Ethnicity and interests at the 1990 Federated States of Micronesia Constitutional Convension

Abstract

Political relations within the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) are strained not only by the FSM's ambiguous (and tenuous) relationship with the United States but bu the heterogeneity of the peoples who make up its population. In July 1990 the FSM undertook a Constitutional Convention (ConCon) intended to confront and perhaps resolve some of the stresses Micronesians saw accumulating. At the 1975 Micronesian Constitutional Convention, which drafted the FSM's original constitution, the dynamics had in large measure turned on the question of political stus: the Convention was charged with drafting a constitution for an entity whose future political status remained entirely indeterminate. Relations among the various regions within these polity would in turn be contingent upon the outcome of negotiations that were still far from complete. The problems the 1990 ConCon faced were, on the other hand, rooted in matters more specifically concerned with internal relations, both between the several states and their national government and among the states themselves. These internal affairs were of course contingent upon still evolving relations with the United States