Because coconuts do not grow in Canberra: Complexity theory and capacity development in Solomon Islands Police Force

Abstract

Statebuilding has been informed and captured by reductionist, linear change models. Defined by technocratic approaches to public sector (re)building and reform-it has been monitored, measured and evaluated by New Public Management artefacts such as log-frames and Results-Based Management. Through a case study on the capacity development of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force, I explore the possibilities for using complexity theory to better understand, manage, and monitor capacity development interventions. The analysis of interview data with police practitioners from both sides of the intervention-advisors and local counterparts-reveals the explanatory power of complexity concepts (such as interconnectedness, emergence, initial conditions, and non-linear change) in ways that could inform a rethink of how we frame public sector capacity building interventions.

Place, peace and security in Solomon Islands

“…In Solomon Islands, addressing the complex array of historical and emergent conflict drivers will be a slow process and cannot be expected to be achieved by external actors (Dinnen and Allen, 2018: 136). However, a key problem is that the sum total of the different development and security interventions which have kept the capital Honiara bustling over the past 15 years or so (Curth-Bibb, 2019) has had the effect of producing a dominant narrative of insecurity which largely excludes understandings, feelings and articulations of the emplaced forms of peace and security which continue to be impactful in people’s lives.…”