THINK PIECE 06 Summary • a protracted violent con ­flict, the Pacific island of Bou ­gainville in Papua New Guinea has undergone a comprehensive and to date relatively successful process of post-conflict peace ­building and is currently in the process of state formation. • home-grown state based on a hybrid political order is emerg ­ing. State formation is focused on reconciling institutions of the state with non-state customary community governance mecha ­nisms and cultural norms. • order and security are maintained through the com ­bined efforts of state, customary actors and civil society. A core dimension of statehood is thus organized in a way that differs markedly from the Western We ­berian notion of statehood. • is generally seen as a sine qua non of statehood, namely the capacity to implement and enforce the»rule of(state) law,« is lacking in Bougainville, due to the weakness of the police, the judiciary and other state institu ­tions. This»deficiency,« however, has not hindered post-conflict peacebuilding, nor has it been detrimental to the establishment of political order and security. Rather, order and security are based on the positive mutual ac ­commodation of introduced state and local customary institutions. 1 Case Study: Security Provision in Bougainville Volker Böge For almost ten years(1989 to 1998) the island of Bougainville was the theatre of a war of secession between the Bougainville Revolu ­tionary Army(BRA) and the Papua New Guinea(PNG) security forces (and Bougainville auxiliaries). 1 The war was the longest and bloodi ­est violent conflict in the South Pacific since the end of World War Two. Over the last decade and a half Bougainville has undergone a comprehensive and to date relatively successful process of post-con ­flict peacebuilding. Bougainville is now an autonomous region within PNG, with its own constitution and its own government, the Auton ­omous Bougainville Government(ABG). Bougainvilleans today face the challenge of building an effective and legitimate polity capa ­ble of maintaining sustainable peace and order. They are currently approaching a critical juncture in this process, with a referendum on independence scheduled for some time between 2015 and 2020, as specified in the Bougainville Peace Agreement of August 2001(BPA). Bougainville will either become a completely independent state(with autonomy as a transitional phase) or remain a largely autonomous political entity within PNG. Both options necessitate the building of state structures and institutions. 2 State-formation In Bougainville today we witness the development of a home-grown state based on a hybrid political order on the ground. 3 State-building efforts in Bougainville rely heavily on the positive experiences of the post-conflict peacebuilding phase. After customary non-state institu ­tions proved effective in peacebuilding, there is a strong case for their utilization in the current phase of state-formation as well; accordingly, state-formation is consciously focused on reconciling institutions of the state with customary community governance mechanisms and cultural norms. A strong desire to»marry« customary and introduced institutions and processes can be felt in all quarters. In Bougainville today, the maintenance of peace, order, and secu ­1 Bougainville is part of the Solomon Islands archipelago in the South Pacific. It is approximately 9,000 sq km in size(the size of Cyprus) and has approximately 300,000 inhabitants. 2 This contribution is based on Boege 2009, 2010, 2014. 3 On the concept of hybrid political orders see the author’s»Hybridization of Securi ­ty«, Think Piece No. 5 for the reflection group.