Dr Sinclair Dinnen

Sinclair is a Pacific specialist (particularly Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands) and has a background in socio-legal studies.

His doctoral research was undertaken in PNG while he was a research fellow at the National Research Institute (1992-1995). This research was published as ‘Law and Order in a Weak State: Crime and Politics in Papua New Guinea’ (University of Hawai’i Press, 2001).

Sinclair has long-standing research interests in the areas of regulatory pluralism, comparative criminology, justice reform, policing, conflict, peacebuilding, governance, politics, development assistance, and relations with Australia, and post-colonial state formation and nation-building.

These include the contested and syncretic character of authority, regulation and peacebuilding in Melanesia and its implications for institutional development and state formation. He also has an ongoing interest in the changing discourse and practice of international development and, in particular, the security-development nexus.