Informal Session: Pacific Island Politics, Populism, and Democracy
Organizers: Malama Meleisea, Asofou Soo, and Penelope Schoeffel
The turn to religious ethno-populism in American political rhetoric, and in several countries in Europe, has not previously been widely prevalent in the Pacific Island States due to the common situation where parliamentarians negotiate (usually unstable) alliances to seize power, rather than appealing to grassroots voters with populist messages. But, in Samoa, for example, a firmly entrenched one-party government for the past four year has been making increasingly populist appeals to an electorate in which village leaders still hold most of the political cards.
The conveners of this informal session hope for participation by others from Pacific Island states related to the themes of the session.
For more information, please contact Malama Meleisea, National University of Samoa <m.meleisea@nus.edu.ws>