Jon Fraenkel is a Professor of Comparative Politics in the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington. He was formerly a Senior Research Fellow based at the Australian National University (2007-12) and the University of the South Pacific in Fiji (1995-2007) and is an adjunct Professor at Griffiths University, Queensland, Australia. He is Pacific correspondent for The Economist, and has published extensively on the politics of Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Kiribati, Tonga, Samoa and Papua New Guinea. He also works on political settlements and electoral laws in deeply divided societies since the end of the Cold War. 

Research Interests 

Comparative Ethnic Politics and the Role of Constitutional Engineering in Mitigating Ethnic Tensions- Impact of the alternative vote in Fiji, power-sharing or multi-party cabinets) in Fiji and New Caledonia and other approaches to the regulation of ethnic conflict, linked also to an interest in contemporary post-conflict democratisation settlements in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, South Africa and Lebanon.
 
Contemporary Pacific Politics – Causes of political instability in Fiji, Solomon Islands and elsewhere in Melanesia, and New Zealand/Australian policy towards the Pacific Islands states; issues of institutional design throughout the Pacific, particularly electoral systems & women’s representation. Country-specific investigations of post-colonial politics in Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Tonga, Nauru, and Samoa. 

International Political Economy - Historical investigation of trends in trade and capital flows; Post-1870 history of the British, German, Japanese and American economies; the great depression and causes of international variations in the experience of recovery from the great depression; role of Keynesian economics in the post-World War Two boom.

South Pacific Economic History - Early 19th century expansion of trade (whaling, sandalwood, bêche de mer); economic Consequences of Colonisation; the indentured labour trade; the impact of the great depression and development of an alternative to the ‘MIRAB’ analysis of aid & remittance Inflows in the post-war Polynesian and Micronesian Economies.

Theories of Economic Growth and Slowdown - National income accounts; measures of capital investment, output and profitability; economic history of Britain since 1870; philosophical aspects of economic thought.

Chung is the principal investigator of two projects funded by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council: ""Reconciliation and Its Resentments: The Suppression of Justice and Truth Recovery in Germany, Northern Ireland, and Western Balkans"" (2023-2026) under the General Research Fund (GRF) scheme, and ""The Politics of Antagonism Revisited: Assessing Northern Ireland's Good Friday Agreement (1998-2018)"" (2018-2022) under the Early Career Scheme (ECS).