International Relations

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/2328/26030

Browse

Browsing International Relations by Title

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Africa in/and the World
    (African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific, 2009) Lyons, Tanya Julie
    Back in 2000 Gavin Kitching sparked a major debate about giving up African Studies, his main argument being that African studies had become depressing, because the leaders he had supported during anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggles had become the tyrants, keeping their countries and peoples subjugated and in poverty. His departure from the field of African studies flowed on the tide of Australian academics moving toward more mainstream fields of study including Asian studies, keeping job prospects open rather than closed. A rational choice in the face of an irrational Africa! A decade has passed since Kitching's 'depressing' announcement, and if only for the sake of assisting in the resettlement of former African refugees and African migrants in Australia, we need to engage with Africa and in particular conduct research and analysis of African issues in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the experiences and conditions in Africa today.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement: the boomerang of competitive liberalisation?
    (Center for Australian Studies, Chengchi University, 2005) Leaver, Richard Lawrence
    Not all that long ago, considerable intellectual energy was spent across Australia analysing the formation of trade policy. And much as elsewhere, there were two basic approaches. The first approach focussed on the evolution of the rules of the game in multilateral trade, stepping from the assumption that national policy was essentially an autonomous instrument designed to leverage those rules in directions broadly favourable to local industries. The second approach consisted of tracking the course of pressure group politics, and worked on the assumption that national policy was the vector outcome of many conflicting interests.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Australian trade policy under the Howard Government
    (Center for Australian Studies, Chengchi University, 2002) Leaver, Richard Lawrence
    It is an open secret that APEC has, in recent years, fallen upon hard times. That secret began to circulate at the Vancouver APEC summit held four months into the Asian Financial Crisis when President Clinton casually opined that the whole event was really nothing more than 'a few little glitches in the road'.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Eating together: navigating commensality in expatriate households employing migrant domestic workers in Singapore
    (Australian National University, 2009) von der Borch, Rosslyn Marie
    In this paper the author explores the issue of how meals are eaten in expatriate households in Singapore, where live-in migrant domestic workers are employed. This is an issue that is both practical and richly symbolic. It is argued that commensality (or its absence) is a key point through which many of the features of the migrant domestic worker-employer relationship can be read: privilege and exclusion, shame, ambivalence, othering, gender and power.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The emergence of a "doctrinal culture" within the Canadian Air Force: where it came from, where it's at and where to from here? Part 1: Doctrine and the Canadian Air Force prior to the end of the Cold War
    (Royal Canadian Air Force, 2009) Jackson, Aaron P.
    The culture of the Canadian Air Force, like most other Western air forces, has not been traditionally characterised by a tendency towards theoretical or doctrinal development. Instead, an oral (rather than written) culture of passing lessons from senior to junior officers evolved early in the history of the Canadian Air Force and subsequently became entrenched. This was accompanied by a tendency to pragmatically focus on contemporary issues, to the detriment of broader theoretical and doctrinal development.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The emergence of a "doctrinal culture" within the Canadian Air Force: where it came from, where it's at and where to from here? Part 2 : Towards a doctrinal culture within the Canadian Air Force
    (Royal Canadian Air Force, 2009) Jackson, Aaron P.
    Drawing on the background provided in Part 1, this article examines the Canadian Air Force's attempts to develop doctrine since the formation of Air Command in 1975. This examination is undertaken in three sections. First, limited doctrine development between 1975 and 1989 is briefly discussed. Second, doctrine development during the 1990s is analysed in relation to the international rejuvenation of air power theory that occurred during that decade. Third, the apparent emergence of a tentative doctrinal culture within the Canadian Air Force during the past decade is considered. In conclusion, the future potential of this tentative culture is addressed, and some challenges that remain to be overcome are highlighted.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Nonproliferation and the North Korean nuclear weapons program: impotence meets ambition
    (2011) Habib, Benjamin Luke
    North Korea is unlikely to willingly relinquish its nuclear program because of its importance to the political economy of the DPRK state and the perpetuation of the Kim Jong-il regime. It is clear that the nuclear program has great intrinsic value to Pyongyang, its role as a defensive deterrent and important element in Pyongyang‘s offensive asymmetric war strategy. The nuclear program functions as a bargaining chip in international diplomacy to extract economic inputs for its moribund economy, in domestic politics as vehicle for bureaucratic interests, and as a rallying symbol of the country‘s hyper-nationalist ideology. At the same time, regional states lack a credible strategy for coaxing North Korea into nuclear relinquishment due to their lack of leverage over the Kim regime, the absence of unity in addressing the nuclear issue and the incongruence of their wider strategic goals vis-à-vis North Korea. Given this state of affairs, regional countries will have no choice but to accept North Korea as a nuclear power and manage regional relations through deterrence. To increase the stability of this environment, regional states may consider unconditional normalisation of political and economic relations with North Korea.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Pharmaceutical colonialism - ethical issues for research in Africa
    (African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific, 2009) Lyons, Tanya Julie
    Pharmaceutical Colonialism is the term used to describe the activities of some of the big pharmaceutical companies and their contract research organizations, that involves exploiting the sickness and poverty of citizens of weak and/or developing states.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Simulations for the Discipline Specific and Professional Education of Foreign Policy Graduates
    (University of Wollongong, 2016-12) Kelton, Maryanne; Kingsmill, Verity
    Increasingly universities aim to provide students with opportunities to graduate with skills ready to perform in the workplace. However, workplace-based opportunities for students enrolled in foreign policy subjects are more limited due to the diplomatic and sensitive political nature of the professional work. Thus there exists a need for higher education institutions teaching foreign policy course in generalist degrees to create innovative solutions to enable student experience of professional foreign policy practice. In this article we analyse our Australian foreign policy dual strategy teaching initiative where we deploy in-person simulations enabling students to develop both their discipline specific foreign policy knowledge and gain insights in, and experience with, professional competencies and non-technical skills. Student, industry, and staff participant feedback demonstrates the benefits of the simulations for both discipline specific learning and professional skills development
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Zimbabwe's crisis: local and global contexts
    (African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific (AFSAAP), 2009) Lyons, Tanya Julie
    In this 29th year of Zimbabwe's independence, the Zimbabwean dollar is near worthless, with one hundred trillion buying only AUD$4. There is evidence that state sanctioned violence and killings continue in the country despite the progress of the new government of national unity, and Mugabe's calls for 'national healing.' Australia has only slightly downgraded its travel warning to the country while 254 Zimbabweans remain subjected to 'travel and financial sanctions' in Australia. The Australian government website on Zimbabwe has yet to update its list of Heads of Government for Zimbabwe to include Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister (www.dfat.gov.au/geo/zimbabwe/index.html), while Mugabe is still saluted as "Your Excellency". When he was Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd once criticised the Howard government for achieving no gains in the Zimbabwean crisis. Now as Prime Minister, will Rudd be able to put Africa and indeed Zimbabwe onto Australia's agenda?