Since rumours surfaced in 2018 that China was seeking to develop a military base in Vanuatu, metropolitan partners have been concerned about their ability to pursue their strategic interests in the Pacific Islands region. To address this, partners have increased the tempo of their statecraft to attempt to change the policies, behaviour, beliefs, and attitudes of Pacific Island countries and peoples in their favour (Wallis et al. 2024). As in other regions, analysis of the intent and effectiveness of these high-level, headquarters-based policies has tended to focus on the macro-level, treating states as the primary unit of analysis. This is a valid approach but an incomplete one. We found that people do not engage with states or policies, they engage with the individuals who represent those states. As Pacific former regional public servant Sione Tekiteki (2024) observed, ‘For Pacific states, strong relationships, networks and personalities drive strategic foreign policy just as much as, if not more than, any foreign policy white papers’.

Conscious that ‘any approach that limits itself to one level of analysis, is inadequate’ (Bilsland 2015: 3), we turn our analytical attention to the micro-level, the individuals implementing statecraft policies, including: diplomats; leaders; defence officials; police officers and other law enforcement personnel; development practitioners (including an array of private contractors); volunteers; civil society representatives; and church members. We answer two questions: what factors determine whether statecraft practitioners can change the behaviour or beliefs of Pacific Island countries and peoples? And what determines how Pacific leaders respond to the statecraft of partner countries? We acknowledge the structural influences on the outcomes of statecraft, including colonialism, geopolitics, international institutions, and global flows of capital. Ultimately, we identify four factors as determinative of how effectively individuals practice statecraft, and how Pacific leaders and officials respond to the statecraft of partner countries: the impact of elite ‘bubbles’ (Cornut 2015: 387); the influence of prior understanding and experience; the comportment and civility of diplomats and other representatives of partner states; and the importance of relationships.

We begin by discussing our analytical framework combining practice theory and the micro-analysis of individuals in international relations, before detailing our methodology and sources. Drawing from memoirs and podcasts, we then examine the factors affecting influence in statecraft; and conclude by reiterating that the micro-level of statecraft, by all statecraft practitioners, is critical to effective and successfully received statecraft.

Analytical framework

The last decade has seen an increasing number of scholars highlight the analytical importance of the ‘microfoundations’ of international politics (Kertzer 2017). International Relations (IR) scholars have accordingly sought to foreground the ‘first image’, that is, the role of individuals (Holmes et al., 2021; Wallis 2021; Bilsland 2015). This builds on decades of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) scholarship, which tends to be agent-oriented and argues that ‘all that occurs between nations and across nations is grounded in human decision makers acting singly or in groups’ (Hudson 2005: 1). This approach recognises that individuals are not interchangeable; therefore, analyses must focus on ‘specific human beings using their agency and acting individually or in groups’ to understand international political change (Hudson and Day 2019: 7). On this basis, it has been suggested that critical IR scholarship should draw from FPA by seeking to understand the role of individuals’ psychology and agency to ‘provide the sort of complex, nuanced, and pluralistic interpretation of ordinary or non-elite aspects of social life that matter in global politics’ (Beasley et al. 2024: 158).

Our focus on individuals also builds on diplomatic studies, which has traditionally focused on political leadership during crises (Sharp 1999; Pouliot and Cornut 2015). Diplomacy literature subsequently expanded to consider how diplomacy is conducted by defence personnel, development practitioners, law enforcement officers, civil society, volunteers, and other expatriates (Bowling and Sheptycki, 2012; Hess 2018; Adler-Nissen 2014). Scholars describe diplomacy as a ‘discrete human behaviour’ (Sharp 1999: 33) influenced by individual idiosyncrasies (Neumann 2012), with individuals utilising their language skills, personal interest in particular social causes, and engagement over quotidian things (like favourite restaurants) when practising diplomacy (Tam 2019).

Analysis of the micro-level is not necessarily restricted to the individuals who operate there. Instead, if we conceive the micro-level as a space composed of social practices, representations, and principles (Lefebvre 1991 [1974], we can also analyse ‘face-to-face conduct (everyday activities, the routines of social life)’, rather than ‘larger scale, more impersonal macro phenomena like institutions and the distributions of power and resources’ (Layder 1994: 5). We can examine such everyday face-to-face conduct using practice theory, which analyses socially meaningful patterns of actions, reproduced over time and ‘which, in being performed more or less competently, simultaneously embody, act out, and possibly reify background knowledge’ (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 4; McCourt 2016; Gifkins 2023). Practices are classes of action, institutionalised into socially organisational contexts; for example, by multiple individual actors undertaking actions on behalf of their employers, including government departments (Adler and Pouliot 2011). And yet, ‘the implementation of the prescribed activity is an innately human endeavour, one marked by human foibles’ (Peake 2022: 6). Therefore, there is a ‘strong elective affinity between the study of diplomacy and practice theory’, as both examine human elements of international politics through a relational lens (Pouliot and Cornut 2015: 298). Both look beyond the macro international and institutional level to the micro-level of the individual, comparing how individuals interact across different institutions, nationalities, and cultural contexts (Lequesne 2015; Cornut 2015; Cooper and Pouliot 2015). As Peake (2022: 6) argues, ‘individuals are intensely visible to one another, their strengths, quirks and idiosyncrasies gabbed about at length’ and if we were to omit them from analysis then we would be showing ‘cognitive dissonance about the importance of human agency’.

Practice theory points us towards analysing the relationships that individuals generate through their interactions. The recent relational turn in IR scholarship has directed attention towards personal and communal interactions in different social and cultural environments (Kurki, 2022). Social and cultural interactions can create ‘relational continuation, relational attentiveness, relational curiosity, and relational empathy’, which generates long-lasting relationships (Tam 2019: 134). In non-Western conceptions, these relations are often seen as a ‘dance’ of inter-relations tied to history and geography, but that are fluid and dynamic (Kavalski 2017: 16; Naupa, 2025). ‘Deep relation’ is particularly important in and with Pacific cultures, and can ‘repair colonial wounds, binding back together peoples, lands, pasts, ancestors and spirits’ (Shilliam 2015: 13). Long-term relationships are vital to preventing and managing potential tensions and suppressing escalation (Neumann 2012). Therefore, relationships are valuable tools of statecraft that can, at times, coerce and influence target individuals and the states they represent.

While analysing the micro-scale tells us much about the individuals involved in the everyday practices of statecraft, it can also reveal how their behaviour, beliefs, and interactions ‘reproduces or transforms institutions over time’ (Bell 2011: 894). This is because individuals and the institutions they belong to mutually influence each other (Steinmo 2008). Therefore, our micro-scale analysis can help explain how the individuals we analysed changed the policies of their governments and shaped how those governments’ policies were received and responded to by their individual Pacific counterparts, and in turn, the governments to which they belonged. That is, how these individuals influenced the effectiveness of their country’s statecraft.

Method

To understand the role of individuals in statecraft, we undertook a thematic discourse analysis of primary texts, including memoirs by partner country statecraft practitioners and Pacific leaders, and of transcripts of podcasts in which they were interviewed. As we were undertaking a micro-analysis, thematic discourse methods had the potential to generate more humanistic outcomes than traditional state-based methods in IR. Thematic analyses consist of five parts: immersing oneself in the data; generating initial codes; searching for themes; reviewing themes; and defining and naming themes (Riger and Sigurvinsdottir, 2016). In our analysis, one author read/listened to all the primary texts once for meaning (immersion), and then transcribed aspects which indicated statecraft interactions into one document (initial codes). Statecraft interactions included when authors detailed diplomatic engagements, descriptions of meetings with individuals from other states, and how interactions were received or perceived. Given that we analysed (auto)biographies, while the corpus seems large, some memoirs contained less on international relations and focussed on an individual’s upbringing or domestic politics; whereas others, particularly diplomatic memoirs, were largely focussed on international interactions and contained more examples of statecraft. Another author then compiled this inventory of examples, identified prevalent patterns, and sorted them into key themes which provided insights into the role of individuals in statecraft. These themes were reviewed by the whole team, who defined and named these themes together. These themes were: the impact of elite ‘bubbles’ (Cornut 2015: 387); the influence of prior understanding and experience; the comportment of diplomats and other representatives of partner states; and the importance of relationships.

We recognise that ‘memoirs have shortcomings’, are ‘fallible and partial, and consequently, memoirs are not necessarily reliable sources of history’ but that they importantly demonstrate how the authors make sense of, and reflect upon, their experiences with statecraft (Wallis 2024: 214; Mac Ginty 2022). We analysed the memoirs of diplomats to Pacific postings: Australian high commissioner to Papua New Guinea (PNG) Ian Kemish (2022); Australian high commissioner to Fiji Sue Boyd (2020), and New Zealand diplomat to Samoa and PNG Gerald McGhie (2017).

We also analysed the memoirs of former Pacific leaders: Fijian Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (1997); Samoan Prime Minister Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi (Malielegaoi and Swain, 2017); Samoan Deputy Prime Minister Tugaga Lesamatauanuu Retzlaff (2021); PNG Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan (2016); PNG Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare (1975); Cook Islands Prime Minister Sir Tom Davis (1992); Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sir Peter Kenilorea (Kenilorea and Moore, 2008); and the biography of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Solomon Mamaloni based on substantive interviews (Chevalier 2022). We limited our analysis to leaders with published memoirs, and appreciate that our corpus of data does not include representation from every Pacific Island country nor a gender balance. We also recognise that this corpus skews towards a past generation of Pacific leaders who had direct lived experiences of colonisation, potentially affecting the findings. However, certain aspects of human behaviour remain constant over time, and we have attempted to reflect these. We hope that future memoirs published by Pacific leaders are analysed similarly to understand if/how patterns of statecraft evolve over time. There have only been two women heads of government in the Pacific Islands region, neither with published memoirs: Samoan Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, and Marshallese President Hilda Heine (Cox and Corbett 2020).

Partner states also deploy personnel from military, police, and other law enforcement and security agencies in the Pacific Islands, as well as development practitioners, volunteers, civil society representatives, and church members. They regularly interact with officials, community leaders, civil society representatives, and ordinary people during their deployments. Each interaction by these partner state ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky 1980; Peake and Forsyth 2022) either contributes to, or undermines, the effectiveness of their country’s statecraft (Hess 2018; Bowling and Sheptycki, 2012; Adler-Nissen 2014). However, most statecraft practitioners do not write memoirs. There is a nascent body of writing based on experiences overseas which are grounded in personal narratives and personal encounters, and centred at ground-level (as opposed to the literature aforementioned) (Bamforth 2019; Venner 2022; Ells, 2007; Peake 2013, 2022). This is for many reasons, including that a contractor working on a government project usually must sign confidentiality agreements, while public servants are bound by broad-ranging secrecy provisions.

As we recognise this significant pool of individuals practising statecraft, we have analysed the transcripts of conversations with more than 50 civilian advisers, military and police officers, and close observers collected for the Statecraftiness podcast series, which examined themes central to the ‘micro-scale’ of statecraft (Peake, 2023–2024, Episodes 1–16). These provide us with a more contemporary view of statecraft than the leaders’ memoirs. The podcast examined a suite of strategies (e.g. police reform, and climate change adaptation projects) that states used to either acquire and assert influence and/or abate and assuage the influence of others. Irrespective of the episode’s topic or geographical focus, the interviews demonstrated how statecraft was personified in the individuals who implemented it, rather than the policies of the state. As Jack Niedenthal (quoted in Peake, 2023−24, Episode 11), former Secretary of Health of Marshall Islands observed:

In the Pacific in general, and I think this is a good generalization—it’s a people sort of place, it’s a people sort of region. And I say that because you get someone at the head of any organization… a bank, or a ministry or any kind of business. When a new person comes in to manage that area, the personality that that organization changes, because it’s based on that individual, that person who’s in power, and that that comes with a lot of responsibility… when you get these foreign diplomatic missions here in here, it’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re getting… And so I’ve met some really incredible people. I’ve also met some real downers….

We also analysed the transcripts of other podcast interviews: former New Zealand diplomat John Capper on the podcast Good Will Hunters (2023); former US Ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu Judith Cefkin on BBC podcast The Real Story (BBC, 2022); and Australian high commissioners to Samoa and Solomon Islands respectively, Sara Moriarty and Rod Brazier, on the Australia in the World podcast (AIW, 2019).

Elite ‘bubbles’

Elite bubbles are groups of individuals who hold a particular status in a society who engage mostly or only with one another—elsewhere described as an ‘exclusive insider club’ (Huju 2023: 7)—leaving them out of ‘tune’, and often with misleading or incomplete perceptions of the interests and needs of society at large (Cornut 2015: 386; Autesserre 2014; Peake 2016). Elites are not distinguished by race or colonial imbalance, but by privilege (Huju 2023). While we classify diplomats and statecraft practitioners as elites, we also recognise that Pacific leaders in our corpus of data come from what Hau’ofa (2008: 13) called the ‘privileged classes’ of the Pacific, who are ‘increasingly culturally homogenous: they speak the same language…they share the same ideologies and the same material lifestyles (admittedly with local variations due to physical environment and original cultural factors, but the similarities are much more numerous than the differences)’. Pacific leaders, state, and regional bureaucrats can be drawn into the elite bubble through the privilege of their domestic, cultural, and political positions, as well as being present in diplomatic spaces and development projects (see Academia Nomad, 2023).

A common theme in diplomatic analyses is the difficulties elites face going ‘outside the bubbles they create with themselves and interact regularly with non-elite locals’ (Cornut 2015: 387; McGhie 2017). This generates criticism that diplomats have ‘only a theoretical and superficial knowledge of their areas of deployment’ (Autesserre 2014: 27). The temptation to operate within elite bubbles was evident in many memoirs and reflections of the diplomats we analysed. Boyd (2020: 244) described the Suva golf course as a ‘good place to maintain contact with Fijian leaders and members of the Australian and international communities, to exchange information about what was going on’. Given how prohibitively expensive access to that golf course was for ordinary people, these interactions were mainly limited to a bubble of privileged international and local elites. Similarly, a common criticism of Australian police in Solomon Islands is that they primarily spend their time interacting with each other, and do not talk to regular people (Peake, 2023−24, Episode 2). A former Australian high commissioner to Solomon Islands recalled that he rarely went to the market (a significant meeting place), and when he did, he was asked who he was, with a Solomon Islander commenting that: ‘I have trouble telling you white people apart’ (AIW, 2019). McGhie (2017) observed that there was a balance to be struck between being seen in the capital with elites, and spending time in the outer islands and provinces to gain personal contact and understand the issues outside urban environments. This is particularly important in island states, where ‘everybody knows everybody’ and the average person at the market is likely somehow related to a member of the political elite (Corbett 2013).

Diplomats with elite-only connections fail to adequately understand the range of issues across a country, whereas those who engage with the public outside of formal diplomatic interactions (including with civil society) tend to have ‘understood better the depth and the extent’ of issues (Cornut 2015: 386). This has implications both for the accuracy and representativeness of the information and impressions they relay to their home country via their regular diplomatic cables, and for how they are perceived in-country, which can, in turn, influence the effectiveness of their country’s statecraft. Expatriates who did not make efforts to leave the elite bubble and get to know local people were viewed negatively. Mamaloni observed that ‘I do not think that all the expatriates here have a heart and I don’t think that any of them are prepared to bury their hearts here … I don’t think that expensive people who do not give their best to the development should remain here any longer’ (1972, quoted in Chevalier 2022: 102).

By contrast, Chan favourably described expatriates who: went outside Port Moresby and worked on shared projects or worksites; had read widely about PNG during their tenure in-country; learnt multiple local dialects; engaged with local people; and attended the (now-defunct) Australian School of Pacific Administration, where they ‘learned about our administrative structures, culture, and the way they ought to conduct themselves’ (Chan 2016: 52). In Samoa, expatriates who were ‘capable and brilliant’ were valued, but mostly recognised were those who married locally, and maintained ties with Samoa long after departing (Retzlaff 2021: 40). A matai (chiefly) title might be bequeathed to expatriates and foreign leaders who facilitated significant economic and migration benefits for Samoa (Futaiasi et al. 2024). For example, one doctor who assisted Samoa with its overseas medical treatment scheme was honoured with the Papali’i title (Retzlaff 2021). This title ties individuals intrinsically to Samoa, both honouring them and creating ongoing obligations on that relationship.

Understanding and prior experience

Diplomats may find it hard to burst their elite bubbles and engage with ordinary people, due to institutional shifts away from learning local languages and cultural and social practices (Sharp 1999). Australian, American, and New Zealand diplomats are often criticised for not speaking local Pacific languages and may be compared unfavourably with Chinese diplomats, many of whom achieve fluency in local languages—aided by Pacific language programs at Chinese universities (Wallis et al. 2024; Peake 2016; Zhang and So’oa’emalelagi 2019). By contrast, partner diplomats receive years of language training before deploying to European or Asian countries (Kemish 2022; McGhie 2017).Footnote 1

As former Australian diplomat Mark Pierce (2024) argued, learning and using a local language conveys respect within diplomacy. A lack of language skills can undermine the ability of diplomats to conduct statecraft effectively because ‘knowledge of the language was a first step in gaining access to the culture and an understanding of what lay behind the complex motivation and decision-making’ which ‘is conducted along intensely personal lines’ (McGhie 2017: 144). Kane Johnson, an Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer deployed to rural Solomon Islands, recounted how his lack of familiarity with the languages of his Pacific Island counterparts meant he was unable to participate in basic social interactions, limiting his effectiveness (Peake, 2023−24, Episode 2). McGhie (2017: 165) argued that several diplomatic situations would have been handled better by diplomats with specialist language and cultural skills. Understanding the alternate versions of speeches produced in parliamentary transcripts, the speeches with important points in churches, and knowledge of gestures and complex protocols is also important to understanding what is occurring, the motivations behind it, and the lineage attached (McGhie 2017; Wallis et al. 2024). These examples demonstrate the interconnections between language, social interactions, and politics in the Pacific, which in terms of statecraft, should influence both what diplomats report back to their governments, and how they conduct themselves. In turn, this can generate a gap between governments’ intended statecraft efforts and their implementation on the ground. Implementation gaps can have implications for that government, as it may have to readjust its programs, or even its policy settings, if its statecraft is not achieving its intended ends.

The lack of investment in language training for partner diplomats deployed to the Pacific Islands region is symptomatic of a lack of Pacific literacy, particularly in Australia and the US (New Zealand has a large Pasifika population, aiding Pacific literacy). A lack of information about the Pacific in partner education systems and public spheres means that diplomats often rely on their predecessors, local consuls, and those with family ties to Pacific Island countries for advice (McGhie and Ayson 2012; Boyd 2020).Footnote 2 Limited Pacific literacy in most partner states means that diplomats can arrive at their posting with misperceptions. Some Australian diplomats asked what they had done ‘wrong’ to get a posting to the Pacific (Kemish 2022: 210; Boyd 2020).Footnote 3 PNG, for example, has a ‘distorted and negative reputation with those who have never been there’ (Kemish 2022: 210; McGhie 2017; Boyd 2020). Security briefings about car-jackings, keeping cars and houses securely locked, and using convoys for driving at night—all genuine health and safety measures—reinforce these perceptions. Stereotypes are also reinforced through sensational overseas media reports, for example AFP officers deployed to PNG framed the country through British tabloid television programs featuring PNG about ‘the world’s most dangerous gangs’, over recourse to published academic research (Peake 2016).

The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade found that rotating staff often does not work as effectively in the Pacific region, as foreign affairs officials require significant experience in the region, including knowledge of history and connections (Good Will Hunters, 2023; McGhie 2017). Kemish (2022: 210), who had spent some of his childhood in PNG, found returning as Australian High Commissioner ‘like a homecoming, with childhood friends emerging from my distant past to greet me… People seemed to welcome my personal connection with the place – I was often referred to in the PNG Press as a mangi lo ples [local kid]’. In the case of Australian diplomats, prior knowledge of PNG is influenced by Australia’s role as colonial administrator until PNG’s independence in 1975. While diplomats from Kemish’s generation may have grown up in PNG during Australia’s colonial administration, similar connections are less common for subsequent generations.

Under colonial administrations , to-be Pacific leaders often had contact with Australians, New Zealanders, Germans, Chinese, and Japanese people from an early age, whether as: missionaries; teachers in local schools; or wartime and/or colonial administrators, including at the local level, for example, Australian kiaps (district officers) in PNG. Some early experiences were negative. Somare (1975) reflected the pain of seeing missionaries destroying cultural artefacts, while Davis (1992) discussed how colonial administrators barred Cook Islanders (including himself) from accessing education or working in the Cook Islands’ bureaucracy. Others were more positive. Somare (1975: 5) described the occupying Japanese forces during the Second World War as ‘extremely friendly’ ‘normal people’, who ‘respected the local women’. Chan (2016: 8–9) fondly recalled an Australian kiap visiting his family and his father inviting him to stay for a meal. The differences between these recollections illustrates that, while colonisation and wartime occupation are structurally discriminatory and violent, individual behaviour can influence memories of these experiences. Given the number of Australian and New Zealand policing and development personnel and Chinese businesspeople who operate in the region nowadays, many Pacific Islanders’ (including future leaders) perceptions of partner states will likely be influenced by the behaviour of those individuals from an early age.

Pacific leaders invariably pursued education in partner countries.Footnote 4 Pacific leaders’ educational experiences are important to statecraft, as ‘allegiance and loyalty can be influenced through scholarships’ (Aqorau 2022: 4; Kent 2024; Habru et al., 2024; McGhie 2017; Kenilorea and Moore, 2008). Due to his New Zealand education, Mamaloni ‘held New Zealand in much higher regard than Australia or Britain, and always supported Kiwi sporting teams’, choosing ‘to wear his Te Aute school blazer when he was sworn in as Chief Minister in 1974’ and returning to visit the school ten years later (as Chief Minister) (Chevalier 2022: 79). Chan recalled warm memories of his education in Australia and visited his former Brisbane teacher when he was in Solomon Islands. Misa spoke about attending King’s College in Auckland often in his later life, stating that his time there ‘assisted greatly in my development as a human being, both intellectually and emotionally, and especially in terms of enhancing my capacity to deal with life’s challenges. It took me out of the “insular” situation that I was in, in Samoa, and placed me in the broader and more competitive context of New Zealand’ (Retzlaff 2021: 65). These accounts describe experiences from previous generations; yet they resonate with contemporary interviews about how government scholarships are intended to influence and shape perceptions of emerging Pacific Islanders about partner countries (Peake 2023−24, Episode 5; Habru et al. 2024; Kent 2024). Former Australian senior official Hugh White recalled that diplomatic tensions could be smoothed over at the working level when there were commonalities of shared education and experiences (Peake, 2023−24, Episode 1).

Studying abroad creates points of connection which can be advantageous, often in unexpected ways. Pacific leaders’ overseas education generated long-standing people-to-people links. Each leader who studied overseas was invited to spend the summer break with a friend’s family. This saw them invited to rural areas of New Zealand and Australia, where they learnt about agriculture and livestock, orcharding, farming, logging, baking, and hard work—knowledge and values they called upon during their later leadership. Others were invited over for dinner and assisted with their studies. The families providing this assistance were remembered fondly—Mamaloni named his first daughter after the family he stayed with in New Zealand, and Tuila’epa named his eldest son after the man who helped him study: ‘Many Samoan students received tremendous help from Brian [Lythe] over the years as they struggled through their initial years of study’ (Malielegaoi and Swain, 2017: 52; Chevalier 2022). These people became ‘close friends who remain good and loyal friends until today’ who have an ongoing influence in the lives, networks, and decisions of leaders, and could be called upon for favours to benefit the country—Mara, for instance, called on an old school friend to obtain reserved places for Fijian students in New Zealand medical schools (Davis 1992: 13; Mara 1997).

However, Pacific leaders’ overseas educational experiences were not entirely positive. Each detailed their experiences with racism: Davis and Mamaloni were both teased at school; Mara was refused entry to a dance due to his race and not allowed to manage his own finances; and Tuila’epa detailed being ‘abused by old white men on a bus’, called abusive terms, told to go home, and denied a tenancy due to his colour during New Zealand’s Dawn Raids, when Pacific Islanders were racially discriminated against (Malielegaoi and Swain, 2017: 59). Indeed, Mamaloni reported that his New Zealand schooling ‘gave him a deeper understanding of colonialism and imperialism. He learned about British duplicity, racism, and colonial violence, as well as histories of dispossession and resistance in a settler colony. Learning about and experiencing Māori pride and resistance shaped or reinforced his pride in Indigenous cultures’ (Chevalier 2022: 79). This influenced his later politics, and when he was prime minister Mamaloni ‘tore into the Australian government for being “imperialist and paternalistic” and told [Australian Prime Minister] Keating to “shut up and stop interfering with the domestic affairs of Solomon Islands”’ at the 1994 Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meeting (Chevalier 2022: 184). Unfortunately, contemporary Pacific Island students studying in Australia on scholarships, while grateful for the opportunity, note similar challenges of ‘unconscious biases, racism, and difficulty finding relevant work experience alongside their studies’ (Habru et al., 2024: 44). The recollections of the Pacific leaders suggest that many of these students are potentially Pacific leaders of the future whose memories may affect their attitudes towards partners.

Pacific leaders also reported that their other experiences overseas influenced their perceptions of, and interactions with, other countries, people, and organisations. There are deeply-established familial and cultural relationships between Pacific families and people of status across the Pacific—for example, Mara and Davis had early relationships with Tongan royalty. Due to his chiefly status, Mara met senior Samoan leaders when in Dunedin that benefitted his ongoing relationship with Samoa once he led Fiji. Mara and Kenilorea met at Whanganui Boys’ College and developed a friendship, as did Kenilorea with Ratu Cakau, who later became Chief of the Fijian Military Force, a diplomat, and speaker of the Fijian Parliament (Kenilorea and Moore, 2008). Tuila’epa’s later work at the Secretariat for the Organisation of the Africa Caribbean Pacific group in Brussels ‘expanded my understanding of the economies of developing nations and I gained new knowledge, extended my skills and developed a wide range of international contacts. All of these would prove valuable in later years’ (Malielegaoi and Swain, 2017: 63). These connections are crucial to ongoing effective statecraft.

Comportment

How individual diplomats comport themselves, that is, how they behave, their manner, demeanour, and in some cases, physical characteristics, can also influence the effectiveness of their statecraft efforts. For example, McGhie (2017: 155) described one high commissioner to Samoa as having ‘a commanding physical presence and a fairly relaxed approach’. These traits ‘were welcomed by Samoans who saw him as someone who had some understanding of their problems’ and enabled regular meetings and informal discussions with the Prime Minister (McGhie 2017: 155). An interest in the personal lives and health of Pacific leaders was also appreciated. When former Samoan Prime Minister Tofilau Eti Alesana required a heart bypass operation, he reported feeling ‘great comfort’ in hearing from Sir Guy Powles, former New Zealand governor of pre-independence Samoa, while he was in hospital (Swain and Malielegaoi, 2017: 128).

Pacific leaders also reported positive impressions of several partner country leaders. Australian Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock was described as a person who would bump into leaders in the bathroom, ‘grab my hand and talk my language, he was down to earth and friendly’ (Chan 2016: 87). Chan (2016: 82) described Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser as having a ‘habit of turning his head upwards so it appeared he had a habit of looking down on others…in Papua New Guinean terms, a Big Man and a tall man. In spite of his imposing height, he was soft at heart and very sympathetic, much more compassionate concerning the needs of developing countries and more pragmatic in relationships’.

By contrast, while Pacific Islanders largely appreciated New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange’s support during anti-nuclear discussions, Lange was perceived to be ‘insensitive’ when it came to responding to the 1987 Fijian coups (Davis 1992: 312; Chevalier 2022). New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark was also described as insensitive when she did not take Tuila’epa’s domestic politics and matai lineage into account when she travelled to Samoa to apologise for New Zealand’s colonial wrongs (Malielegaoi and Swain, 2017). Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam once kept PNG leaders waiting for a meeting for over an hour, after which they planned to walk out as they did not ‘want to be treated this way’ (Kuki quoted in Chan 2016: 80). Once Whitlam arrived, ‘The meeting felt like a talk for the big boys… with Whitlam talking above us…I felt he was not the type of man who would have a conversation because he might hear something that he could learn from, he would only be talking to convey his thoughts about the way things should be done’ (Chan 2016: 80–81).

While Kemish argued that Australia ‘put good people there [in Pacific states], for the most part’ (NSP, 2022), occasionally diplomats are less than diplomatic. In Solomon Islands, the last colonial governor was said to be ‘universally disliked’ and to have ‘behaved disgracefully’ towards the new Solomon Islander Governor General, including by not moving out of the official residence (Chevalier 2022: 123). Such behaviour meant that Mamaloni was reported to have ‘disliked Australian diplomats’ and to have ‘disrespected’ several Australian high commissioners while Prime Minister (Chevalier 2022: 179). Mamaloni was quoted complaining that ‘first they send me a drunk and then they send me a child’ (Chevalier 2022: 179). New Zealand diplomats have also been criticised in the region. A leaked report by outgoing High Commissioner to Tonga Brian Smythe scathing about the Tongan Royal Family provides a rare glimpse into a diplomat’s undiplomatic thoughts, and leaves little room for imagination as to why he was quickly shuffled to Vanuatu (Field 2024). Tokelau successfully requested that New Zealand administrator David Nicholson be removed. The official reason for his requested removal was that he had a dual appointment as high commissioner to Samoa, but allegedly the unofficial reason was that his behaviour did not meet diplomatic standards, including arriving late to formal events and ignoring cultural protocols (indicating that he did not think these practices were important), and that he had vetoed Tokelauan spending (RNZ, 2017).

By contrast, following cultural protocols is critical: diplomacy in the Pacific is done through customary ways and protocols, knowing where to sit, when to speak, how to navigate silences, and which spaces are appropriate or not (Carter et al, 2025). Sir Tom Davis (1992: 312) recalled that ‘the most vocal in the [Pacific Islands] Forum were Australians and New Zealanders and it is no exaggeration to say that they verbally dominated our meetings. Our silence encouraged this domination. However, sometimes, our silence was because we had nothing to say on an issue. By most of us, the difference can be sensed’ (see also, Chevalier 2022; Fry, 2019). While Western diplomats tend to be fairly vocal, in the Pacific Islands silences do not necessarily need to be filled and represents neither acquiescence nor consent, and instead often relating to someone’s social standing or their relationship (or lack of) with the individual speaking (Boon-Nanai et al. 2022; Koro et al. 2023). Melanesian scholars observed that, in the Pacific Islands,

diplomatic interactions are guided by discernment, manners, and reciprocity, deeply rooted in the cultural fabric of Pacific societies…. Often, it is what is not said that matters. Silence is important… Western international diplomacy practiced in the Pacific does not often pay this attention to these dispositions (Taylor et al. 2023: 5).

Not knowing these protocols, or failure to adhere to them indicates disrespect and rudeness. Pacific leaders commented upon this lack of protocol. An apparent lack of respect, or at least lack of awareness about what respect was expected, was reported in several of the Pacific leaders’ memoirs. Chan (2016: 107) described a ‘paternalistic attitude’ when Australian ministers and officials would turn up without giving notice to the PNG government—including Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. Similarly, Mamaloni ‘refused to meet with foreign ministers of Australia and New Zealand, Gareth Evans, and Don McKinnon, arguing that he was prime minister and they should talk to their counterparts’ (Chevalier 2022: 179). Somare (1975) recalled that when he visited Japan the Australian ambassador refused to meet him. When the ambassador changed his mind the next day and demanded to see him, on principle Somare refused. It appears that partner states have not improved their acknowledgement of the importance of respect and status, despite directing new energy into statecraft in the region. When Solomon Islands and China signed a security pact in 2022, a junior minister from Australia and mid-level officials from the US, the UK, and other partner countries arrived to try and change Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s mind. Sogavare declined to meet with any of them, since none were of equivalent status. Similarly, New Zealand Foreign Minister (and Deputy Prime Minister) Winston Peters caused a 2025 diplomatic ruckus by complaining when Kiribati’s President would not meet him in Kiribati due to other commitments, instead delegating the responsibility to his Deputy Prime Minister—the same level as Peters.

By contrast, Pacific leaders demonstrate their values through their comportment. When Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited PNG in 2024 as the first sitting prime minister to walk the Kokoda Track—symbolic of long-standing PNG-Australian relations, particularly during WWII—PNG Prime Minister James Marape personally accompanied him on the two-day hike. Marape said that it would be ‘unfair’ on ‘him and the Australian people if the Prime Minister of PNG does not accompany him on his stay in PNG wherever it is… I will walk with him until he stops! I will also stop when he stops’ (quoted in Post Courier, 2024).

For all the rather primly strategic language it can be swaddled in, statecraft is a fundamentally human endeavour, achieved through personal relationships. Reflecting upon a posting in a government office in PNG, development expert Bridi Rice suggested it was not high politics which shaped how her colleagues’ perceived relationships, but personal ties with counterparts: ‘they just wanted to be respected. They wanted to be heard, they wanted to be listened to. And yes, they wanted those Australians for their technical expertise, who wouldn’t? (quoted in Peake, 2023−24, Episode 1). Rice’s observation was echoed by Hugh White, a former senior Australian official turned strategist who reflected that:

I find it very hard to imagine that that that a target country is going to willingly make a decision which serves their national interests less well, in order to do Australia a favour because Australia helped them build a bridge or something. That’s fanciful. But then I’ll pay careful attention to what you say to me. Because I know you, and I’ve respected you, and I’ve enjoyed your company … that goes both to relations between diplomats on the ground, and foreign leaders (quoted in Peake, 2023−24, Episode 1).

While these personal impressions of diplomat and other statecraft practitioners might at first seem superficial, they can translate into substantive effects for the success (or otherwise) of a country’s statecraft. They can also determine how undertakings provided by diplomats are received, which can be crucial during negotiations and times of crisis.

Relationships

In the Pacific Islands, ‘the quality of relationships determines outcomes far more so than might and money’ (Futaiasi et al. 2024). Therefore, an analytical focus on relationships resonates in the region, where relational interactions remain at the forefront of Pacific interpersonal, cultural, and political dynamics (Koro et al. 2023; Finau et al., 2022; Va’ai and Nabobo-Baba, 2017). Indeed, ‘diplomats who build relationships and trust can play an influential role in the country’ (Kemish 2022: 208). However, Boyd (2020: 248) acknowledged that, for Australia, ‘the Pacific remains an area firmly within the policy focus but maintaining and developing the relationship is getting more complicated’.

Even apparently good relationships do not always result in effective influence—the reception of statecraft is at the discretion of the recipient. During the 2000 Fiji coup, the British High Commissioner ‘had a close relationship with a former head of the armed forces, Paul Manueli, whom Bainimarama respected and regarded as a valued mentor. The Brit had long conversations with Manueli, urging him to use his influence on Bainimarama. Manueli said he was also worried about the situation and was trying hard, but Bainimarama could not be moved’ (Boyd 2020: 247). Peter Heijkoop, an accountant who worked in the Pacific for more than thirty years on financial projects, opined that too often diplomats and aid managers confuse ‘access’ with ‘influence’ (quoted in Peake, 2023−24, Episode 6).

An important element of building relationships in the Pacific Islands region is gift-giving, with reciprocity a guiding feature of Pacific cultures. In the Pacific, ‘The ceremonies of greeting and friendship are significant… The actions that accompany a ceremony or greeting and the reciprocation of gifts is watched very closely’ (Taylor et al. 2023: 5). The nature of gift-giving is not always understood by diplomats, and is often perceived as simply transactional. Boyd described how Australia showered gifts on Fijian then-President Ratu Sir Kamasese Mara for his eighty-first birthday, but only two days later spoke to him about the constitutional crisis and ‘reminded’ him of the ‘strength and range of the Australian presence and interests in Fiji’ (aid and Australian industry) (Boyd 2020: 238). After an aviation crash killed several Australians in PNG, Kemish (2022: 213) wondered what ‘practical assistance we could offer the tiny village near the crash site through our discretionary aid allocation. We were keen to show our appreciation for their kind response to the Australian families’, but was surprised when the villagers did not ask for infrastructure, instead some ducks for farming, and some sports equipment. He later went on to state that ‘big aid money does not buy you influence in the region… influence, in my view comes with relationships’ (NSP, 2022). When smaller local programmes requiring funding are forgotten or rejected by partners, there can be disdain in the community and by government officials for that partner (McNeill 2024).

Long-standing regional diplomat Dame Meg Taylor and colleagues (2023: 5) note that ‘the emphasis on manners and rituals in Pacific diplomacy may be perceived as long and tedious by Westerners who often prioritise efficiency and directness’. Statecraft practitioners sometimes roll their eyes at the ubiquity and performative nature of the handover ceremony in statecraft: Dr. Joshua Francis who worked on Australia’s COVID-19 response in Timor-Leste ‘dodge[d]’ most ceremonies, noting that all the ‘palaver’ around organising them distracted embassy staff inordinately: ‘you’d be in the middle of having really important conversations and you’d be conscious that someone from the Embassy or somebody else had to get to the airport to receive the stuff off a plane… sometimes the ceremonies can be for as little as a small box of gloves’ (Peake, 2023−24, Episode 11). Gift-giving in the Pacific is often deeply embedded cultural context, gifting carvings or items symbolic of legends or the local ecosystem—by contrast, Australia often gifts rugby jerseys (Conroy 2023), or large aid or security donations for which there are speeches and press releases. Then-Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama stated that ‘China never insults the Pacific. You say it as if there’s a competition between Australia and China. There’s no competition, except to say the Chinese don’t insult us. They don’t go down and tell the world that we’ve given this much money to the Pacific islands. They don’t do that’ (Lyons 2019). East Timorese minister Fidelis Magalhães was simultaneously aware of the absurdity of such stagecraft and cognisant that that is conveyed something of ‘point-in-time’ value about wider diplomatic relationships: where ‘having them [diplomats] present in the audience can tell you about the type of acceptance or recognition that is given by other states or other organisations to your state’ (quoted in Peake 2023−24, Episode 1).

McGhie (2017: 155) observed that: ‘Good relations at the top also had useful spin-off for the High Commission staff in dealing with the bureaucracy and wider community. The politically astute Samoans watched every development with keen interest, keeping what seemed to be an informal scorecard on the state of relations’. This was true for the response to COVID-19: Australia is generally considered to have delivered an excellent response, yet this perception was not related to technical and medical know-how, or logistical acumen. The underlying foundation was the pre-existing relationships between Australian medical personnel and colleagues in national health ministries and hospitals (Peake, 2023−24, Episode 11). What was achieved in Timor-Leste could not have been achieved with a ‘cold start’ in March 2020. Similar pre-existing relationships were also instrumental in the response in Marshall Islands, where robust connections between health ministries in the northern Pacific and American bodies like the Centers for Disease Control were instrumental in that sub-region’s response. Dr Francis and his team stayed in Dili for long spells during the pandemic and did not evacuate, as did many others, which East Timorese minister Magalhães stated was well-regarded locally.

Countries seeking influence in the Pacific therefore ignore the importance of personal relationships at their own peril. While traditional IR theories tell us that state actors will make their decisions based on rational calculations about material power, our analysis reveals that the personal relationships between statecraft practitioners can be critical to how material power is perceived and received. As Magalhães commented, ‘diplomats and government officials are human’, and after he and other East Timorese ministers return from meetings with diplomats, ‘people don’t normally jump to talk about the substance before they give you a broad impression of the reception they received, the warmth expressed by their host… and these things seem to be a quite dominant component of a post-meeting reflection’ (quoted in Peake 2023−24, Episode 1). This highlights how the success of statecraft cannot solely be determined by comparing spending levels, but by the relationships between statecraft practitioners and recipients.

Conclusion

We found that individuals at the micro-level play a critical role in the outcome of statecraft, and should be analysed alongside high-level, headquarters-based policies in IR. While still influenced by structural factors such as colonialism and flows of capital, the reception of statecraft practitioners by (and therefore their ability to influence) the countries where they are deployed is based on: stepping outside of elite ‘bubbles’; having understanding and prior experience with the state; their comportment; and whether they develop deep and genuine relationships. These traits could be shrugged off as ‘expected’ in diplomacy and statecraft: diplomats inherently should comport themselves carefully and cultivate warm relationships with their Pacific counterparts, and yet the above experiences remind us otherwise. Those that do not have or practice these traits will very likely fail to influence changes in behaviour or policy and negate overall statecraft efforts. These features therefore need to be understood in diplomatic studies and practice theory as key to effective influence and statecraft.

Elite ‘bubbles’ are clearly an obstacle to developing more genuine relationships, generated by groups of expatriates who undertake activities unaffordable to everyday locals, and a lack of language skills. But there is limited scholarly research on these bubbles outside of Cornut (2015) and Autesserre (2014). We argue that for a heightened awareness of diplomatic practice, these elite bubbles need to be understood more fully.

Relationships are often highlighted by Pacific Islanders as critical to effective international relations (Tekiteki 2024). However, they appear to frequently be misunderstood by external partners. Good quality relationships are not transactional or short-term—they are long, generative, caring, and often include families, friendship, and sharing food and experiences —and can have effects long after the ‘job’ is over. They involve trust, honesty, and integrity, and good intentions for genuine partnership, rather than outcome-oriented actions which can be used against someone later. There is a large body of literature about Australia’s incongruent actions while describing the Pacific as its ‘family’ (Moore 2024; Wallis 2023), which demonstrates the futile transactionality of state-level efforts to achieve influence without genuine people-to-people relationships. This highlights the importance of relationality in understanding diplomacy, practice, and international relations. However, while we did not see it in our analysis, there is also a risk that relationships could equally be deployed nefariously, or could be betrayed by self-serving individuals (Larmour 2012).

Our research also highlighted that individuals outside of political leadership are just as important, which builds on work in diplomatic studies. With development and security partners increasingly embedding officials for capacity-building and liaison roles, initiating new (and non-locally-led) development projects, and deploying volunteers, the role these ‘street-level bureaucrats’ play as statecraft practitioners must be understood – both by the state deploying statecraft, and the individual themselves. When private companies are contracted to conduct statecraft activities such as development programmes or law and justice initiatives, the statecraft outcomes required by the state becomes obfuscated by logos and lack of relationships (Wallis et al. 2024; Bamforth 2019). Individuals therefore need to know what is expected of them by the actor deploying statecraft—that they have a deep and meaningful experience in the country and can develop relationships that will endure, that they will comport themselves carefully, and that they will leave elite ‘bubbles’ of expatriates who separate themselves from local people including through their salaries.

It is for this reason that a micro-level analysis of individuals as statecraft practitioners is important to understanding the macro-level outcomes of statecraft. We acknowledge the structural influences on the outcomes of statecraft, including colonialism, geopolitics, international institutions, and global flows of capital. However, ultimately it is the individuals who can make the biggest impact, and their relationships are the enduring currency of influence in statecraft (Futaiasi et al. 2024).