Dr Henry Ivarature
Dr Henry Ivarature
Deputy Director
henry.ivarature@anu.edu.au
Qualifications
MA in Public Administration, and PhD in Sociology from Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
BA (Hons) First Class in Political Science from the University of Papua New Guinea
Dr Henry Ivarature from Papua New Guinea is the interim Deputy Director of the Pacific Security College. Dr Ivarature has held senior roles with PNG Sustainable Development Program, Government of Papua New Guinea, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and Abt Associates. He holds a PhD in sociology from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His current research interests include political instability in Melanesia and Pacific regionalism. His latest publication is titled ‘The hidden dimension to political instability: Insights from ministerial durations in Papua New Guinea from 1972-2017”, which was published in Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies (2022).Dr Ivarature has been a Pacific Fellow at the PSC since March 2020.
Research Interests
Dr Ivarature’s areas of research and writing is cross-disciplinary and covers the areas of medical sociology, health, politics and political instability, regionalism, education (the politics of free education in PNG), governance and democracy, particularly elections. He has observed elections in Samoa, Niue, Cook Islands and Nauru and analysed elections in Tonga, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea.
Dr Ivarature’s current areas of research are in understanding political instability, particularly, in the Western Pacific (PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) looking more closely at the executive stability. He has also looked at other Pacific Island countries like Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu as well.
Dr Ivarature has written about cross-border trafficking of firearms through the PNG-Indonesia border and the political economy of drugs (marijuana in PNG), gun control, the infamous Sandline Affairs, criminal deportees in Tonga, and environment and climate change through the Commonwealth Technical Working Group on Small Islands Resilient States (2013-2014).
To read blog articles Dr Ivarature is writing on COVID-19 in the Pacific, please click here.
