Morgan, Wesley (2013) Overlapping authorities: Governance, leadership and accountability in contemporary Vanuatu. Journal of South Pacific Law, 2013 . A1-22. ISSN 1684-5307
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
International development agencies are increasingly paying attention to the
challenge of improving governance outcomes in the Pacific region. Studies have
been completed exploring ways to augment ‘state building’ and a number of
donor-funded projects have been established with the aim of improving civil
society leadership as means of holding governments accountable. This paper
explores some of the contemporary discourses of ‘good governance’ and
‘developmental leadership’ that have informed recent development praxis.
This paper then situates recent thinking about leadership in the unique and
complex context of Vanuatu—a young post-colonial state encompassing
culturally and linguistically diverse communities scattered across an archipelago
of 83 islands. In Vanuatu today, orthodox and universal prescriptions for ‘good
governance’ need to be understood as they interact with a particular lived
experience of hybrid modernity in which Western notions of rationality and ethics
co-exist with resilient indigenous ways of knowing and being. Unique and
localised systems of community governance and dispute resolution remain central
to people’s lives, alongside introduced models of church leadership and even
more recent systems of state government.
This paper explores areas of tension and compatibility between contemporary
systems of kastom governance and dispute resolution, and models of leadership
and accountability that constitute the nation state (and its corresponding rule of
law). These are not abstract considerations. In 2013 the Vanuatu government
signalled a willingness to give the Ombudsman’s Office new ‘teeth’ to prosecute
leaders for breaches of Vanuatu’s constitutionally mandated Leadership Code. At
the same time, donor organisations like AusAID and the World Bank are
implementing programs aimed at strengthening kastom governance in
communities across the country. This paper reflects on these developments and
poses questions about how Vanuatu citizens and civil society organisations might
hold leaders accountable across distinct but overlapping realms of authority
attributed to kastom leaders and state lawmakers.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Business and Economics (FBE) > School of Government, Development and International Affairs |
| Depositing User: | Generic Email |
| Date Deposited: | 22 May 2018 03:11 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Mar 2019 22:12 |
| URI: | https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/10610 |
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