State-Building in a Post-Colonial Society: The Case of Solomon Islands

Abstract

Despite growing levels of conflict and instability in parts of the southwest Pacific, Australia has, until recently, been reluctant to intervene in the affairs of neighboring states. As the dominant metropolitan power in the region, a former colony of Britain, and the ex-colonial administrator of Papua New Guinea, Australia has gone out of its way to avoid any perceptions of acting in an imperialist or neo-colonial fashion. Instead, its influence has been wielded primarily through diplomacy and bilateral development assistance. This traditional reluctance to intervene was also justified in terms of the practical limitations of external intervention, given the cultural and ethnic complexities evident in the Pacific island states. As explained in a Foreign Affairs White Paper, "Australia cannot presume to fix the problems of the South Pacific.... The island countries are independent sovereign states... When problems are so tightly bound to complex cultural and ethnic loyalties, only local communities can find workable solutions." Show more