Overlapping authorities: Governance,
leadership and accountability in
contemporary Vanuatu
Wesley Morgan and Nelly Willy
Overview of presentation
• Introduction – Considering what we know
• Global discourses: ‘Good governance’, ‘civil
society’ and ‘developmental leadership’
• Uniquely complex: Hybrid modernity and
community governance in post-colonial
Vanuatu
• Improving accountability and affecting change:
A case for building bridges?
• What role for civil society? Oxfam and
Leadership Vanuatu
‘Good governance’: A global discourse
Global influence: From
the World Bank to
AusAID - to the Pacific?
Governance represented 33% of the AusAID expenditure in 2004
A liberal market and an effective state
AusAID’s ‘good governance’ implementation principles
1.) promotion of trade and investment
2.) promotion of more clearly defined property rights
3.) helping partner governments create an efficient and
equitable taxation system
4.) strengthening banking sector and financial markets
5.) improving corporate governance
6.) supporting the development of micro-enterprises
7.) improving the delivery of basic services,
8.) strengthening the rule of law and improving legal systems
9.) promoting respect for human rights, and strengthening
democratic process
But ‘good governance’ needs
‘developmental leadership’
• 2005: AusAID white paper
recommends a focus on
improving Pacific
‘leadership’
• 2007: ‘Leaders, Elites and
Coalitions Research
Program’ launched
• 2007: Pacific Leadership
Program launched
From ‘developmental leadership’ to ‘good
governance’ to ‘poverty reduction’:
Poverty reduction – needs – economic growth – needs – a
dynamic private sector – needs – an ‘enabling’ policy
environment – needs – effective state institutions – needs –
good governance – needs – coalitions that foster demand for
change – needs – ‘developmental leadership’.
‘Developmental leadership’ – leads to – coalitions that foster
demand for change – leads to – good governance – leads to –
effective state institutions – leads to – an ‘enabling’ policy
environment – leads to – a dynamic private sector – leads to –
economic growth – leads to – poverty reduction.
Perceived links in a universal causal chain
Fostering ‘developmental leadership’
in the Pacific
Australia will help develop the current leadership cadre in the
Pacific, focus on the next generation of regional leaders and build
the demand from within countries for improved governance
performance.
White Paper on the Australian government’s overseas aid program - 2005
Local context: Vanuatu’s ‘hybrid modernity’
• Divisions between tradition
and modernity are misleading:
Vanuatu’s cultures, as with all
cultures, are ever-changing.
They are both resilient and
adaptable.
• Can be thought of as an
‘indigenisation of modernity’
(Sahlins 2007)
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.
Leadership and governance in Vanuatu: A
bird that flies with two wings*
State government
[modern / national]
Kastom governance
[indigenous / local]
*Phrase borrowed from Miranda Forsyth’s 2009 book: A bird that flies with two
wings: The kastom and state justice systems in Vanuatu
Hybrid economics: ‘modern’ markets and
traditional economies
•Small ‘formal’ sector
•Food production (on communal
land) and distribution (through
socially embedded systems of
exchange) is central to national
economy
•Traditional and global economies
inter-linked
The past is in the present
• Diverse models of
localised authority
• Complex array of
pathways to political and
social power
• ‘Grading systems’ for
men and women in some
parts of Vanuatu
•Over 115 distinct
cultures and 106
languages spread across
83 inhabited islands
‘No institutional structures above village level, and no common identity
attached to the territory of contemporary Vanuatu’ (Cox et al. 2007)
Chiefs in the missionary/colonial era
• ‘Chiefs’ does not accurately
reflect pre-existing forms of
leadership
• Mid-1800’s: Missionaries created
chiefs to help them preach
• 1906: Establishment of
Condominium administration
(largely concerned with land
appropriation by French/British
plantation owners)
•Threadbare administration
allowed continuation of local forms
of governance
‘Consistently, missionaries
and other Europeans looked
for leaders in Vanuatu,
and found influential
individuals whom they
described as chiefs.
But the European
notion of a chief rarely
matched local conceptions of
authority...’ (Bolton 1998)
Chiefs, kastom and dispute resolution
•Colonial administration also
created chiefs as ‘community
representatives’
•Condominium appointed
‘assessors’ - increasingly given
powers to settle disputes
•The ‘thin line’ of administration
relied on chiefs and indigenous
conflict management to maintain
good order
•Over time, chiefs as formal village
adjudicators was reinforced as
A broad overview of governance in Vanuatu during the missionary / colonial era
kastom
Towards independence!
• 1970s Indigenous
nationalism led by church
leaders
• Customary land
ownership a rallying cry
for independence
• A renaissance of kastom
tied to nascent national
identity
The new ‘nation’ of Vanuatu encompassed 83 inhabited islands and the culturally
and linguistically diverse peoples who lived there. In some respects, the
construction of a new ‘nation’ has been arbitrary – people are unified as much by a
shared colonial past as by indigenous self-identity.
Kastom governance and the new nation
• 1977 Malvatamauri
National Council of Chiefs
established
• 1980 Constitution.
Malvatamauri must be
consulted with regard to
‘custom and tradition’
and land law
• 2006 National Council of
Chiefs Act – setting out
roles and responsibilities
of chiefs
In recent years the Malvatamauri has helped to stimulate community debate
through national summits on land and regarding the traditional economy
Contemporary kastom governance
• Vary considerably across the
country
• Rests on authority of chiefs as
adjudicators
• Oversee community life, dealing
with common infractions: alcohol
and marijuana use, fighting, theft,
unapproved relationships.
Sometimes more serious issues
like domestic or sexual violence.
• Chiefs also adjudicate on land
usage
• Ideally transparent / public
decision-making through
discussion and consensus building
• Processes of dispute resolution
often involves reconciliation
through the payment of reparation
Urban kastom governance
• Chiefs generally linked to place
• Increasingly important in urban
settings (Vila and Luganville)
• Important for mitigating violence
during riots in 1998 and 2007
• During 2007 disputes in Vila, PM
sent pigs and mats to chiefs from
Tanna.
•Also important in stand-off
between Vanuatu Police and
Vanuatu Mobile Force (1998) and a
prison escape (2006)
Institutions of the Vanuatu state
•
•
•
•
•
•
Republic (1980).
Based on Westminster parliamentary democracy
State power vested in Constitution (mama loa)
Largely ceremonial President
Single-house national parliament (52 seats)
Executive power rests with Prime Minister and
cabinet – a ‘council of ministers’ (13 MPs) –
responsible to parliament
• Formal oversight of the executive: Leadership code,
ombudsman and auditor general
• Elections every four years
• 1 National/ 6 provincial/2 municipal council
Contemporary state government 1980-2013
• 1980s – dominated by Vanua’aku Pati (English speaking
/ Presbyterian) and UMP (French speaking / Catholic)
• 1990s - Major parties marked by ‘leadership disputes,
factionalsm, and splits’ ... A process of ‘political
centrifugalism’ (Morgan 2005)
• Post 2000: increasing numbers of small parties and
independent MPs (associated declining representation)
• Today: volatile governments formed by unstable
coalitions
Features of state government today
• ‘Patron-client’ dynamics between some MPs
and communities
• Leadership almost exclusively reserved for men
• Poor decentralisation (few state services
outside urban centres)
• Highly politicised public service
• Breaches of leadership code (or the law) poorly
prosecuted
• Good media scrutiny
• High participation rates at election time
Serious governance challenges?
• Extending service
delivery (especially
health and education)
• Identifying and
prosecuting corruption
• Improving women’s
participation in
decision-making
• Managing land
resources
• Deriving benefits
(employment/income)
from the formal
economy
Holding leaders accountable?
• Requires access to, often
unfamiliar, means of redress
• Ombudsman
• Auditor general
• Leadership code
• Public prosecutor
• Media
• Parliamentary oversight
Current government considering giving
ombudsman the power to prosecute leaders if
public prosecutor does not action reports.
‘If the Ombudsman is given powers to prosecute
and its implementation is retroactive, some past
and current leaders will not be sleeping well at
night’ (Daily Post 2013)
What role for civil society?
• Typically urban-based
• Facilitate dialogue and
informed discussion
regarding processes of
governance
• Bridge kastom and state
governance? Rural and
urban conversations?
• A ‘Nakamal Way’
(Huffer and Molisa 1999)
• Strengthening kastom
governance?
A word on Christian churches
• Ni-Vanuatu
overwhelmingly Christian
(30 denominations)
• Churches key to service
delivery (education and
health) - 33% of schools
• Important for nation
building:
‘God and custom must be
the sail and the steering
paddle of our canoe’
- Fr Walter Lini (1980)
• Vanuatu Christian Council
(umbrella body)
From global discourse to local choices
• Universal discourses of
‘developmental leadership’ and
‘good governance’ are blunt
instruments
• Global in nature, they fail to
accommodate the complexity
of the local
• As a nation, Vanuatu is young
and unique, and is still locating
its ‘postcolonial identity’
• Overlapping models of
governance and systems of
accountability (state/kastom)
are not fixed. Negotiations
toward consensus on forms of
governance remain ongoing.
Thank you