Papua New Guinea: New Opportunities and Declining Australian Influence?

Although Papua New Guinea is a 'small state' it increasingly defies traditional predictions about its international relations and attempts to enhance its security. This article begins by outlining Papua New Guinea's new geopolitical, regional and economic opportunities. It then considers the continuing challenges that Papua New Guinea faces which may undermine the benefits of these opportunities. This article concludes by arguing that Papua New Guinea may believe that its increasing opportunities have enhanced its power and influence, which may lead to a decline in Australia's influence, exemplified by the circumstances surrounding the recent Regional Resettlement Arrangement

Timor-Leste's Veterans' Pension Scheme: Who are the Beneficiaries and Who is Missing Out?

Since the security crisis of 2006–07, the East Timorese government has increasingly relied upon cash payment schemes to mitigate further conflict and to provide a form of social security. A series of schemes have provided payments to different groups, including: people displaced by the crisis, the military officers that helped inflame the crisis, the elderly and disabled, and female-headed households with school-aged children. By far the most significant — and expensive — scheme provides pensions to veterans of the resistance struggle against the Indonesian occupation. This paper highlights who is benefiting from the veterans’ pension scheme and who is missing out, and examines some of the potential long-term ramifications.AusAI

The South Pacific in the 2016 Defence White Paper: Anxiety, Ambivalence and Ambiguity

Australia’s geography does not change; the South Pacific (Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and the Pacific Island Countries) will always lie across some of our most important air and sea lines of communication

Choices over time: methodological issues in current change

Features new and groundbreaking research on recent changes in the English verb phrase

Evaluating the Legacy of State-building in Timor-Leste

With the benefit of almost 20 years of hindsight, in this article we evaluate the legacy of state-building in Timor-Leste. We find that much of the academic critique of the state-building mission has proven to be largely accurate: political and economic development has indeed been challenged by the legacy of key decisions made during the early state-building process. First, the focus on centralised state institutions has led to the underdevelopment of administrative, political, and economic decentraliza tion. Second, the partisan nature of the constitution-making process has facilitated the continued concentration of political and economic power in the hands of certain elites. Third, the ambiguous—and at times conflictual—division of powers between state institutions has facilitated the emergence of political clientelism and undermined broad-based economic diversification and development

Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific Islands: Ambiguous Allies?

In this Centre of Gravity paper, Dr Joanne Wallis, Senior Lecturer and Director of Studies in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, and Dr Anna Powles, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies in the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University, argue that divergences in Australia and New Zealand's policies and practices raise questions about the status of their alliance and how the two states will work together to address challenges in the Pacific Islands

How Does the 'Pacific' Fit into the 'Indo-Pacific'? The Changing Geopolitics of the Pacific Islands: Workshop Report

How does the Pacific fit into the Indo-Pacific? Read a summary of the thoughts of Pacific, NZ and Australian speakers on the changing geopolitics of the region during a recent workshop at the ANU.AusAI

Mapping Security Cooperation in the Pacific Islands - Research Report

In the 2018 Boe Declaration on Regional Security, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders recognised that the Pacific Islands region is facing ‘an increasingly complex regional security environment driven by multifaceted security challenges’. This raises the question of how Pacific Island states and territories will respond to these wide-ranging, but frequently interconnected, challenges, including what role regional security cooperation can play. The purpose of this paper is to identify and map the various cooperative security agreements, arrangements and institutions between and among states and territories in the Pacific Islands region, and their partners.Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trad

Security Cooperation in the Pacific: Workshop Report

In November 2021 an online workshop was held to better understand security cooperation between partner states; between PICs themselves, and with their citizens; and between partners, PICs and citizens. The goal of the workshop was to discuss papers that are intended to form the basis of chapters in an edited book about security cooperation in the Pacific Islands. Speakers came from a range of PICs, as well as their major partner states, including Australia, China, Fiji, Japan, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and the US. The PIF Secretariat also attended part of the workshop as an observer. Panels were organised around three key areas: regional security cooperation; the role of partner states in security cooperation; and security cooperation to address specific security challenges. This paper deals with each of these three areas before considering the question: ‘who is accountable to whom in the provision of security assistance?’Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trad