Publication: Safety and Security at the Edges of the State: Local Regulation in Papua New Guinea’s Urban Settlements
Date
2018-06
ISSN
Published
2018-06
Author(s)
Craig, David
Porter, Doug
Abstract
Cities are key to reducing poverty and
promoting shared prosperity in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Cities generally are sites for cultivating and fostering the
accumulation of multiple forms of capital. In urban areas,
these different kinds of capital can bring economic, social,
and political benefits to national development. Nurturing
all of these forms of capital and turning them into
development outcomes require security and regulation. The
social and economic regulation of informal urban settlements
in PNG needs to be expressed territorially and spatially in
residential neighborhoods, public spaces and amenities, and
transport nodes and routes. Regulatory failure, on the other
hand, can lead to communal disputes and escalating violence
at all levels that pervert and destroy capital and threaten
national stability. This report will describe, the chief
institutions of local regulation that have taken distinctive
forms: local committees and flexibly institutionalized
leadership roles, all enacted through mediation and the
spatial regulation of settlements and markets. This report
focuses on the everyday institutional arrangements that
regulate the safety and security of PNG’s urban settlements
in relation to people and places where the reach of formal
authorities is limited, dysfunctional, and or lacks legitimacy.
Citation
“Craig, David; Porter, Doug. 2018. Safety and Security at the Edges of the State: Local Regulation in Papua New Guinea’s Urban Settlements. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30260 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”