that are corrosive and
destructive. The second examines how the ways people
'see' and understand the world directly shapes
systems of regulation and 'the rules of the game'
and thus directly affect responses to conflict. The third
theme argues that capable and legitimate institutions to
regulate social contest requires not just capable state
institutions, but as much, relationships with local and
international agents and organizations operating below and
above the state. |
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