Greg Fry is Hedley Bull Fellow and Director of Graduate Studies in International Affairs in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University. Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka is Research Fellow at the East-West Center's Pacific Islands Development Program
This book is of contemporary importance given the ongoing array of constitutional and political crises in these Melanesian countries... Sinclair Dinnen (Chapter 6) provides excellent insights into the governance of security in Melanesia. A major contribution of relevance in this book is its critique of the legitimacy of state-building interventions... ... there is much of value in this book for anyone studying interventions and stabilization operations elsewhere in the world. Each author's contribution details the positive and negative implications of the interventions in Melanesia - lessons that can be applied to interventions in other so-called weak and failing states. These lessons are important to policy makers and academics alike. -- Scott Flower. Asia Pacific World