photo: Gudrun Dittrich Biographical information: Roland Seib, born in 1954 in Worms on the Rhine; from 1973 studies of government and public administration, employment as a public servant and alternative civilian service; from 1981-1992 studies of social sciences, economics and anthropology and Ph.D. in international relations at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main; after that, I worked as a consultant and researcher in Papua New Guinea (1987-1988, 1996-2000, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2017), Australia and Fiji, among other places; 1988 and 1996 Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra (invitation: Ron May); 1997-2000 Researcher and Deputy Director at the Melanesian Institute in Goroka; 2002 Lecturer in Southeast Asian Studies at the Goethe University, Frankfurt/M.; in 2008 I earned a Ph.D. from the German School of Administrative Sciences in Speyer (now the German University) with a thesis on the State and Governance in Papua New Guinea; 2009-2010 Visiting Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt/M.; external advice and mentoring of numerous academic theses; since 2012 Associate of the Melanesian Institute, Goroka; independent scholar, author and critic. Fields of Expertise: International Relations Administrative Sciences Region: Pacific particularly Papua New Guinea Southeast Asia, China in Oceania Main Areas of Research: Government and politics State-Building and public sector reform in fragile states Development, clientelism and corruption Extractivism and resource conflicts, deep-sea mining