Australia considers the Southwest Pacific an area of vital strategic importance with the ADF and other government agencies playing an active role in what is seen as an increasingly unstable region.
This course explores the political dynamics of the Southwest Pacific with particular emphasis on explaining recent events in the region that have been represented as crises of governance. Case-studies will include the Bougainville rebellion, the Fiji coups, the Solomon Islands disturbances and the riots in Tonga. The validity of concerns about the implications of these events and about the collapse of the island states more generally will be discussed as will the responses of the regional powers, Australia and New Zealand.