big men and middlemen: the politics of law in Longana

Studies of political middlemen suggest that appointed middlemen tend to be less effective than middlemen who achieve an interstitial position by acting as entrepreneurs. This paper discusses the introduction of native middlemen charged with responsibility for dispute processing in a northern New Hebridean society. The case of assessors in Longana indicates that government appointees may succeed in performing their assigned duties when established local leaders perceive a middleman role as a means of gaining access to scarce political resources.