The Economics of the 'Arc of Instability'

Ron Duncan and Satish Chand

Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, 2002, vol. 16, issue 1, pages 1-9

Abstract: Why are the Melanesian states of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu experiencing considerable civil unrest and, in this respect, why are they so different from the other small island states of the Pacific region? It is argued that while, like the other Pacific island countries, they have had poor economic growth and high birth rates, they do not have easy emigration to high-income countries. Therefore, they have large pools of under-employed people. Other distinguishing characteristics are their richness in natural resources and weak central governments relative to local-level power structures. The civil unrest derives from competition for the natural resources in an environment of weak states and hence poorly defined and enforced property rights, and moreover, the large pool of under-employed provides ample scope for the creation of grievances to back up the claim for the resources. One message for donor nations is that the provision of compensation to settle the grievances will likely only generate further grievances and not resolve the basic problem. Copyright © Asia Pacific School of Economics and Management, The Australian National University and Blackwell Publishers Ltd (a Blackwell Publishing Company), 2002.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations View citations in EconPapers (2) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent ... &year=2002&part=null link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:apacel:v:16:y:2002:i:1:p:1-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0818-9935

Access Statistics for this article

Asian-Pacific Economic Literature is edited by Ron Duncan

More articles in Asian-Pacific Economic Literature from Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University
Series data maintained by Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing ().