The Development of Political Parties in Fiji

Abstract

Fiji's smallness and relative isolation need not obscure what are distinctive and sometimes complex structures of organised politics. This study is about a central area of such activity: the still recent birth and growth of its two major political parties. Their development has been closely interwoven with Fiji's constitutional and political changes during its transition through a phase of increasing internal self government to full independence. That is the central theme of this thesis; none of the chapters that follow move very far from it. But before introducing the topic of party development in Fiji more fully, we must glance at the setting in which it has occurred.