Abstract:
In dealing with contested regimes, international aid donors must decide whether to suspend
or continue to provide development assistance to a regime considered illegitimate. Since
the 1990s a general consensus has existed that conventional sanctions are largely
ineffective and essentially violate human rights. Responding to this realisation, targeted or
‘smart’ sanctions emerged with the aim of minimising the impacts of sanctions on civilians,
while still targeting the ruling elite. This thesis investigates smart sanctions utilised in a
Pacific Island country: Fiji. Following the coups of 1987, 2000 and 2006 three of Fiji’s
major aid donors, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union, imposed various levels
of smart sanctions including targeted travel bans and sanctioning their aid programmes. In
particular, the donors focused on redirecting funding through non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) in Fiji.
Within the sanctions literature a particular gap exists regarding assessment of the impacts
on local NGOs. What research does exists has shown that in several cases in Africa, Asia
and South America when donors have chosen to channel aid through civil society in
response to lagging political reforms, this has at times done more harm than good for local
NGOs. Since the imposition of smart sanctions in Fiji there has been no evaluation of how
rechanneling aid through NGOs has changed the local development landscape. This
research evaluates both the explicit and implicit impacts that smart sanctions imposed on
Fiji have had on local NGOs.
