International standing, international reputation and Australian foreign policy

This thesis provides a systematic study of the concepts of international standing and international reputation in four significant episodes in Australian foreign policy in the second half of the Twentieth Century. These concepts are shown to have influenced Australian diplomacy, both as objects of policy and as instruments of policy.

Issues in Australian foreign policy : July to December 2010

Two unforseen developments impeded the Labor government’s capacity to pursue its foreign policy objectives in the period under review. Firstly, Labor’s precarious standing in the parliament tilted the government’s policy agenda in favour of issues that the Greens prioritised. Gillard addressed some of these issues, for instance by holding the parliamentary debate on Afghanistan and by pursuing Japan over whaling in the Southern Ocean, but not to the degree that the Greens demanded. Immigration was emblematic of the government’s travails. The Greens advocated an increase in the refugee intake, but the Coalition favoured the resumption of offshore processing. Just when Labor’s proposed Timorese solution was becoming a realistic possibility, the High Court’s decision devalued the entire notion of offshore processing. The only consolation for the government was that the court had reduced the options available to all political parties.

Secondly, the Wikileaks saga revealed that Rudd may no longer be — and perhaps never was — Labor’s trump card in the realm of foreign policy. American assessments of the foreign minister’s character and judgment were in parts scathing. The Obama administration, nonetheless, appeared to readily and usefully absorb his analysis of Chinese politics. Quite how revelations of Rudd’s conversations with Clinton will affect his relations with the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party is another matter. It may well be that Rudd’s influence on Chinese leaders was always wildly overestimated, but in any case it seemed likely that the foreign minister would spend some time rebuilding ties with Beijing in 2011.

A third development — which hitherto had applied more in the realm of perception than reality — similarly threatened to limit the options open to future Australian governments of all stripes: the intensifying debate over alliance management that Hugh White’s essay instigated. Judgments about what sort of region — and what sort of China — Australia will face were imprinted in issues such as the rare earths find and the AUSMIN meeting. By the end of 2010, few issues could be discussed without reference to the China factor.

Popular consent and foreign policy choices : war against the Philippines and covert action in Chile

It is usually assumed that US policymakers need to generate popular consent in order to undertake regime change against another state. This article explores the ways in which contextual factors such as the joint democracy effect, popular values and public moods influenced efforts by elites in the United States to generate popular consent for regime change in the Philippines and Chile. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the United States undertook covert action in Chile due to public recognition of the target state's democratic credentials and a public mood opposed to further military ventures. In contrast, the absence of a strong joint democracy effect, a national mood infused with romantic nationalism qua militarism and social Darwinism facilitated efforts by US elites to generate consent for the invasion and occupation of the Philippines. Subsequently, this article contributes to understandings of the domestic-level factors that influence foreign policy decisions.

Australia and appeasement : imperial foreign policy and the origins of World War II

This book examines Australia's role in the British Empire's policy of Appeasment in the years from the time Hitler came to power 1933 to the outbreak of the European War in September 1939. Focusing on the five leading figures in the Australian governments of the 1930s - Joe Lyons, Stanley, Bruce, Robert Menzies, Billy Hughes and Ricahrd Casey - this book examines their responses to the rise of Hitler and the gowing threat of fascism. It provide new insights into the history of Australian foreign policy, British imperial history and the history of the Origins of the Second World War. 

Repositioning Malaysian foreign policy

This book addresses a diverse range of issues and influences on Malaysian foreign policy. It attempts to put into context Malaysian Foreign Policy since Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak came into office. Many of the changes that have been instituted could be regarded as engaging diplomacy with innovation in such issues as culture, networks, and globalization. In the forefront are the new diplomatic initiatives as the articulation of the New Economic Model, the APEX University in Malaysian higher education, and the ‘One Malaysia’ programme and its impact on the people. Taken together, they represent a noticeable shift in emphasis with the need to combine the domestic dictates of policy and the translation of Malaysia’s larger interests externally. Issues are discussed and analyzed within a historical and future perspective without sidelining the traditional concerns of Malaysian Foreign Policy: The centrality of ASEAN, the need for foreign direct investment, and engagement with the world. The book, therefore, serves a wide readership deeply interested in keeping up with the pace of reforms within the country’s foreign policy and public diplomacy.

US foreign policy in the Middle East : the roots of anti-Americanism

Over the last sixty years, Washington has been a major player in the politics of the Middle East. From Iran in the 1950s, to the Gulf War of 1991, to the devastation of contemporary Iraq, US policy has had a profound impact on the domestic affairs of the region. Anti-Americanism is a pervasive feature of modern Middle East public opinion. But far from being intrinsic to ‘Muslim political culture’, scepticism of the US agenda is directly linked to the regional policies pursued by Washington. By exploring critical points of regional crisis, Kylie Baxter and Shahram Akbarzadeh elaborate on the links between US policy and popular distrust of the United States. The book also examines the interconnected nature of events in this geo-strategically vital region. Accessible and easy to follow, it is designed to provide a clear and concise overview of complex historical and political material. Key features include: •maps illustrating key events and areas of discontent •text boxes on topics of interest related to the Arab/Israeli Wars, Iranian politics, foreign interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the wars of the Persian Gulf, September 11 and the rise of Islamist movements •further reading lists and a selection of suggested study questions at the end of each chapter.

The European union’s foreign policy towards Iraq during 2001-2009

This study identified a number of significant findings which are, a lack of authority of the EU supranational institutions; an absence of clearly defined competencies and responsibilities of the various foreign policy actors and a lack of coordination between the actor representatives during the policy implementation stage.

Theory and Australian foreign policy

An analysis of the theoretical basis of Australian foreign policy, comparing realism and the English School

Iran and the Shanghai cooperation organization : ideology and realpolitik in Iranian foreign policy

The Islamic Republic of Iran has pursued full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). In doing so, Iran has appeared to be unfazed by the prospect of allying with Russia and China, two countries which have systematically suppressed their Muslim minorities for decades. Similarly, the SCO's Central Asian member states are led by individual leaders who are generally believed to rule in spite of their populations. As a result, Iran's eagerness to join the SCO may appear to contradict its self-promoted image as the champion of Muslim interests, but in reality it sits nicely within its overarching enmity for the USA. Indeed, the SCO is seen as a geopolitical counterweight to the USA. For Iran, this geopolitical opportunity overrides ideological imperatives, with the gap between ideology and geopolitics most evident under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Free Trade Agreements and US Foreign Policy

The United States has completed numerous free trade agreements (FTAs), but the pattern of these agreements defies conventional explanations. Arguments that are based on domestic interests and economic gains cannot explain the comparative under-performance of US trade agreements. The pattern of US trade agreements is also inconsistent with explanations that focus on state power, which depict FTAs as a “reward” for loyal clients. This article finds a better explanation for the pattern of the United States’ FTAs by consideringthe systemic level of analysis, and in particular the dynamics of the international economic order. It illustrates that strong competition for bilateral trade agreements has resulted in patterns of agreements that the United States cannot easily dominate. This is not to say that the United States has no capacity to finalize trade agreements: the United States remains the world’s most influential nation-state, but the constraints of the international system necessarily limit the degree to which FTAs can serve the interests of US foreign economic policy. The recent evolution of international trade politics, however, indicates that smaller states are comparatively less vulnerable to pressure from great powers, such as the United States.

Neoconservatism as discourse: virtue, power and US foreign policy

Neoconservatism in US foreign policy is a hotly contested subject, yet most scholars broadly agree on what it is and where it comes from. From a consensus that it first emerged around the 1960s, these scholars view neoconservatism through what we call the ‘3Ps’ approach, defining it as a particular group of people (‘neocons’), an array of foreign policy preferences and/or an ideological commitment to a set of principles. While descriptively intuitive, this approach reifies neoconservatism in terms of its specific and often static ‘symptoms’ rather than its dynamic constitutions. These reifications may reveal what is emblematic of neoconservatism in its particular historical and political context, but they fail to offer deeper insights into what is constitutive of neoconservatism. Addressing this neglected question, this article dislodges neoconservatism from itsperceived home in the ‘3Ps’ and ontologically redefines it as a discourse. Adopting aFoucauldian approach of archaeological and genealogical discourse analysis, we trace itsdiscursive formations primarily to two powerful and historically enduring discourses ofthe American self — virtue and power — and illustrate how these discourses produce aparticular type of discursive fusion that is ‘neoconservatism’. We argue that to betterappreciate its continued effect on contemporary and future US foreign policy, we needto pay close attention to those seemingly innocuous yet deeply embedded discoursesabout the US and its place in the world, as well as to the people, policies and principlesconventionally associated with neoconservatism.