Decolonising Australia's International Relations? A Critical Introduction

Australia's international relations (IR) discipline has a deep colonial history, but has never been through a conscious process of decolonisation. Although discussions of decolonising IR have taken place elsewhere, the discussion in Australia is in its infancy. This collection examines the possibilities for decolonising Australia's IR in the present moment, looking at its teaching practice, its research, its styles of analysis, and its relationship with Australian foreign policy. We consider what is particular to Australia's settler colonial context, what is achievable, and what is not. The collection also seeks to develop a new style of anti-colonial foreign policy analysis in Australia, looking at the relationship between colonisation, settlement, and foreign policy. In this introduction, we first look over debates on decolonisation elsewhere in the field. We then examine the historical background of Australia's IR discipline, and look at Australian Indigenous diplomacy, to consider what is specific to Australia's context. We conclude by looking over the contributions of the papers in this collection, and consider what a decolonised Australian IR might look like. Ultimately, we argue that any process of decolonisation will be extremely difficult, and that decolonisation in Australian IR should be perceived as an ongoing struggle, rather than an endpoint in itself.     

“No Colonial Baggage”: Imagining a Decolonised Australia-Africa Relations

As part of its strategy to win African votes for election to the UN Security Council (2008–12), Canberra sought to leverage its soft power potential by presenting Australia as having “no colonial baggage” in Africa while framing Australia as “a country from the Global North, located in the Global South,” and one that would “work with other small and middle powers.” Ultimately, the campaign was successful, including up to 50 of Africa's 54 countries voting for Australia. This paper considers this framing in the context of a shared but differentiated colonial history, including its contradictions, given that Australians fought several wars on African soil on behalf of the British Empire, supported white minority regimes and anti-communist movements on the continent, and maintained the white Australia policy until the 1970s. The paper deploys decoloniality theory to engage Australia's lack of a neat fit within a historicised articulation of a “coloniser-colonised” relationship between Europe and Africa. We show that, despite this lack of fit, Australia's relations with the countries of Africa reinforce long-standing of patterns of knowledge, power, and being associated with colonialism. Accordingly, the paper makes three recommendations for cooperation and innovative thinking in foreign policy and diaspora diplomacy between Africa and a more independent and multicultural Australia based on the “equality of being.”     

“a carefully weighed plan with adequate safeguards for us”: Economic Policy and the Coordination of Australian-US Approaches to Japanese Aggression, 1939-41

The historical narrative of Australia's foreign and defence policy-making during the Pacific War tends to foreground the years 1941–42, characterising them as the turning point when the government realised that Britain alone could no longer protect Australia's regional security interests and turned to the United States of America for its salvation. This article makes a contribution to the alternative view, arguing that Australia was looking to the US well before Prime Minister John Curtin's famous “looks to America” proclamation. It does so with a focus on Australia's thinking and policy towards the engagement of the US in the years 1939-41, arguing that the coordination of its economic policy with the US, rather than seeking insight into high-level strategic planning, offered the nation the greatest opportunity to tie its security interests in the Asia-Pacific region with those of the US. In exploring the role of economic policy in Australia's preparation for war, this article offers new insight into the maturation of Australia's foreign policy apparatus.     

The “Middle Power” Concept in Australian Foreign Policy

During the early 1990s, the Hawke and Keating Labor governments promoted Australia's diplomatic credentials as an activist and independent middle power. Labor claimed that by acting as a middle power Australia was constructing a novel diplomatic response to the challenges of the post-Cold War world. But a closer reading of the official foreign policy record since 1945 reveals that previous conservative governments have also taken a similar view of Australia's place and position on the international stage. This essay traces the historical evolution of the middle power concept in Australian foreign policy and concludes with an assessment of the Howard government's more recent reluctance to use this label and its implications for Australia's future middle power credentials. Although its use has waxed and waned in official policy discourse and it is more commonly associated with Labor governments, the middle power concept itself and the general diplomatic style it conveys have been one of the most durable and consistent elements of Australia's diplomatic practice.     

Shifting Interests: Whitlam,Britain and French Nuclear Tests in the South Pacific

This article focuses on the interaction between the Australian and British governments during the early 1970s over French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. It examines the considerations behind the Australian government's approach to Britain, and Britain's response to initiatives from Australia. Through the presentation of a case study demonstrating how Australia's Pacific interests and Britain's European concerns inevitably led to different perspectives, I argue that the policies of both countries were primarily determined by their consideration of regional geopolitical interests, rather than the lingering links of Empire.     

An Australian Empire Patriot and the Great War: Professor Sir Archibald T. Strong (1876–1930)

Archibald T. Strong, born in Melbourne, was the son of an Australian scholar who went to an academic post at Liverpool. The younger Strong received his secondary and tertiary education in England. There, he became proficient in modern European languages and literature. He initially planned a career in the law, but for health reasons returned to Australia to the Department of English at the University of Melbourne. Prior to the First World War, Strong became prominent in Melbourne literary circles and also a prolific commentator on world affairs. As an early member of the Round Table group in Australia, Strong assessed Imperial Germany as posing an existential threat to the British Empire and hence to Australia's security. The nation's future, he believed, lay in unwavering defence of the Empire. Strong evinced a distinct impatience with fellow citizens, especially on the socialist left, who failed, in his view, to understand the realities of Australia's position in the world and what was at stake in the Great War.     

Re‐evaluating Australia's “Cooperative Security” in Cambodia

Australia's role in resolving the conflict in Cambodia has been described as a triumph of cooperative security that achieved a balance between principles and pragmatism. The pursuit of cooperative security is a familiar theme in discussions of Australian diplomacy during the 1990s, yet there has been little scholarly consideration of whether this accurately captures the nature of Australian foreign policy at the time. This article explains Australia's conflict resolution role in Cambodia using an alternative, neoclassical realist framework. Specifically I demonstrate that expectations of reciprocity meant that Australia, when negotiating for peace in Cambodia, preferred bilateral over multilateral diplomacy. Secondly, Australia actively sought to lead the Cambodian peace‐keeping operation to enhance its regional security credentials. Finally, building closer ties with Vietnam was an important, often overlooked policy outcome.     

More than Old Friends? Narrative in Australia's Relationship with Korea

Attempts to come to terms with Australia's relationship with South Korea routinely emphasise material dynamics, such as volume and value of trade, military exchange and security cooperation, or formal diplomatic engagement. This study focuses instead on the nuances of persuasive appeal in “stories”, which comprise a key component of the broader narrative of Australia's relationship with South Korea. I undertake a rhetorical analysis of three key stories conveyed at all levels of official foreign policy communication. I find the Australian narrative seeks to endow the bilateral relationship with authority, establish a sense of similarity and commitment, and invokes indebtedness and reciprocity. While such representations are significant to the broader bilateral relationship, a key challenge here concerns the extent to which these representations are genuinely shared and resonant depictions of Australia‐South Korea relations.     

“Great and Powerful Friends of Yesteryear”: Australia's Dilemma with “East of Suez”, 1967–71

Great Britain's decision to withdraw its forces from Southeast Asia by the mid-1970s created uncertainty for those living in the region. The potential loss of British presence led Australia to attempt to discourage Britain from leaving, while also recsognising recognising the decision as an opportunity to re-evaluate Australia's strategic outlook in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Scholars have treated Asia and the Pacific as two regions with distinct experiences related to withdrawal. Some address changing Anglo-Australian relations but include little, or no, mention of the Pacific territories. Others, writing about the Pacific, focused more the individual paths taken by each island than on connecting the larger process of decolonisation in the Pacific to the one in Asia. This article pairs Australia's Strategic Basis of Defence papers with documentary evidence across multiple departments in Canberra to understand how British withdrawal from east of Suez connected Australian concerns about security in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. By connecting the two areas through Australian interests, the withdrawal from east of Suez can be understood as a catalyst for Australia's pursuit of a distinctive role within its neighbourhood.     

The Reappraisal of the White Australia Policy against the Background of a Changing Asia, 1945–67*

This paper is concerned with the way in which Australian policy‐makers approached the problem of “White Australia” in the years 1945–67. It makes extensive use of original archival material to show how Australia's increasing engagement with Asia in the 1950s and 1960s exercised a direct influence on officials within the Department of Immigration. In response to Australia's changing geopolitical circumstances and the international community's increasing hostility towards racism during this period, Immigration Department officials persuaded the government to introduce a series of piecemeal adjustments which were specifically designed to placate Asian and world opinion. Although cautious, these changes nevertheless involved a corresponding reassessment of the policy's racial assumptions. By accepting in the late 1960s that certain Asians were capable of being integrated into the Australian community, policymakers had discarded the previously inviolable belief that all non‐Europeans were unassimilable by virtue of their race. The White Australia Policy, though not entirely defunct by the end of the decade, was nevertheless crumbling under the weight of Australia's new circumstances.     

“Rediscovery”, “Reinvigoration” and “Redefinition” in Perpetuity: Australian Engagement with India 1983–2011

For the past twenty‐five years Australia's bilateral relationship with India has been typified by an ongoing process of “rediscovery”, irrespective of whether Labor or Liberal administrations have steered foreign policy. This article explores the reasons why this might be the case by analysing Australia's foreign policy approaches to India spanning the period 1983 to 2011. It interrogates various Labor and Liberal strategies that have been mobilised to “reinvigorate” the relationship and searches for reasons why they have only been partially successful in strengthening Australia's rapport with India. The authors draw upon discussions with strategic affairs editors of India's major daily newspapers and current affairs journals to gain insights into Indian impressions of Australia from a political and foreign policy perspective.     

Konfrontasi and Australia's Aid to Indonesia during the 1960s

This article examines Australia's aid program in Indonesia in the 1960s. With the transfer by the Dutch of West New Guinea to Indonesia in May 1963, the Australian government looked to expand aid to its northern neighbour beyond the Colombo Plan in an effort to cement friendly relations. The events associated with konfrontasi threatened this policy objective. Yet despite Indonesia's belligerent stance, Australia was able to continue its aid program (by supporting the Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunication Network) and to keep the lines of communication with Jakarta open. When konfrontasi ended in August 1966 after regime change in Indonesia, Australia was able to rapidly expand its aid program. This article argues that konfrontasi changed the ways in which Australia's aid program in Indonesia was construed, which in turn contributed to a re‐consideration of the role of aid in Australia's foreign policy more broadly.     

The Language of Security: Reassessing Australia's Policies of Free Trade and Offshore Detention

Offshore detention and bilateral free trade constitute hallmarks of Australia's international policy. This paper explores how these policy directions were originally justified in the Pacific Solution and the Australia‐US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). In the literature both policies are theorised as security offerings but whilst the Pacific Solution is obviously exclusionary, AUSFTA aimed at including Australia in the US's orbit. This suggests that security as a justification for policy is flexible, complex, and warrants closer observation of its practical articulations. Reviewing the speeches with which the relevant Ministers introduced their legislation, I argue that offshore detention and bilateral free trade derive from a specific language of security in which policy‐makers view individual actors as the basis of national threats. The language of security invokes a threatening international environment by focussing on the selfish and amoral components of human behaviour whilst diminishing social institutions and collective structures. Vague anarchy and simplified individualism position the state as a righteous protector rather than a rational policy‐maker. I conclude by questioning whether this is a sound basis for policy and canvass options for escaping the language of security.     

Empire, Region, World: the International Context of Australian Foreign Policy since 1939

What have been the most important factors in international relations for Australian foreign‐policymakers over the last sixty years? Five broad themes stand out: the end of empire; Cold War dependency; the changing nature of security; economic development; and race and national identity. Cumulatively, and often in intertwined ways, these themes have amounted to little short of a revolution in Australia's place in the world since the Second World War. The challenges facing Australians have, as a result, been considerable. The international context in which Liberals have made foreign policy has been reshaping Australia as it has been reshaping the external environment.     

Diplomacy Interrupted?: Macmahon Ball,Evatt and Labor's Policies in Occupied Japan*

Historiography on the Australian political and diplomatic role in the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945–1952) gives disproportionate attention to the meetings between the Australian Minister for External Affairs, H.V. Evatt, and the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur, in Tokyo during 1947. These meetings are then linked to the subsequent resignation from the Allied Council for Japan (ACJ) of William Macmahon Ball, an Australian academic representing the British Commonwealth, and used to justify the claim that Australian policy towards Occupied Japan was unpredictable and ad hoc. This attention to Ball's resignation has distorted analysis of Australia's role in, and policies towards, Japan during the Occupation. This article argues that there is a need to develop a new historical discourse for the Australian role in the Occupation, one that moves beyond the intrigues of personalities and investigates diplomatic policy practice and its underlying ideals. This, in turn, may encourage other scholars to rethink the wider conduct and practice of foreign policy under the Labor governments of the 1940s.     

Nigeria's foreign policy and transnational security challenges in West Africa

This article explores how Nigeria's foreign policy has responded to transnational security challenges in West Africa. It engages in a conceptual overview of the discourse on transnational security and links this with a discussion of Nigeria's foreign policy towards West Africa. Of note is Nigeria's pursuit of a leadership role in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), in its quest for security, economic integration and development. Several questions are posed: What do Nigerian policymakers consider to be the most significant transnational threats in West Africa? How and through what legitimate policies and instruments do they respond to such threats? How important is ECOWAS to Nigeria's attempt to respond to transnational threats? And how effective have Nigeria's attempts to influence the ECOWAS agenda in this regard been? Although ECOWAS has remained central to Nigeria's responses to transnational security threats in the subregion, the country has not been able to match its rhetoric on addressing transnational security threats with far-reaching concrete achievements. It is suggested that social transformation of Nigeria's current foreign policy (that is, to one focused and committed to putting people at its centre) and a change in the policies of dominant global powers towards West Africa would enhance human emancipation and eliminate the numerous insecurities confronting the peoples of the subregion.     

“English Institutions and the Irish Race”: Race and Politics in Late Nineteenth‐Century Australia

During the 1880s there was fierce debate in colonial Australia and throughout the English‐speaking world about the functioning of increasingly democratic societies and especially who, in terms of race, class and gender, was qualified to participate in the political process. In this formative period of what later became known as the “White Australia policy”, minorities were under intense scrutiny and, within the settler population, the Catholic Irish were the most numerous minority. This paper discusses two controversial and widely‐reported 1881 articles by Melbourne writer, A.M. Topp. He argued strongly that the Celtic Irish were actually an “alien” race, fundamentally antithetical to English governance and morality. Mass Irish migration, in Topp's view, constituted a threat to the political stability and racial superiority of the whole English‐speaking world. Topp drew upon contemporary racial science and the works of leading intellectuals, but he was also influenced by political crises then occurring in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. Topp's articles, and the responses they elicited, highlight the complexities of race in colonial Australia by demonstrating that major racial differences were perceived by some to exist within what has often been portrayed as a largely homogenous “white” settler society.     

Civilisation: A Concept and its Uses in Australian Public Discourse

This article examines the concept of civilisation in Australian public discourse, focussing on some recent political uses. Rhetoric defending Australia's traditional attachment to Western civilisation has focussed on three themes — the role of the British heritage in Australian public life, the moral foundations of Australia's “Judeo‐Christian” belief system, and the rational principles of the Enlightenment. Although the language of civilisation is not confined to centre‐right political discourse, it has been most vocal among conservative‐leaning commentators. This article highlights examples of civilisation and its uses in the contemporary Australian context and attempts to give meaning to civilisation in light of debates about Australian history and national identity. I argue in the course of this article that civilisation is differentiated from culture, and that the culture‐civilisation distinction correlates with left‐right political leanings.     

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: the Case of Papuan Asylum‐Seekers

It is perilous to look to history to provide guidance for the present. Nonetheless the political controversy surrounding the granting of temporary protection to forty‐two asylum‐seekers from West Papua in March 2006 needs to be understood in its wider, historical context. Papua has been a pebble in the region's political shoe since 1949. And national considerations are not new in shaping Australian policy toward asylum‐seekers. Certainly in the 1960s and 1970s Australia played a tactical, often tough game with Papuan asylum‐seekers in order to contain tensions with Indonesia. This article analyses the history of Australia's foreign and immigration policies towards Papuan asylum‐seekers and describes the delicate balancing act that successive Australian governments have needed to perform in handling this issue.     

The “killer of the cane fields”: The social construction of the Australian coastal taipan

This paper makes an original contribution to human–animal studies through the application of social construction theory to an iconic species of Australian snake, the coastal taipan. Little research attention using this approach has been focused on reptiles, and this study addresses this gap in the literature. The taipan has achieved a high level of notoriety in Australia. This paper seeks to understand why and how this has occurred. Drawing on a range of data derived from analysis of newspaper articles, popular magazines and books, and the scientific literature, four dominant narratives are identified: the taipan as an object of science and natural history, as social problem, as object quest and as celebrity. The insights gained from this study support the contention that the meanings made of Australia's fauna are fluid, historically contextualised and socially constructed. In the specific case of the taipan, key individuals, including scientists, popular natural historians and snake men contributed greatly to the species’ construction, as did popular cultural forms such as newspapers and natural history books.