Leadership in the Pacific islands : tradition and the future

Abstract

'Leadership is an elusive property difficult to pin down. Pursuing its meaning enlarges our understanding of the dynamics of social change and the nature of culture'.

This volume examines the nature of leadership in Pacific island societies, focusing on the challenge Pacific island leaders face in combining traditional modes of governance, like the chieftainship, with forms of governance introduced by the European, US and Japanese colonising regimes.

The contributors to Leadership in the Pacific islands provide a wide range of academic and pragmatic viewpoints for considering both the history and the future of Pacific island leadership. Particularly significant, is the perspective of Palauan Paramount Chief, Roman Tmetuchl, who continues to struggle to a find a place for Palau, and Palauan traditional leadership, in the contemporary geopolitical context.

Leadership in the Pacific islands grew out of the 1996 meeting of the Pacific Islands Political Studies Association, and received support from Chief Tmetuchl and the Micronesian Area Research Center at the University of Guam. Show more