Local-level governance in the Pacific

Throughout Melanesia and many parts of the Pacific, systems of government continue to be reviewed and restructured. Decentralisation of state powers and responsibilities from the national to provincial and lower levels of government is a recurring theme. The major rationale is that it is both more democratic and more efficient to locate decision-making powers closer to the people. A good deal of thought and effort by government planners and constitutional engineers has gone into central - local relations, particularly into the division of powers and financial arrangements between the two levels. From one country to another the resulting models of decentralisation have varied considerably. In all of this effort however, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the nature and shape of local-level government. In the years since independence, it is clear that in many Pacific countries local-level institutions have decayed and the quality of their governance has deteriorated. Now - in light of the apparent inability of national governments to provide stability, consistent services and good governance - the demand for the reform and strengthening of government at the local level is increasing. In May 2003, the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Project hosted the Local-level Governance in the Pacific Workshop at the Australian National University. This discussion paper comprises the papers presented by two key speakers, Dr Penelope Schoeffel and Professor Mark Turner. Taken together they provide insights into models, structures and processes of local governance and how these might be developed in countries where governmental systems are under review.AusAI

Community Law-Making and the Codification of Customary Laws - Social and Gender Issues in Samoa

Samoa possesses two parallel systems through which social order and justice are maintained: the formal constitution-based judicial and legal system and the traditional justice mechanism provided by the village fono (councils) and matai (chiefs and orators). Local government in Samoa is administered by the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development (MWCSD) through traditional village councils, and similar local government structures have been established in new settlements and suburban areas, albeit without historical traditional authority. This In Brief presents several social and gender issues which may emerge from the codification of customary laws as a result of the 2016 amendments to the Village Fono Act.AusAI

Daughters of Sina : a study of gender, status and power in Western Samoa

The dyadic structure of Samoan society is based upon a concept of power comprising two complementary aspects; sacred and secular. These divisions operate as fundamental ordering principles in society. Power, in the sense of the ability to exert moral suasion and authority, is perceived as the combination of secular action and sacred legitimation. This duality derives from beliefs about the origin of society; that sacred power originated through matrilineal descent lines from the creater deity to dignify secular power, and is maintained through a predomiiifenly patrilineal mode of inheritance. Thus the focal dyad is the kinship of a sister and brother, and a number of other important dyadic relationships are metaphorically derived from it. The division of power into two aspects does not focus, symbolically or otherwise, upon male and female, but upon an opposition of qualities ascribed to particular statuses. Samoan females have two distinct statuses which are usually held similtaneously but exercised in different contexts. As sisters this status is sacred relative to the secular status of their brothers. -is wives their status is secular relative to the sacred status of their husband's descent group and is also derived from the status of their husband in that descent group. Similarly the designation of male statuses as sacred or secular is contextually defined, according to the rank and status of a title or descent group, and by categories of kinship with respect to a descent group on the basis of ancestral cross-sex siblingship. Since 1830, Christianity has eroded aspects of Samoan social structure and, together with the new «venues for acquiring wealth and prestige, has blurred many of the fundamental distinctions on which the complementarity of secular and secular power rest. Despite change and modification, the traditional concept of power is still reflected in kinship and village institutions. One of the most interesting manifestations of change and continuity is the introduction of village womens committees since the 1920s. These have adopted a tripartite structure which maintains distinctions between the wives of titled and untitled men, but more importantly, maintains the distinction between sisters and wives in the context of the local community. This distinction supports a complementarity between sacred and secular aspects of power, as exercised collectively by the two female status groups within a institutional framework. The persistance of patterns of belief, action and social institutions, even after the ancient religious ideology which justified them has been formally abandoned, is illustrated by the way in which an innovation such as the Western Samoan village womens committee has developed. This evidence has particularly significant implications for planned change and economic development in small-scale societies.appendix pp.81-9

Understanding gender inequality actions in the Pacific: ethnographic case - studies and policy options

The prevalence of violence against women in the Pacific region is among the highest in the world. Countries across the Pacific region have put in place policy strategies, legal frameworks and a raft of initiatives, but against their own and internationally accepted indicators there has been poor progress towards gender equality, despite the development cooperation efforts of many donors over several decades. What are the cultural contexts shaping the contemporary situation? Why is the current paradigm underpinning gender policy apparently ineffective in grasping the social actions that produce gender inequality in the Pacific

Myths of community management: sustainability, the state and rural development in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu

It has become fashionable of late to view ‘development’ as a discourse which problematises ‘the other’ from a western perspective (Escobar 1995, Crush 1995), But while much writing in this vein speaks of one development discourse, that of economism, there are indeed two contending but interrelated levels of discourse on development; that of economism and that of communitarianism. The former is associated with economic rationalism on which there is a large critical literature. The latter, communitarianism is far less rigorously criticised, no doubt due to what Dore (1994:18–21) terms a ‘liberal egalitarianism taboo’. Both discourses share a reality called ‘development’, but they problematise the culture and system of production of particular groups of people in different ways. From the economistic viewpoint, poverty is caused by economic stagnation, organizational inadequacy, underproduction and insufficiency of information. Economism is predicated on belief in the existence of universal human economic aspirations and pathways to modernity via technological change and economic growth. It assumes the efficacy of acts of intervention called projects, in which capital, technology and knowhow are administered in prescribed doses to encourage greater efficiency of production. It measures the results by increasing consumption. It continues to be the dominant paradigm in most aid and development agencies. The communitarian point of view sees poverty as the effects of structural forces of inequality, oppression, and marginalisation. It is predicated on belief in the redemptive potential of transformative social action. It assumes the efficacy of acts of intervention to stimulate ‘sustainable’ self-generated development based on self-help at the ‘grassroots’ community level in a participatory manner, with goals of empowering people to act for themselves to overcome the causes of their poverty. It firmly rejects as ethnocentric Durkheim’s and Weber’s classical theories of modernisation, and their notion that ‘development’ involves a transition from small to large scale forms of organisation, and from collectivism to individualism. In the wealthy democracies of the West, whose taxpayers and voluntary donors provide the funds for most development activities, the communitarian agenda has gained considerable influence on bilateral and multilateral aid policies. Most aid donors and development finance institutions have sought to broaden their legitimacy since the 1980s by borrowing from the communitarian agenda long established by development non-governmental organizations (NGOs).AusAI