In 1984 the Ministry of Foreign affairs and trade commissioned the Institute of Policy Studies to conduct a wide-ranging review of New Zealand policy in the South Pacific. Five cases were selected for study: three sub-national jurisdictions linked to New Zealand (Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau) and two sovereign independent nations (Kiribati and Tuvalu). The report draws together the results of extensive field research, a major literature review, long-run data analysis, and over 150 interviews with key informants. Its analysis of economic development and aid led to the original formulation of the now-familiar and widely-cited “MIRAB” (migration-remittances-aid-bureaucracy) model of economic development in small islands. After analysing the issues surrounding constitutional evolution of New Zealand’s former island territories in the Pacific, the report proposed a revival of the concept of sub-national jurisdictions in the small-island context, and identified the risks associated with emergence of an opportunistic political elite in the process of “decolonisation”
