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The plural character of policing provision in most countries is now widely acknowledged, though rarely reflected in the practical police reform programming undertaken by donors. While much of the literature on international police assistance focuses on its modest results and innate limitations, less attention has been paid to those still relatively rare programmes that have sought to engage with the local realities of plural policing. This is particularly so in the conflict-affected and fragile settings where such assistance is typically provided. In this article, we present three case studies of policing innovation and experimentation from Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands and Bougainville, respectively, set in the context of the recent and very different post-conflict interventions in each place. While not wishing to overstate the impact of these modest programmes, we highlight their potential contribution to fostering productive relations across the multiple social orders and sources of authority found in many post-colonial, post-conflict and otherwise fragile contexts. We tentatively conclude that the most significant contribution of these kinds of initiative is likely to lie beyond the realm of institutionalised policing and, specifically, in relation to larger processes of social and political change, including state formation, under way in these places.

This paper explores the relationship between security and development, with a focus on how different types of violence inhibit development in fragile and conflict-affected states. This paper is based upon a comprehensive literature review of separate pieces of research including academic studies, datasets and policy analysis. It explores statistics and figures that illustrate the barriers that insecurity poses to achieving development outcomes in fragile and conflict-afflicted states. It also examines these dynamics in detail in four countries: Afghanistan, Solomon Islands, South Sudan and Timor-Leste. The assignment was not to come up with policy recommendations per se; rather it was to present a comprehensive synopsis of how different types of violence shackles and inhibits development in fragile and conflict-affected states. The research team believes that the material presented will be of use to inform policy debate and development, including in the field of security sector reform. The analysis is contextualised by focusing on three types of violence: political, criminal and interpersonal. The barriers these different types of violence pose to development is presented throughout the report, and embedded in the country case studies. The statistics uncovered in the course of the project are stark and unnerving. These statistics, among others, are used to highlight the barriers that different types of violence pose to development. It is not only the financial cost, but also the broader institutional and social costs that generate a series of barriers for meaningful development. Through synthesising these statistics, this paper contributes to the understandings of the links between security and development, paving way for policy recommendations and lines of action for Australia and development practitioners.

Since 1999, when a UN transitional administration was established in the wake of the vote for independence from Indonesia, the case of Timor-Leste has been a relative mainstay in research and policy debates on post-conflict reconstruction. Timor-Leste is often characterised by scholars as a 'post-conflict' country and, as a consequence, compared to other countries that have recently emerged from political strife.

Since the late 1980s, a succession of Australianfunded programs has sought to strengthen the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC). Australia is now on its ninth discrete police development program in the past 25 years. The latest program — known as the Papua New Guinea – Australia Policing Partnership Phase IV — sees 50 Australian Federal Police deployed to Port Moresby and Lae, providing advisory support to the RPNGC. The initiative forms part of the deal on asylum seeker processing concluded by the prime ministers of Australia and Papua New Guinea, Kevin Rudd and Peter O'Neill, on the eve of the 2013 Australian election.

This In Brief draws out some of the key themes raised during a recent policy workshop on transnational crime, hosted by the School of International, Political and Strategic Studies and facilitated by the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program, the Australian National University. Convened by Senator Brett Mason, Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the workshop on 12 May 2014 brought together government officials, practitioners and academics to discuss a longstanding area of policy concern in Australia and the region.

This brief summarises the findings of an independent evaluation of the Bougainville Community Policing Project (BCPP), which was conducted in late 2012 on behalf of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.1 Broadly speaking, the BCPP has two elements, which provide advisory support to the Autonomous Region of Bougainville's two separate but linked policing organisations: the Bougainville Police Service (BPS) and the Community Auxiliary Police (CAP). The BPS consists of approximately 200 officers based in the three urban centres (Buka, Arawa, and Buin) and, sitting under it, are nearly 350 members of the CAP, based in their own communities throughout rural Bougainville.

At the stroke of midnight on 20 May 2002, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste became the first new nation of the 21st century. From that moment, those who fought for independence have faced a challenge even bigger than shaking off Indonesian occupation: running a country of their own. Beloved Land picks up the story where world attention left off. Blending narrative history, travelogue, and personal reminiscences based on four years of living in the country, Gordon Peake shows the daunting hurdles that the people of Timor-Leste must overcome to build a nation from scratch, and how much the international community has to learn if it is to help rather than hinder the process. Family politics, squabbles, power struggles, old romances, and even older grudges are woven into life in this land of intrigue and rumours in the most remarkable ways. Yet above all, Beloved Land is a story about the one million East Timorese who speak nearly 20 different languages, and who are exuberantly building their nation. Written with verve and deep affection, the book introduces a set of colourful Timorese and international characters, and brings them to life unforgettably.

Although the concept of partnership offers little substantively new to the theory and practice of peace operations, it provides a useful political frame to advance reform efforts in UN policing. In the last few years, several improvements have been made in doctrine, training and increasing the pace of deployment. However, the case of Timor-Leste suggests that these efforts have not resulted in obvious improvements in the abilities of the UN Police (UNPOL) to carry out their mandated functions. Solutions offered by the New Horizon agenda are technical and do not address the political dimensions of the problems encountered in field missions. In Timor-Leste, the host government is not interested in engaging in a partnership with UNPOL. Problems with international policing may be so deep, complex and subject to politics that even substantial process-oriented solutions will not achieve significant results.

Asia's newest nation-Timor-Leste-has an unenviable track record of two Australian-led military stabilisation missions, five United Nations (UN) missions, and a vast humanitarian and international response over the course of the past decade. Two distinct approaches to stabilisation can be observed on this small half-island. The first is a 'security-first' approach, where development activities are complementary and serve to support security sector assistance, while the second emphasises traditional development activities and institution-building as the foundation for a stable country. Whereas these different approaches highlight various interpretations of the underlying problems and the task at hand, efforts aimed at stabilisation have crystallised the challenges of coordinating and integrating activities that are clearly interlinked and interdependent, whether within a UN integrated mission or implemented by bilateral actors. Consequently, the question of whether, or how, to measure progress towards this shared objective has gone largely unaddressed.

Australia is engaged in a range of police-building exercises with its regional neighbours. The character of this assistance has changed across time and space reflecting, among other things, the development of new approaches to police-building in weak and post-conflict states. This article examines three such approaches adopted in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, respectively. Both countries comprise challenging development contexts marked by high levels of social diversity and topographical fragmentation, weak centralised states, resilient and largely self-regulating village-based societies, and police forces with limited reach, resources, and popular legitimacy. Among other things, the review of Australian police-building experience in the Pacific Islands indicates the need to engage more effectively with non-state actors and organizations in building appropriate and sustainable policing systems in such fragile national environments.