The Study Of Fiji's Political Modernization Process(1871-1970)

The political modernization,which occupies the first place among the classical modernization theories,is the important dimension of modernized development of nation-state.For the Pacific island countries,which began life by tracing the frames of the original tribe system and has been ruled by western colonialists for hundreds of years,political modernization is of great significance to the construction of national modernization.In this text regarding Fiji as the individual case,in the three pillars of western democratic politics-parliamentary system,universal suffrage system and party politics-as evaluation index,from propelling of the British colonial rule,and the awakening of Fijian political awareness and struggle,these two clues will help further investigate historical process of the political modernization of Fiji from 1871 to 1970.Chapter One,on the basis of introducing the domestic and foreign research achievements about Fiji's politics and politics modernization,putting forward the research of Fiji's political modernization needs to be deepened,and the research method adopted,thus provides a clear purpose,content and method to this topic,as well as illustrates the related concepts of political modernization.Chapter Two regards the Fiji Kingdom that Cakobau established as the starting point of Fiji political modernization through discussing the start time of Fiji political modernization,and then analyzes the development of the constitutional monarchy of Fiji kingdom from the development of legislative power,executive power and judicial power.As the first attempt of Fiji political modernization,the government of Fiji Kingdom is provided with the form of modern democratic politics,but is lack of substantial content and mass base,therefore it is a failure mode.Chapter Three combed the process of establishing,developing and evolving of the Executive Council,the Legislative Council and the Indian Fijian society organization respectively.The initial function of the Executive Council is only for advisors and all members are official and appointed by the governors from Europeans,and by the turn of the 20 th century it become powerful gradually,and non-official European members and native Fijian members start to appear,election method becomes the combination of appointment and election as well.All of these show the development of the Executive Council,the Legislative council developments along the direction of enlarging the scale especially to increasing the non-European members and introducing the electoral system.Through four constitutional reforms in 1904,1914— 1916,1929 and 1937,not only the equality of delegates of the three main communities-the indigenous Fijians,Indo-Fijians and Europeans-are to be achieved in the Legislative Council,but also the elected representatives outnumber the appointed ones.All of these show the progress of the Fiji political modernization fully.Chapter Four demonstrates the eventually formation of Fiji modern political system in 1970 through analyzing evolution process from the Legislative Council to parliament,from the Executive Council to the cabinet,from the social organizations to political party.Evolution and development of the Legislative Council is not only thanks to a series of fruitful ideas and measures of three colonial governors Ronald Garvey,Kenneth Maddox and Francis Jakeway who implement the British government's “abandon Fiji” policy faithfully,but also inseparable from wrestling of Fiji various political forces in the 1965 London Conference,the 1969 Suva Constitutional Talks and the 1970 London Constitutional Conference.Finally the transformation from Fiji Legislative Council to parliament is completed on the basis of the producing method that combines the communal election and cross-voting of the Legislative Council representative;The reform of the Executive Council began from the appointment of an Indo-Fijian representative to permitting each three main communities to elect a representative to the Council,and then to the introduction of "Membership System",then the preparatory work of the transition from the Executive Council to the cabinet is completed.Eventually in September 1967 with the introduction of "Responsible Government",the Executive Council transforms into the cabinet completely;although the number of the Fiji social organizations reduce in the period,and politics is greatly enhanced.The Federation Party,the first political party in the history of Fiji and dominated by Indo-Fijian appears in 1964,and in order to deal with the Federation Party and respond to the call of the governor Jakeway,the Alliance Party dominated by the indigenous Fijians is founded in1966,which makes the 1966 general election become the stage that party politics wrestle for the first time in Fiji history.Chapter Five,the process of the Fiji the political modernization during the period of is great significance to the development of Fiji's political after independence,which mainly reflected in two aspects: the parliamentary democracy that is mere mockery,and the ingrained tribal chiefdoms.The motivation of the Fiji's political modernization from 1874 to 1970 includes the designed propelling of the British colonial rule,and the awakening of Fijian political awareness and the appealing of Fijian political rights.Chapter Six summarizes the main clue of the process of Fiji's political modernization during this period,and also points out the features of Fiji's political development in this stage.