NAtION BUILDING IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA: A LOCAL ALtERNAtIVE

Nation building is a multifaceted and never ending process. It can be about national identity (Shore and Wright 1997:24-29; May 2003:1) and common symbols and rituals (Hansen and Stepputat 2001; Comaroff and Comaroff 2001:37-40) or, on the contrary, it can be about the official recognition of diversity (Van Cott 2000). It is about a shared history, but also about the invention of tradition and the confabulation of common values (Corrigan and Sayer 1985; Nugent 1997:12). It is related to the increasing presence of the State, but it would not be effective without the popular imagination of the powers of the State (Abrams 1988; Navaro-Yashin 2002). The development industry tends to put the creation and maintenance of constructive relationships between well-functioning institutions – public and private, not-for-profit and for-profit – at the centre of nation building. It refers to these processes as “Governance” (cf. Roche n.d.), and adds “good” or “democratic” to this term emphasising institutional efficiency and effectiveness, or democratic values such as participation, legitimacy, equality, transparency, accountability and responsiveness. This paper is written from a development perspective placing good or democratic governance at the heart of nation building. It argues that the present governance approaches in Papua New Guinea need to be complemented by one that focuses on the local levels of both the State and civil society. This is the only way that the structural predicament of nation building in Papua New Guinea can be addressed: the uneasy fit between the State and the governance practices of customary social groups. The first part of this paper explains the detrimental interaction between these two agencies, and the second part makes the case for a local approach. The major challenges of the corresponding development interventions are discussed in the last sections, including: selection of the most appropriate level of local government to be strengthened, adjustment to the fluidity of customary social groups, and the strategic choice of intermediate civil society organisations.