Policy brief on insider threat frameworks for Pacific Island government ministries and agencies.
Policy brief on insider threat frameworks for Pacific Island government ministries and agencies. Free under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — no registration required.
Summary of the paper
"Trusted to Govern, Positioned to Harm" is an ISPI policy brief on insider threat in small island government agencies, a policy gap the brief says no existing framework has addressed.
Federal insider threat program requirements, including those connected to Executive Order 13587, assume government organizations with dedicated security staff and separated IT management. Small island and Pacific territory agencies operate at a scale where one employee may hold finance, HR, IT and operational responsibilities at once. The brief treats this as a structural condition of small government rather than a performance gap.
What the paper finds
- Federal requirements assume scale. Program requirements presume dedicated security personnel and segregated IT management that small island agencies cannot achieve.
- The multi-function employee is a high-risk profile. Combined control of financial, personnel, IT and operational functions would trigger remediation in a large organization but is invisible to frameworks calibrated for large environments.
- Small-community politics add risk. Political dynamics in small island communities create insider threat conditions the brief says have no continental analog.
What it recommends
- Develop small island government insider threat frameworks built on compensating controls: third-party auditing, rotating duty assignments and peer oversight.
- Reform federal insider threat compliance requirements for Pacific Island territory governments to reflect real capacity constraints.
- Develop practitioner-grounded assessment tools that small agencies can use without dedicated security staff.
Who it's for
Territorial and county agency heads, auditors and inspectors general, government IT and HR leads, and federal officials overseeing insider threat program compliance.
This research connects to the 39 Small Island Developing States worldwide through the Samoa Pathway and BPOA+30 framework. Every ISPI research product carries a mandatory SIDS global bridge per the ISPI Research Architecture.
Further reading
Cite as
Pulley, Warren (2026). Trusted to Govern, Positioned to Harm: Insider Threat in Small Island Government Agencies — The Policy Gap No One Has Addressed (ISPI PB-08). Island Security Policy Institute, Honolulu. https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/pb08-government-insider-threat https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23449998
BibTeX
@techreport{ispipb082026,
author = {Pulley, Warren},
title = {Trusted to Govern, Positioned to Harm: Insider Threat in Small Island Government Agencies — The Policy Gap No One Has Addressed},
institution = {Island Security Policy Institute},
address = {Honolulu, HI},
number = {ISPI PB-08},
year = {2026},
url = {https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/pb08-government-insider-threat},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23449998}
}Related analysis
AnalysisWhat Is Insider Threat in Island Organizations? Why Standard Programs Fail in Small Communities →AnalysisInsider Threat in Island Communities — Why Standard Frameworks Fail Worldwide →AnalysisHow to Implement an Insider Threat Program in a Small Island Organization →PaperPB-07 — Supply Chain Insider Risk at Island Ports →PaperPB-09 — Insider Threat in Island Healthcare Organizations →GuideInsider Threat in Island Communities: Research and FAQ →Pulley, Warren. "Insider Threat in Pacific Government Agencies." Island Security Policy Institute, 2026. https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/pb08-government-insider-threat
