Comments

How can a country with a population of 7.2 million (UN 2012) spend $US207 million on elections. Such spending is extravagantly ridiculous. The huge spending on elections could be reduced drastically, and the money used to assist in getting the poor out of poverty. It is about time that the Australian Government and other donors redefine how their funding should be spent on poverty reduction intervention as opposed to the supporting astronomical spending on elections.

Hi Patrick, Thanks for your comment. In their panel regressions Acemoglu et al's results control specifically for any effect which might be felt via impact of previous years economic performance. The base year chosen isn't driving results. Also, it's true that some autocracies have done very well at times. No one's disputing that. Acemoglu et al are simply showing that, on average over time, democracy leads to better economic performance than autocracy. "On average" being the key. Thanks again for your comment. Terence

"Our baseline estimates suggest that a country that democratizes increases its GDP per capita by about 20% in the next 20-30 years. Not a trivial effect at all" but likewise it is not a huge effect either- and what happend in the previous years. All of the Asian Tigers had a huge dose of autocracy (even Japan was largely a one party state and a technocracy) before and during their very big growth spurts. These sorts of figures really depend on the base year chosen

Anthony, I have lived in PNG ( along time a go now) and while what you describe is stritcly speaking not gender based violence; it does come from role modelling of how power is expressed (hitting harder with the fry pan) or hitting back (and as hard as you can); and I suspect this is all modelled male beahviour on how power should be expressed (she would never do it in your place for example), so to some extent it is gender based, but certainly family based violence, which has gender dimensions.

Michelle, there's also an inquiry into the rights of women and girls in the Indo-Pacific happening now-- the points you raise in this post may also fit into the terms of reference of that inquiry. Submissions close on May 22, <a href="https://devpolicy.org/in-brief/committee-inquiry-to-look-at-rights-of-women-and-girls-in-indo-pacific-20140319/" rel="nofollow">details here</a>. Ashlee

The growing disparity of comparative electoral costs between PNG and other nations simply reflects the differing objectives being sought by the various candidates in each country. In today's PNG, the ultimate goal is to become a politician. This achievement equates to endless power, cash to spend as you wish and prestige. In Australia and many other western countries, politicians are mostly held in very low regard and reputedly, just above or equal to 'ladies of the night'. Some of the reasons for this disparity of views are as follows: PNG people will mostly vote along tribal grounds and allegiances. Even though a politician might be reviled and not trusted, voters will still not trust an outsider. Mind you, something similar often seems to happen in many rural shires in Australia these days. Given the poor or non existent media reporting and public knowledge of how corruption has been allowed to flourish, PNG politicians often seem to get away with corrupt practices and never be held accountable. People complain about corruption but still support their leaders who secretly condone such practices as it allows them to become and stay as MP's. Some younger and more ethical MP's are trying to reverse this trend however they are very much in the minority at the moment. In a general sense, the ultimate goal in traditional PNG is to become the equivalent of a 'big man'. A big man in the traditional sense distributes wealth and so gains power from those who benefit from the wealth distribution. The only way to obtain the position of a 'big man' in today's PNG is to aspire to become a politician. Since political parties come and go, ethnicity becomes the essential ingredient to building a voter base in most rural electorates in PNG. In countries like the US and Australia where voter blocs are uncommon, political parties attempt to appeal to a poorly defined voter class system called erroneously the 'The Workers' or 'The Middle Class'. In essence Australian governments are not won but essentially lost when the 'swinging 10 -15% of unaligned voters actually decide the results. In PNG, voters end up with a bewildering number of candidates all trying to gain votes by 'whatever means' but essentially still within an ethnic voting bloc. That's possibly one reason why large electorate are still allowed to exist. Various alternatives have been tried to improve the PNG electoral system however any system will only have the same basic level of integrity of those who control it.

I applaud the KANI review team on what to me is an accurate assessment of the costs and benefits of KANI. Having had concerns over the high cost of the program vis-a-vis the development returns, I welcome the team's recommendations to improve effectiveness and efficiency and particularly the recommendation that an assessment be made of other potential options involving working with regionally based institutions. The inclusion of a cost-benefit analysis brings to the forefront a question we need to be continually asking: for the same amount of money should Kiribati (insert any other country you work in) be getting a better return? What other options are feasible for $2-3 million a year? Is this the only way to achieve this objective? We shouldn’t become so wedded to a program that we don’t see the forest for the trees. I know the Government of Kiribati thinks highly of the KANI program but the opportunity costs involved are accumulating with each passing year. I urge both the Australian and Kiribati governments to consider the recommendations of this review with an open mind to what else is possible that might deliver greater development benefits to Kiribati.

Anthony thank you so much for raising this issue. The issues with violence in PNG are far more complex than a straightforward dichotomy between male and female. Your point that analysis and understanding needs to go deeper is critical for progress to be made, especially to understand the determinants of violence by men is crucial. Also, violence is not just about the 'victim and perpetrator' but the causes may stem from other factors influencing both and the consequences certainly affect more than both. Having said that I think there are situations that make people more 'vulnerable' to perpetrating violence and I believe the Manus centre is one such case. Although I highlighted my fieldwork in the settlement I should qualify that by adding that based on life in Port Moresby similar issues of managing young men (or women) are faced by families living elsewhere (formal residential zones) in the city. Settlers face a different dynamic in that police and policy makers tend to view them as 'illegal'.

Thanks Victoria for this suggestion. I note the deadline for submissions is past but I will try to see if they can take a late submission.

I'd like to share an observation from my own experience in PNG that only relates to the periphery of the issues you raise in the blog but I think is still think it is relevant to finding a solution to the problem of violence in PNG. When my family and I lived in Port Moresby (in a very privileged lifestyle compared to most in PNG) our haus meri took great care of our children and was (and still is) a much loved part of our lives. Our haus meri often had health issues and her family, who relied on her income to a large extent, was a source of support but also a cause of much frustration to her, which of course is not unusual. One day I got a message that she was unable to come to work and would be away for a few days. When she did come back it was obvious that she had been severely beaten and was still in a lot of pain. It turns out that the cause of the beating was an argument that she had with her (adult) daughter (who was the one that beat her). Of course we were very concerned but our haus meri said that she was okay and that her only regret was that she didn't hit her daughter much harder with the fry pan beforehand. The point of this story is that violence is endemic across most parts of PNG and while the main consequences of this violence occurs through men, the cause is often at a deeper level - some of these deep causes may not be gender based. In the example of my haus meri, it was normal for violence to be used by both men and women to resolve conflict in her home / community and of course children learn from their environment and the problem becomes ingrained across generations. Yet, it was inconceivable for our haus meri to be violent in any way in our home environment and community. I'm not saying that our home environment should be replicated across PNG but it might be useful to think about the deep determinants of these social norms in PNG. While I agree that there needs to be a strong focus on the role of men in perpetrating FSV, I wonder how much research has been done on these deep determinants that give rise to the behaviour by men in PNG that we hear about so often.

PNG government should consider privatise B-mobile to a giant Telecommunication company that can compete effectively with Digicel. But, now we have a Awal Telecommunication company and digicel competition is on the way.

Just as an update to this, it looks like the competition to Digicel may be on the way. This week Awal Telecommunications of Saudi Arabia announced it hopes to begin its PNG operations later this year, under the name of 'A-Tel'. PNG Business Advantage has more on the story <a href="http://www.businessadvantagepng.com/meet-a-tel-papua-new-guineas-new-mobile-phone-company/" rel="nofollow">here</a>.