The politics of dependence : Papua New Guinea 1968

Abstract

This book is the record of a most unusual experiment: observations of politics at the grassroots during the second Papua New Guinea general elections by a team of distinguished anthropologists and political scientists. The outcome is a study of political change that enables a better understanding of political processes in emerging nations. It shows how the imported institutions of democratic elections and parliamentary government are perceived by the subsistence farmers and rural workers as well as evolues and expatriates, and how the emerging politicians and the colonial administration combine traditional loyalties and Western techniques as they seek to exploit these institutions. For policy makers and administrators, scholars and students, both of Papua New Guinea as it emerges into independence and of comparative politics of. other emergent nations, these studies raise issues of vital concern.