https://hdl.handle.net/2123/6046 Sat, 13 Jun 2026 07:59:04 GMT 2026-06-13T07:59:04Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32359 Discourses delaying decarbonisation: A policy analysis of Australian Net Zero policies using Environmental Political Thought and Post Keynesian Economics Lee, Aimee As the new government of Australia, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) proclaimed its goal to divert Australia away from climate inaction fostered by the Liberal National Party (LNP), by legislating the Net Zero target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. The most prominent part of the Net Zero policy initiative is the Safeguard Mechanism (SM) which allows corporations to ‘cancel out’ emissions by purchasing carbon credits. Although ALP positions itself as climate conscious, the SM is consistently contested as an ineffective climate policy in the media and by non-governmental actors. This thesis investigates whether Australia can meet the Net Zero target with the SM as its primary climate policy. An effective climate policy is more than a tool to reduce emissions, but one that intends to decarbonise Australia, meaning disrupting carbon lock-in and removing fossil fuels from the energy and economic systems. Through the lenses of Environmental Political Thought and Post Keynesian Economics, it examines whether the liberal democratic structure and neoliberal policy framework is suitable to devise climate policies. It finds that the SM is a product of the entrenchment of fossil fuels corporations within Australia’s political and economic structures, subduing any discourse surrounding climate action. Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32359 2024-03-14T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32341 Interests and Values in India-Australia Strategic Nexus: Comparative Insights and Sustainable Pathways for Long-Term Collaboration Paruthi, Ashrika This thesis provides a thorough understanding of the interests-values interplay utilised by India and Australia’s to enable their meta-narrative identity utilisation for revitalisation of strategic relations. It simultaneously illustrates the gaps in collaborative endeavours that need to be filled for ensuring the long-term sustainability of India-Australia strategic relations. By employing the strategic partnership framework developed by Wilkins (2008), it compares the India-Australia strategic partnership’s trajectory, with India-Russia and Australia-Japan strategic partnerships (their strongest strategic partnerships) along three phases, i.e., inception, implementation, evaluation. Theories of classical realism and constructivism have been integrated within inception and evaluation phases for scrutinising each partnership’s interests-values interplay. Findings reveal that India and Australia need to move beyond the pursuit of trade-related economic goals, and instead work towards bolstering security, people-to-people linkages. This would allow them to build mutual understanding, trust, and in turn sustain their strategic partnership by helping them in navigating through each other’s priorities, sensitivities. Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32341 2024-03-11T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32281 The Conservatism of Australian Foreign Policy: Australia, China, the United States, and the Hegemonic Crisis Gregory, William This thesis analyses the impact of historical and structural forces on the Australia-China relationship since 2011. After a steady period of deepening ties since the 1970s, largely driven by economic complementarities, Australia-China relations have markedly declined in recent years. Applying a neo-Marxist study of the historical development of Australia-China relations and the underlying structures that shape world order, the thesis finds that Australia’s relations with the United States and the changing dynamics of Indo-Pacific power distribution are the key factors guiding the formulation of Australian foreign policy regarding China. Australia’s historic position within a strategic and economic system guaranteed by a foreign hegemonic power has established a ‘sub-imperial’ norm in its foreign policy, which has granted these hegemonic powers significant influence over the formulation of Australian foreign policy. Australia’s deteriorating relationship with China is a direct response to the new demands of the United States to oppose China’s rise, and so preserve American hegemony in Asia. Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32281 2024-02-28T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32217 Perils of Promise: The Operation and Evolution of Justifications of Power in Ancient China from the Neolithic Period to the Zhou Dynasty Liang, Victor Ruifeng In contemporary China, post-1979, ‘performance legitimacy’ is used to support one-party rule, emphasising effective governance and successful societal outcomes. While many believe the concept is modern, it is rather deeply rooted in Chinese history, traceable to the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046–256 BCE) and its adoption of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ idea. Prior, during the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) and the Neolithic Period (c. 7000–1700 BCE), legitimacy was instead anchored in family bonds and spiritual beliefs. This transition in modes of legitimation, while initially playing a stabilising role, presented a vulnerability: later rules faced difficulties in consistently delivering outcomes, leading to legitimacy deficits which collapsed the regime. This study analyses the operation and evolution of traditional and performance legitimacy in China’s Neolithic Period to the Zhou Dynasty, underscoring the risks of changing a regime’s mode of legitimation and the impacts of instability as a likely consequence of leveraging performance legitimacy. Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32217 2024-02-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27812 News and Education Policy in Hong Kong Liao, Han This thesis examines the press coverage of educational issues and the making of education policy in post-transition Hong Kong. Education is of great importance to Hong Kong. After the handover of sovereignty from Britain to China in 1997, Hong Kong’s new government introduced a thorough educational reform. As educational issues had a high priority on the new government’s agenda, media coverage of these issues increased dramatically. In addition, there was much speculation about how Hong Kong’s media would develop after the reversion to Chinese rule. A case study of news coverage of education issues in contemporary Hong Kong holds great interest not only for studying news and education policy but also because of the insights it gives into Hong Kong’s press and politics. The present study draws on the newsmaking and agenda-building literatures to develop an analytical framework that guides the research. By employing content analysis, and supplementing it with interview data from journalists and educators, the thesis examines the press coverage of four educational issues. The four issues were the compulsory mother-tongue teaching in secondary schools, a proposed language benchmark test for teachers, sex discrimination in the Secondary School Places Allocation System, and cuts to university funding between 2001 and 2004. In total, the content analysis included 1,385 items from four newspapers on these four issues. The research found, firstly, that the press is more interested in primary and secondary education than in tertiary education issues; secondly, that the news coverage of educational issues concentrated on conflicts, and while these could occur at all stages of the policy process, they were most frequently in the later parts; thirdly, that journalists’ judgement of the newsworthiness of individual events and news source activities strongly influenced the press coverage of education issues; and fourthly, that education coverage is dominated by few powerful news sources but the domination did not necessarily secure the sources positive coverage. So press coverage tended to reflect when policy development generated conflicts and public events, and reflected the publicity strategies of the strongest and best organised groups. Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27812 2022-03-23T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27749 Our Home Girt By Sea: Rethinking Australian Strategic Policy in the Indo-Pacific Ristevski, Alexandar Aron Since Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia has depended on the leading power within the region to underwrite its security and prosperity – with primacy initially enjoyed by the United Kingdom, and then following the events of World War Two, the United States of America. While having benefitted immensely from this regional order, the geostrategic environment that Australia now finds itself in is rapidly evolving and becoming increasingly hostile amidst the emergence of great power competition between Beijing and Washington. This intensifying grand strategic rivalry coincides with the shifting balance of power which has been facilitated by China’s monumental rise and America’s relative decline. Subsequently, it is the first time in our history that we may not be able to depend upon ‘a great and powerful friend’ to safeguard our national interests. This uncertain future has sparked debates in political, academic, and strategic communities, many of which are riddled with premature assumptions and wishful predictions, related to the Sino-American contest for supremacy and the seemingly limited options available for Australia. A ‘gap’ in the literature, then, is examining the concrete ways that Canberra can take advantage of the situation and maximise its own power within the Indo-Pacific. However, in contrast to the prevailing tendencies of previous research, this thesis does not focus on whether Australia can help the United States maintain its dominant position and successfully prevent China from assuming regional primacy, but rather, how it can strengthen itself irrespective of what regional order may come. To that end, employing a fundamentally neorealist perspective, and combining both offensive and defensive strands, I explore the ways that Australian strategic policy within the Indo-Pacific can be recalibrated to not only navigate through the rapidly evolving and increasingly hostile geostrategic environment, but also, simultaneously contribute to a more potent, resolute, and capable Commonwealth of Australia. Thu, 17 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27749 2022-03-17T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27379 Rewriting our agri-culture: a discursive analysis on agroecology within Australia de Castro, Zoe The way in which society organises agriculture affects every aspect of our lives: our approach to the land and its organisms, the building of civilisations, economic inequality, gender relations, human health and our relationship with the land’s original custodians. Yet humanity has organised itself around an industrialised global food system which erodes democracy, perpetuates injustices, undermines human health and is environmentally fatal. Recognising this, farmers, activists and scholars have been calling for a transition to agroecological food systems for centuries. It is a paradigm which holistically addresses the agri-culture of our food systems; not just the sustainability of agroecosystems, but the socio-political structures that design them. This work joins the movement of literature calling for epistemic justice in the institutionalisation of agroecology in food governance. It endeavours to provide a more in-depth understanding of the discourses of sustainable agriculture that operate within Australia. It contributes to the paucity of literature covering agroecology’s nascent development within the country. A poststructuralist discourse analysis (PSDA) analyses the discursive formations of sustainable agriculture operated by the state and civil society actors involved in the debate. It will examine if there are any spaces of “dislocation” through which the paradigm of agroecology can emerge in mainstream discourse. Ultimately, it will reveal how the historic institutionalisation of productivist discourses by dominant groups has resulted in an epistemic community which remains unfavourable to a just transition towards agroecological food systems by 2100. Mon, 31 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27379 2022-01-31T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27372 “Curious Passivity”: Underbalancing Behaviour In The United States’ Foreign Policy Response To Covid-19 Knight, Sarah In 2020, the United States experienced a multifaceted threat environment. Not only was the United States one of the states worst impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also engaged in the ongoing Sino-American competition over the global distribution of power. The United States was therefore simultaneously faced with a traditional and a non-traditional security threat. However, the United States’ response to COVID-19 during a power challenge did not trigger the significant mobilisation of state resources that theories expect. This research addresses the puzzle of why the United States did not appropriately respond to the multifaceted threat environment in 2020. To answer this question, this study applies underbalancing theory and adopts a process tracing methodology to empirically examine three of the United States’ foreign policy decisions made in 2020; the decisions to restrict PPE exports, withdraw from WHO, and not participate in COVAX. The adverse political environment in the United States in 2020 impeded foreign policy decision-making, which led to underbalancing behaviour. This research scrutinises the recent and puzzling phenomenon of American policymaking in the last year of the Trump administration, the response to COVID-19 during a period of global power transition, and confirms that neoclassical realist theories of power can be usefully applied to the contemporary, multifaceted threat environment. It also affirms theories of protracted American decline in global influence, which is a trend that transcends the Trump administration. Fri, 28 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27372 2022-01-28T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27371 Altruism or Orientalism? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Australian representations of RAMSI Peters, Georgia The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was Australian-led and largely Australian-funded, taking place over a 14-year window from 24 July 2003 to 30 June 2017. A mere few months beforehand, former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer argued that the deployment of Australian troops to the Solomon Islands would be unjustifiable to Australian taxpayers and likely resented in the region. This thesis seeks to investigate how RAMSI became ‘thinkable’ as a policy option through an examination of the representations of Australia and Solomon Islands in Australian political discourse during the mission’s early years (2003-2007). Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was used to analyse archival material produced primarily by DFAT and AusAID as well as newspaper articles produced by The Australian from 2003-2007. While Australian foreign aid is often portrayed as altruistic, this thesis finds that the parallel representations of Solomon Islands as a ‘failing state’ harkens back to the inherently racialised paradigm of development and is a reiteration of the colonial discourses of the past. Fri, 28 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27371 2022-01-28T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27370 A Roadmap to Nowhere? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Australia’s ‘Technology-Led’ Emissions Reduction Strategy Stephenson, Nicholas In response to mounting international pressure, the Australian Federal Government has recently announced a ‘Technology Investment Roadmap’ as its national climate strategy. This new policy seeks to enable the deployment of emerging “low emissions technologies” to spearhead the decarbonisation of Australia’s economy. Nevertheless, policies which promise future technical solutions to intractable global problems risk delaying effective action by obscuring the scope for other non-technical changes. Drawing primarily on the approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) developed by Fairclough, this research project aims to examine how dominant representations of technology in Australia’s ‘technology-led’ emissions reduction strategy are discursively constructed, and to what extent they influence the policy’s mitigation potential. The analysis identified three dominant socio-technical storylines within the examined texts, each linked by their optimistic representations of low emissions technologies. These storylines were constructed from a set of technological discourses which, when situated in a wider social context, were found to reproduce Australia’s political (and emissions) status quo. Since these dominant representations of technology are incompatible with the systemic changes required for substantial emissions reductions, this research project concludes that the Technology Investment Roadmap delays, rather than enhances, meaningful climate action in Australia. Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27370 2022-01-27T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27369 “Beyond Politics”? A Post-political Discourse Analysis of Extinction Rebellion van Vliet, Luc Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a social movement committed to non-violent civil disobedience to persuade governments to act on climate change. As part of this aim, it approaches climate change as a non-partisan and unifying issue. At the same time, environmental political theorists have identified climate change as a distinct site of post-politics. They problematise the widespread understanding of climate change as a catastrophic force of ‘nature’ that must be managed to protect humanity. This discursive representation de-emphasises the systemic drivers of climate change to justify addressing the issue within the existing parameters of the prevailing political order that perpetuates it. In this context, this thesis aims to analyse XR from a post-political perspective. It argues that the group’s apolitical framing of climate change reflects dominant climate discourse, which undermines the movement’s political effectiveness. Drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, the thesis conducted a discourse analysis of XR’s framing of climate change, focusing on its implications for the group’s argument for political change. The analysis revealed two primary ways that XR reproduces dominant post-political climate discourse, as well as an emphasis on a moral, rather than explicitly political, justification for political action. Together, these findings illuminate how XR’s representation of climate change is post-political, limiting the group’s capacity to build a diverse social movement that embraces the conflict inherent to political demands for a better social and environmental future. Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27369 2022-01-27T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27368 ‘Illegal Aliens’, ‘Anchor Babies’, And ‘Mooches’: How does securitising discourse validate the sterilisation of migrant women in the US? Scott, Caitlin In 2020, Dawn Hooten, a licensed practical nurse employed at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility, filed a complaint alleging that inmates were subjected to concerningly high rates of hysterectomies, often without informed consent. However, the coerced and forced sterilisations of women is not a new phenomenon but a pervasive tradition that has disproportionately affected women from minority backgrounds. The continuation of this phenomenon in the US for over fifty years suggests a discursive environment where this practice is, to some extent, legitimised. Consequently, my research question asks how securitising discourse in the US legitimises involuntary sterilisation of migrant women. More specifically, I seek to analyse how conservative U.S. media legitimises the involuntary sterilisation of minority women through its engagement with discriminatory and racialised security narratives. Through post-structural discourse analysis, what I found was three dominant narratives that broadly underpin how conservative U.S. media validates the involuntary sterilisation of migrant women; that migrant women are threats to U.S. national security, racial security and economic security. Each of these themes, with their own interesting sub narratives, assist in securitising migrant women and their reproductive rights and in turn, validate the involuntary sterilisation of these individuals. Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27368 2022-01-27T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27367 A Requiem for a Norm: The Decay of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine in a Multipolar International System Freudenstein, Isabel The Responsibility to Protect doctrine was designed in response to the rising concern for human security of the late 1990s. While initially, the norm was considered a significant adjustment to international behaviour, following the Libya intervention in 2011, this perception has been challenged. As such, this thesis interrogates its current role as a reflection of the changing nature of the international system, intensifying the decay of its principles in responding to mass atrocity. This thesis establishes that the rising multipolarity of the international system has led to the contestation of the Responsibility to Protect. Through a comparative study of the UN Security Council discourse of Myanmar and Yemen, this thesis examines the traditional life-cycle of a norm to interrogate its internalisation. It challenges literature that suggests that R2P is a dead norm. Instead, this thesis suggests that contestation of the norm is not merely in its implementation, but also its validity. In doing so, this thesis establishes that the rising multipolarity of the international system presents an opportunity for re-negotiation of the norm. Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27367 2022-01-27T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27366 Soldiers of Fortune: A qualitative study into the effects of military provider, Private Military Companies on the domestic sovereignty of fragile African nations Blackford, Grace The global security environment is rapidly changing and dynamic, presenting an interesting challenge to nation states. This has created an industry for private security in which lower capacity states can increase their force, skills, and expertise on the combat front to effectively defeat an enemy. However, this industry presents a new challenge to the sovereignty of nations as it takes the military, which was previously a state-controlled institution and has opened it up to private influence. This thesis looks to explore whether Private Military Companies that provide direct military combat have a measurable negative impact upon the domestic sovereignty of an already fragile African state. To do this, the thesis first defines domestic sovereignty and the measurable aspects that will be analysed in each of the three case studies. These measurable aspects will be elite fragmentation, the ability to generate revenue from state assets, and territorial control. The three case studies analysed are Sierra Leone, Angola, and Nigeria. The thesis finds that when a nation hires with higher levels of elite fragmentation hires a Private Military Company then measurable negative effects on the nation’s ability to practice domestic sovereignty will occur. Further, the thesis discovers that when a nation with lower levels of elite fragmentation hires a Private Military Company there will be a neutral effect on the nation’s ability to practice domestic sovereignty. Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27366 2022-01-27T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27365 Unearthing the Foundations of Exploitation: The Varieties of Capitalism and Forced Labour Barrera, Sofia Isabel R. This thesis sought to answer how different forms of capitalism address unfree labour conditions through an analysis of a crucial case, Nestlé S.A. The thesis employed the use of the Varieties of Capitalism theory to explore the forms of capitalism utilised in the global economy, a liberal market economy (LME) and Switzerland, a coordinated liberal market economy (CLME), the two systems Nestlé S.A. is embedded in. A computer-assisted content analysis with a discursive analytic framework was then used to identify which of the two systems Nestlé S.A. used more in its structure and rhetoric, and finally determined its prioritisation of LME traits within the Swiss CLME system. This prioritisation is found in the firm’s attempts to address forced labour, as its efforts are hindered by vague definitions of the problem and identifying farmer productivity as the core cause of forced labour in global supply chains. Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27365 2022-01-27T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27363 The “Unpredictability Doctrine” vs. “The Steady State:” Indo-Pacific Diplomacy under the Trump Presidency Nason, Alice President Trump’s “America First” foreign policy doctrine contravened the foundational principles of the American-led international order. However, the extent to which his unconventional preferences transformed the character of American commitment to its partners is disputed. This thesis proposes that an implementation gap exists between presidential rhetoric and the policies implemented by the pluralistic foreign policy organisation. Accordingly, this thesis poses two overarching questions. First, does grand strategy take precedence over presidential doctrine in foreign policy decision-making? Second, if so, is the foreign policy detail capable of diverging from the visions of an anti-establishment president to ensure its implementation? This thesis unifies competing theoretical perspectives on the inherently contradictory concepts of ‘grand strategy’ and ‘presidential doctrine,’ and examines their influence on political appointees’ diplomatic travel. At the core of this thesis is a comparative, empirical analysis of 779 diplomatic trips, complemented by a content analysis of 115 addresses delivered by Obama and Trump administration appointees in the Indo-Pacific. Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27363 2022-01-27T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25697 Decolonising Fire: Recognition justice and Aboriginal fire knowledge in the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire news narrative Plange, Naa Adubi Lamle Australia’s 2019-2020 summer bushfires brought to light two key conversations during its news coverage: the need for better forms of bushfire management, and most importantly, the revival of Aboriginal cultural burning practices. The Australian landscape was formed through fire, and for more than 60,000 years, Aboriginal people across the continent have developed knowledge of the land through generations of custodianship and culture. Despite the ecological and scientific value of Aboriginal place-specific knowledge that has developed alongside the changes of this continent's vast ecosystems, the establishment of the settler-colonial system has deemed this knowledge invalid and unscientific. Drawing on the concepts of decolonisation, misrecognition, epistemic violence, Aboriginal academic literature, and recognition as a component of justice especially, this thesis challenges covert themes of settler-colonialism present in the bushfire news narrative, and will showcase why recognition justice must underscore discussions and initiatives concerning cultural burning. Through a thematic content analysis of news articles published prior, during, and after the bushfires, the findings of this study will highlight how Aboriginal people and their knowledge are still undermined in the media, and on a macrocosmic level, Australia as a colonial institution. Thu, 15 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25697 2021-07-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24652 Sino-Cambodia 2010 - 2018: To what extent has the Chinese Government contributed to the decline of multiparty democracy in Cambodia? Goldrick, Emma Cambodia has become an integral component of China’s strategic objectives throughout Southeast Asia. China’s intention to expand the Belt and Road Initiative through Southeast Asia is contingent on its ability to maintain healthy cooperation with the Hun Sen administration in Cambodia. Through the patron-client dynamic of Sino-Cambodian relations, China has secured rights to vital deep-water ports, hydroelectric dams, vital BRI infrastructure and access to the South China Sea. In recent years, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s, Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), has received international criticism and sanctions from traditional aid-aid-donors for infringing on democratic rights. As a result of this, the CPP has become asymmetrically dependent on Chinese economic patronage. This thesis seeks to determine the extent to which the Chinese Government has contributed to the decline of multiparty democracy in Cambodia between 2010 and 2018. To achieve this, the paper conducts a process tracing analysis to determine causation between Chinese patronage and the breakdown of democracy in Cambodia. In doing so, this thesis uses the theoretical framework of patron-client to understand the actions of China and Cambodia alike. The core findings of this study demonstrate the party-to-party relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CPP, and how this contributes to Cambodia’s ideological convergence. It further establishes the way in which China’s objectives in Cambodia have become mutually reinforcing. The final finding of this thesis demonstrates how Prime Minister Hun Sen’s internal legitimacy is dependent on Chinese economic patronage. Through the research findings of this study, this thesis also contributes to broader literature regarding the application of patron-client theory to China and Southeast Asia. Mon, 15 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24652 2021-03-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24646 Playing to Constraints: How Domestic Politics Determines the International Policies of North Korea Newland, Amy This thesis refocuses considerations of North Korea to its internal politics, which lack attention as they are commonly perceived as inconsequential, or simply made ad hoc by the reigning supreme leader. Domestic politics however does play the key role in North Korea’s decision making, baring explanation as to why North Korea can give concessions under certain circumstances, or why North Korea otherwise continues to act in a way which provokes further external pressure. Throughout the leadership of the three Kims, the external constraints on North Korea have remained much the same. North Korea finds itself largely without allies outside of China, facing perceived strong and aggressive aversities, a widening material gap between itself and its adversaries and a balance of power that strongly favours the US-South Korean alliance. Yet, North Korean approaches to foreign policies have significantly changed over the years. It is these changes which require a consideration of how internal politics influences change in North Korea and what this means for international engagement. Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24646 2021-03-11T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24645 Criminalising Disinformation: On Anti-Fake News Legislation in Southeast Asia Trinder, Billie In 2016 it was revealed that the Brexit referendum and US presidential election were both targeted by sophisticated online disinformation campaigns, and in the years since states around the world have scrambled to respond to this new threat. Many have chosen to criminalise the creation and dissemination of fake news a crime despite warnings from international organisations and experts that these ‘fake news laws’ will restrict speech and stifle dissent. Southeast Asian states in particular have broadly chosen to take this controversial approach. This thesis seeks to answer why this is. I take an analytic narrative approach to this question, using a combination of Tsebelis’ veto player theorem and elements of historical institutionalism to interrogate two case studies: the Philippines and Singapore. Comparison of the cases reveals that institutional configuration and the extent to which avenues for dissent exist in each political environment are critical to the success of proposed anti-disinformation legislation. The study also underscores the potential impacts of such legislation, where restrictions on free speech increase the likelihood of similarly restrictive legislation passing in the future, creating a dynamic of increasing returns. Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24645 2021-03-11T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24619 The Fallen Sage: Emperor Huizong’s Dilemma and the Wise Ruler Doctrine Tao, Max Junbo This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of the reign of Emperor Huizong (1100-1126), whose rule proved so paradoxical: after building a new stage of the Northern Song dynasty that resulted in two decades of prosperity, his empire collapsed within a few years. The dissertation examines the strengths and weaknesses of the three leading explanations of the failure of Huizong’s rule, and it shows why they cannot adequately account for the collapse of the empire. The root cause of Huizong’s downfall was not that he was an undisciplined ruler, or that he was the victim of military misjudgements, or that he badly handled tensions between his own Daoist beliefs and a Confucian bureaucracy, as has been claimed. The dissertation asserts that Huizong instead had a legitimation problem. It shows that in his struggle for political power Huizong mainly relied upon the doctrine of the Wise Ruler. This doctrine is analysed in some detail, in order to develop the main thesis. It is argued that Huizong’s attachment to the Wise Ruler doctrine trapped him within a dilemma: questing for unrestrained political power and at the same time claiming authority as a sage-like ruler. This contradiction eventually triggered his downfall. The dissertation shows that the Wise Ruler doctrine stipulated that (a) the emperor’s power and authority should be tightly integrated; (b) that there had to be a subtle balance between the emperor and the other forces in the ruling group; and (c) the ruling group was entitled to comprehensive dominance over the common people. In practice, the dissertation argues, the consolidation of Huizong’s political power destroyed the balance in the ruling group and exacerbated tensions with the disadvantaged common people. The tensions between the emperor’s power and authority sowed the seeds of the Northern Song empire’s destruction. The dissertation argues that the case of Huizong is of great relevance for future research on pre-modern and modern Chinese political leadership, political system and political culture, and that the issue of power and authority is a perennial challenge for all rulers. Mon, 08 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24619 2021-03-08T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24618 Gender-Based Violence Crimes in Conflict: A Discourse Analysis of International Justice Mechanisms Carney, Charlotte Since the 1990s, international justice mechanisms have implemented numerous procedural adjustments in order to achieve a degree of inclusivity for gender-based violence crimes. Irrespective of these changes, justice for gender-based violence crimes in conflict continues to be limited despite the widespread nature of this crime. I note this pattern in three key international courts: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. My discourse analysis of fifteen cases from these three courts examines how the courts engage with gender-based violence. Their engagement reveals that gender and race power structures inherently function within international gender-based violence justice, delineating the possibilities for gendered and racialized crimes. I find that gender inclusivity provisions continue to be ineffective due to these structures and theorise that for the successful future of gender-based violence justice, structural change is necessary. My paper initially exposes these structures and then discusses their implications, providing a final analytical summary that details the necessary changes within international justice for gender-based violence survivors to experience effective judicial processes. Mon, 08 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24618 2021-03-08T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22330 Fairness as Stability: Rawls, Schmitt and the Contemporary Crisis of Liberal Democracy Corbett, Noah In 2019, liberal democracies around the world are experiencing a crisis of antagonism, as mutually hostile groups threaten to undermine democratic stability. Drawing on the political theories of Carl Schmitt and John Rawls, this thesis identifies the possibility of a liberal response. Schmitt’s critique of liberalism is addressed with reference to Rawls’s arguments for the stability of a well-ordered society as expressed in Political Liberalism (1993). Rawls’s account of moral psychology, which forms the basis for the overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines, is proposed as a compelling response to those affirming unreasonable doctrines. The contemporary crisis is explained as a failure of reciprocity resulting from the neglect of Rawls’s “difference principle”. This neglect has encouraged citizens to affirm unreasonable doctrines within mutually exclusive and hostile associations. I suggest that a Rawlsian response based on the broad acceptance of justice as fairness as the basis of a modus vivendi is both possible and necessary. Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22330 2020-05-20T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21662 Déconstruction des constructions discursives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie: Analyse critique du discours dominant et du discours alternatif depuis 1983 Chen, Par Jian Yao Joyce Désignée officiellement comme une « collectivité d’outre-mer à statut particulier » par la République française, la Nouvelle-Calédonie se révèle une société unique en son genre. Le sujet du statut de la Nouvelle-Calédonie suscite la polémique surtout à cause du résultat surprenant du référendum sur l’indépendance en novembre 2018. Cette thèse s’appuie sur l’analyse du discours critique pour démontrer les influences des constructions discursives dans le débat sur l’indépendance de la Nouvelle- Calédonie. L’analyse aborde deux types de discours qui comportent des représentations différentes de la Nouvelle-Calédonie ; le discours dominant et le discours alternatif. Le premier est produit par la République française et le dernier par les indépendantistes kanaks. En appliquant une analyse du prédicat et une analyse métaphorique de ces discours à partir de 1983, il est évident que les représentations du discours dominant prennent le devant au cours de l’histoire du débat sur l’indépendance en Nouvelle-Calédonie. Alors que cette thèse traite de la question de la Nouvelle- Calédonie, les conclusions affirment l’influence puissante du discours plus généralement. En effet, les présuppositions qui sous-tendent le discours dominant ont le pouvoir de délimiter et contraindre les possibilités d’action de la réalité sociale. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21662 2020-01-14T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21663 Coastal Communities and the Currents of Vulnerability: A novel approach to Australian sea level rise adaptation research Maddison, Maximilian Sea levels are rising at an unprecedented rate. Using a novel approach in Australian sea level rise (SLR) adaptation research, this Honours thesis uses three case studies in New South Wales - Botany Bay, Lake Macquarie and Collaroy-Narrabeen - to consider the broad threat of rising sea levels to coastal communities. First, document analysis of current sea level rise adaptation plans shows that each local council perceives “adaptation as resilience”, prioritising the exposure of the built-environment over human vulnerability. However, using socio-spatial mapping highlights the inadequacy of current approaches, which by neglecting the currents of social vulnerability create incomplete perceptions of risk. Evidence of potential climate disadvantage – the simultaneous threat of ecological exposure and social vulnerability – in both Botany Bay and Lake Macquarie, is augmented by the identification of a vulnerable sub-population in Collaroy-Narrabeen. These findings underline the inadequacy of each councils’ risk-based adaptation policies. Last, the community-based research used in this dissertation demonstrates three clear benefits: (1) enabling community members to assign the factors that contribute to their own vulnerability; (2) highlighting social factors integral to individual and community vulnerability; and (3) including the voices of marginalised residents excluded from current decision-making processes. The research concludes by recommending that risk-management approaches adopt social vulnerability assessments to ensure existing disadvantage isn’t compounded by rising sea levels or adaptation planning. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21663 2020-01-14T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21660 Paris via Brussels: A three-level game analysis of the EU’s behaviour at the 2015 Paris international climate negotiations (COP21) McManis, Alexander The EU has been a rare example of a consistent global leadership on climate change. At a time when governments around the world are reluctant to face the challenges of climate change mitigation, the EU was widely praised for helping to push states towards an ambitious Paris Agreement. This thesis asks what influenced the EU’s behaviour at the 2015 Paris international climate negotiations (COP21). To answer this it undertakes an inductive case study of COP21 and the intra-EU negotiations that led up to it. It focuses on the EU’s positions on climate mitigation proposals and more specifically greenhouse gas reductions. The thesis argues that the three-level game, incorporating national, supranational (EU), and international (UNFCCC) negotiating games, is superior to other theoretical frameworks for explaining the EU’s behaviour. It shows that EU member states adopted positions based on political pressures at a national level, but also took into account how they would be received at a supranational level and how they could effect the international negotiations. Ignoring any one of the levels leads to an incomplete analysis of the factors influencing EU climate policy. Throughout the thesis I develop the three-level game, building on Putnam’s two-level game, as a framework for analysing the EU’s behaviour in international climate negotiations and challenge the mainstream, EU-centric explanations for EU climate policy. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21660 2020-01-14T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21661 The Influence of Key Political Actors on Labor Government Climate Change Policy de Groot, Babet The threat of anthropogenic climate change is arguably the defining issue of the 21st Century. Climate change has devastating global implications to which various authorities worldwide have responded by declaring a climate crisis. Australia, however, has neglected to address this issue. The Liberal-National Coalition, which has almost exclusively held government since John Howard was elected Prime Minister in 1996, maintains its scepticism on anthropogenic climate change despite international scientific consensus. It established Australia as a climate laggard, a reputation which was suspended for a brief period of Australian Labor Party (ALP) Government from 2007-2013. Despite the promise of a progressive government, attempts at climate change mitigation by the ALP were also criticised for their weak targets and generous financial concessions that primarily benefitted the nation’s biggest polluters. The inconsistencies between the actions and rhetoric of the ALP, which under Rudd proclaimed climate change as the ‘greatest moral challenge of our generation’ have raised the question of whether there were other actors infiltrating this government. This paper examines the role of key political actors in shaping Labor Government climate policy. Specifically, it investigates the undue influence of vested interests, understood as interest groups which conflate their self-interest with that of the nation. It finds the mining industry is the most powerful opponent of climate policy. Australian Government climate policy has typically addressed the symptoms of climate change rather than the root of the problem. The mining industry has taken advantage of this tendency, utilising the ALP’s ecological modernisation policymaking framework to minimise the impact of emissions-reduction policy on its bottom-line. The undue influence of powerful interest groups has resulted in a climate policy that supports the growth of the carbon-economy, favours business-as-usual and fails to address the damaging corporate practices of emissions-intensive industries. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21661 2020-01-14T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21665 Got AATitude? A quantitative analysis of refugee decision-making at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Simpson, Rohan D.S. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) is the first level of appeal for an asylum seeker whose application has been rejected by the Department of Home Affairs. There have been allegations that appointments at the AAT have become politicised. Despite these concerns, there exists no empirical means to test political influence at the AAT. This thesis develops a method to quantitatively test these allegations and provide further insights into asylum decision-making. Drawing off a specially generated Database of all publicly available refugee decisions at the AAT for the years 2015-2018 (2,272 cases), this study measures the effect of the Party appointing each Member on asylum outcomes. The key finding is that the odds of a Labor-appointed Member giving a favourable decision to an asylum-seeker were 1.46 times higher than those of a Liberal-appointed Member. Further, this study finds that the decision patterns vary significantly between Labor- and Liberal-appointed Members for applications from the same country of origin. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21665 2020-01-14T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21664 On the Frontlines of Change: A discursive approach to understanding real and envisioned climate adaptation pathways of drought-affected primary producers in NSW Miller, Gabrielle The most severe drought on record continues to devastate rural communities and primary producers across most of South-Eastern Australia; signalling current adaptive responses are failing to keep up with the rate of change in climatic conditions. As the first line of resistance or participation in new climate adaptation and mitigation policies, primary producers on small-scale farms can be considered consequential actors in driving transformational change. Despite the dire implications of inaction for Australia’s agricultural industries, there is a paucity of research into the socio-political dimensions underlying decision-making in climate adaptation planning at the farm-level. Noting that the livestock industry is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, a significant contributor to Australia’s share of releasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and possesses the potential to transform vast landscapes into a great ‘carbon sink’, this research endeavours to provide a more in-depth understanding of the discourses that influence responses to climate change at the farm-level in one of Australia’s defining industries. In-depth guided interviews with 16 graziers across drought-afflicted areas of North-Western New South Wales constitute the scope of this research. A discursive analysis of interview data provided insights into the limitations of current hegemonic discourses and mainstream agricultural adaptation and mitigation strategies. Nonetheless, interview data enabled identification of sites of resistance; where alternative discourses and novel framing practices can be seen as opportunities for facilitating transformative change within the livestock industry and agricultural sector more broadly. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21664 2020-01-14T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/20517 DFAT’s Culture and Approach to China: Understanding the impact of organisational culture on institutional behaviour Morris, Ciara The Australia-China relationship is arguably Australia’s most complex and important bilateral relationship of the 21st century. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is the principal government department responsible for crafting this relationship. This thesis is significant because it goes beyond the existing literature on the Australia-China relationship. It does so by deepening our understanding of a key public institution from the controversial theoretical perspective of organisational culture theory. I ask two important and under investigated questions; what is DFAT’s organisational culture; and how does this culture impact DFAT’s approach to China? I use a mixed method approach of content analysis, discourse analysis and elite interviewing. I identify that DFAT has a culture driven by alliance geopolitics. DFAT’s behaviour can be characterised as risk averse and emphatic about maintaining the US-led world order. This is a consequence of anxiety over a changing world, a rising China, and an increasingly isolationist US. This culture impacts DFAT’s approach to China, which sees the relationship through a lens of security concerns more so than economic opportunity. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in the Department of Government and International Relations of the University of Sydney Mon, 10 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/20517 2019-06-10T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19803 Alien Agendas: A Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories Across Western States Darke, Lillian Conspiracy theories have been a topic of interest among academic and non-academic literature for decades. As of recently, the political implications of public conspiracism has begun to be taken seriously. Political science literature in the past has viewed conspiracy theories with a US-centric lens, with little focus on how conspiracy theories manifest in other states. Further, there has been a lack of communication and collaboration across disciplines, resulting in disjointed and ad hoc narratives for public conspiracy belief. The aim of this study was to explore how conspiracy theories manifest differently across western states and draw together literature from a variety of disciplines, such as political science, psychology, and sociology. 144,000 conspiracy theories across fora in the US, Australia, Canada, and England were explored and compared. Across the fora, themes were established and then analysed from three different perspectives; cultural determinism, group-dynamics, and external influences. It was found that there are important similarities between states regarding how conspiracy theories manifest, such as a broad anti-establishment narrative. It was also found that there are thematic differences between the states, such as the role of the state and unique historical influences which may have serious impacts upon the effectiveness of political intervention. It was concluded that research into non-US states is an important avenue for developing a more reliable and nuanced narrative of conspiracy belief, as well as for developing an understanding of state-specific challenges and approaches to conspiracism. 2018 Honours Thesis Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19803 2019-01-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19804 The Facebook Formula: An experimental study into which electioneering strategies used over Facebook are most effective at influencing the Australian youth vote. Grace, Ben Facebook is rapidly changing Australia’s political media landscape. Young voters’ growing reliance on Facebook for the consumption of political news has corresponded with politicians’ increasingly prudent use of social media; suggesting that Facebook will play a defining role as an influential political arena to access future generations of voters. It is therefore important for electioneers and political scientists to understand which electioneering strategies used over Facebook are the most effective at influencing the Australian youth vote. This thesis takes a post-positivist approach to research to examine this causal relationship; using the experimental method to isolate and test the effects of extant online electioneering strategies on the voting habits of young Australians. It employs web-based crowdsourcing services to recruit participants into the experiments, and in doing so encounters sample size problems which prevent it from drawing conclusions against hypotheses. While the thesis is unable to evaluate the causal relationship between online electioneering strategies and youth voting habits, by learning from the sampling issues encountered in the study it makes an important contribution towards our understanding of experiments in Australian political science. Additionally, considering problems in the study were caused by sampling issues rather than the methodological design, the thesis is able to offer a robust methodology for future post-positivist research into this area. 2018 Honours Thesis Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19804 2019-01-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19800 Cocaine crackdowns and criminal violence Broe, Rachel In the last decade, Colombia has seen improvement in the levels of violence and the stability of the state as a result of targeting illicit narcotics traffickers. In the same period, Mexico has seen an increase in violence and the destabilisation of the state as a result of targeting illicit narcotics traffickers. This thesis will fill an important gap in the literature and answer the question of why Mexico’s policies failed while Colombia’s have succeeded. The answer will be presented in three parts. The first will explore physical geography, establishing its importance in illicit narcotics trafficking. The second part is state stability, which has an effect on how successfully policy is implemented. The independent and final variable is policy orientation. This thesis argues that the policy orientations pursued in Colombia and Mexico played on the geography and state stability of each state to produce radically different effects on violence. 2018 Honours Thesis Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19800 2019-01-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19799 Addressing the Impacts of Red Meat Consumption: Lessons from Australia’s Tobacco Control Regime Bless, Anja In spite of the negative impacts red meat consumption is having on public health and the environment, the issue is largely absent from environmental politics literature. This thesis will address this gap by considering potential policy mechanisms to mitigate the impacts of red meat consumption, barriers these policies might face, and how these could be overcome. Using Australia as a case study, a comparative analysis between Australia’s tobacco control regime and red meat consumption is conducted, supplemented by stakeholder interviews. This comparison is framed around the main influences on policy outcomes; ideas, interests, and institutions. The analysis highlights the essential roles of awareness-raising, cohesive policy networks, and a gradual increase in interventionism for ensuring policy regime success. It also demonstrates the larger scale of barriers for policy addressing the impacts of red meat consumption, and the potential policy windows that are opening due to a shift in meat consumption patterns. 2018 Honours Thesis Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19799 2019-01-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19802 ‘Equal Participation of All’: A study of environmental justice and vulnerability in the Resilient Melbourne and Resilient Sydney Strategies Simpson-Young, Alice ‘Resilient Melbourne’ (RM) and ‘Resilient Sydney’ (RS) are City Resilience Strategies (100RC, 2017) developed to prepare cities for climate change impacts and other ‘shocks’ and ‘stresses’. Through an environmental justice (EJ) lens, this research examines the 100RC’s City Resilience Framework (CRF) and the RM and RS strategy-development processes and resulting actions and priorities. A qualitative comparative methodology using document analysis and in-depth interviewing of 18 individuals found that limited consideration of embedded power structures in the CRF prevents underlying drivers of risk and vulnerability from being addressed; as such, the resulting actions of a procedurally-unjust strategy-development process will be distributively unjust. In one city, the need to gain legitimacy in a complex metropolitan governance system was a driver of the strategy-development process that was procedurally just. This research contributes the first EJ analysis of the CRF, the first comparative analysis of 100RC member cities, the first EJ analysis of a developed nation’s CRS and the first academic attention of any sort to RS. 2018 Honours Thesis Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19802 2019-01-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19801 Unresolved Sovereignty: The Origins of European Union Crisis, 1950 – 1953 Harrington, Nicholas T. The dissertation identifies and analyses the origins of the present crises afflicting the European Union. It examines the Schuman Plan Conference of 1950-51 and the European Coal and Steel Community that provided the blueprint for today’s supranational structure. The core argument - the unresolved sovereignty thesis – reveals that preconditions for future crises were embedded in the original institutional design. The unresolved sovereignty thesis establishes the following: (i) ‘Popular sovereignty’ was not a feature of Conference deliberations. The institutions were therefore designed without a mechanism connecting them to the people of Europe, creating a subsequent ‘democratic deficit’; (ii) The status of nation-state sovereignty was set aside during the Conference, resulting in new institutions that were inconsistent with sovereignty understandings across the member-states; (iii) European sovereignty was not adequately theorised during the Conference. As a result, the supranational institutions provoked immediate political conflict, leading to a subsequent ‘legitimacy gap’; and (iv) Creating European-level institutions without resolving questions 2018 Honours Thesis Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19801 2019-01-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19798 A very English Brexit: A comparative analysis of the immigration debate in the news media of the four UK nations Lavery, Sioned Ellen This thesis compares the immigration discourses in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland during Britain’s EU referendum. It has been speculated that immigration was influential in the decision to leave the European Union 23 June 2016. The decade prior to the referendum, immigration increased following EU expansion to include central and eastern European states. Migration is concentrated in south-east England with little inward migration to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Using a discourse analysis of 1476 newspaper articles from each UK nation, the thesis finds anti-immigration sentiment disseminated during the campaign to be bound in English experiences and positive experiences specific to individual nations. A sense of possessiveness in British services and culture is linked to contemporary English nationalism, informed by feelings of lost power to devolved governments, the EU and opposition to immigration. 2018 Honours Thesis Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/19798 2019-01-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/9047 Ministerial Advisers: How Ministers Shape Their Conduct – A Study of Ministers and Advisers in the Rudd Government Ashpole, Lynne Ministerial advisers have become part of the standard advisory arrangements in Westminster governments, yet there is disagreement about their roles and behaviour. In Australia, some academic work has considered their involvement in scandals like the 2001 children overboard affair and the 1993 sports rorts controversy. However, the focus on exceptional events means advisers’ everyday roles and conduct have not been given sufficient weight and those conclusions are therefore distorted. This paper finds that ministers exert a dominant influence over their advisers’ behaviour and that advisers continue to see themselves as agents of their ministers. Based on interviews with four Rudd government ministers and their advisers, the research shows advisers have strong norms of behaviour and that formal and informal accountability mechanisms operate to constrain their conduct. Advisers are not ‘out of control’ or operating in a ‘black hole of accountability’ as often claimed Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/9047 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8886 Taiwan’s Changing Economic Policymaking towards China: Liu, Yun The central question this thesis seeks to answer is: why has there been a change in Taiwan’s economic policymaking towards China since the 1990s. The study looks at this changing relationship through the lenses of two International Political Economy theories, economic nationalism vis-à-vis economic liberalism. By examining three distinctive Taiwanese administrations: Lee Teng-hui (1990-1999), Chen Shui-bian (2000-2007) and Ma Ying-jeou (2008-Present), this study explores the motivations underpinning Taiwan’s different economic policy choices. To illustrate, the study considers internal factors,Taiwan’s domestic politics and the role of its business society, and external factors,China’s rise in economic, diplomatic and military aspects and an important regional/global event. This thesis finds that it is the nationalist goal of protecting Taiwan’s security and maintaining its ‘sovereignty’ that has motivated its cross-Strait economic policies, and in the case of Taiwan, this nationalist purpose is dependent upon the assessment of China’s expanding strength. These findings are important because, as the thesis suggests, there is a potential framework to understand the way in which small states embrace policy choices reflecting their regional realities with large powerful states. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8886 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8884 The Banality of Arcadia Crump, Edwin Flags are highly valued – flown at sporting events, in war and even placed on the moon – but, nevertheless, are under-researched as symbolic devices. This thesis employs and extends Michael Billig’s Banal Nationalism theory to examine how a local flag operates within the context of Lord Howe Island, a small island 600km east of the Australian mainland. Utilising a combination of survey data and in-depth interviews, it firstly demonstrates the significance of “place” for the creation and remembrance of a unique Lord Howe Island identity as well as exploring the interaction of the Islanders between their spatial context and their civil–political relations. It secondly argues how flags can be simultaneously unifying and divisive symbolic devices within and without communities by exploring the process of encoding locally constructed mythologies onto flags, before finally examining the relationship between the social construction of meanings of flags and the citizens who themselves construct it, including the importance of origin myths in establishing the legitimacy of a flag. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8884 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8885 The Harm of a Label: The effect of Party Affiliation upon Criminal Sentencing in the United States Day, Jane Frances This thesis examines why sentencing disparity between partisan elected and non-partisan elected judiciaries exists. I contend that partisan elected judiciaries produce harsher sentences. The theoretical reasoning provided, is that political parties converge to the mean on politically popular issues, in this case a perceived “toughness on crime”. Therefore party affiliation and party primary selection causes judicial officers to conform their sentencing practices to party demands in order to gain selection, election and retention. I conducted a quantitative analysis of the conviction and imprisonment data from circuit courts in geographically and demographically similar counties of Illinois (partisan election) and Michigan (non-partisan election) to test this theory. In my case study this severity of sentence is measured by the number of criminal convictions that result in imprisonment. The partisan elected judiciary produced significantly higher rates of imprisonment, suggesting that party affiliation is a contributing factor to sentencing disparity between judicial selection systems. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8885 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8883 Identity and Interests: Understanding the Meltdown in Israeli-Turkish Relations 2002-2012 Cook, Katherine The recent deterioration of the strong bilateral alliance between Israel and Turkey has significant affects on the balance of power within the Middle East. As such, it is important that scholars determine why this meltdown has occurred. This thesis sought to explain the deterioration of relations between Israel and Turkey and overcome gaps in the existing literature concerned with this meltdown of bilateral relations by taking a fresh look into the role of identity and the interests it creates. Hence, the framework of Wendtian constructivism was applied in order to examine the social origins and impacts of identity and interests on alliance formation and deterioration. In this thesis, I suggested that Israel’s identity has changed slowly over the past decade and as such, should be perceived as ‘relatively’ stable. Conversely, however, Turkey’s national identity changed sharply, drifting away from the Ataturk agenda of Westernisation and secularism towards an Islamic heritage. In order to strengthen my argument that this shift in Turkish identity has primarily accounted for the deterioration of its relations with Israel, I analysed Turkish attitudes towards foreign policies other than its bilateral relationship with Israel, as well as its newly defined interests. Thus, whereas Israel’s relatively stable national identity and domestic policies were matched by its relatively stable foreign interests over the past decade, deep changes to Turkey’s national identity redirected its domestic policies under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. Consequently, Turkey has employed a number of political tensions and events as pretexts in order to unilaterally disengage from its relations with Israel so that it can further new foreign policies and interests. Identity matters, and for better or worse, identity changes precede foreign policy change, a lesson we must not forget. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8883 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8890 The Foundation and Composition of Egypt's Role in the Arab World Rottinger, Karina The choice of topic “The Foundation and Composition of Egypt’s Role in the Arab World” is not purely out of interest. It rises out of the abundance of literature and discourse that places Egypt at the centre of the Arab world with very ambiguous reasoning and seemingly haphazard confusion. This thesis thus seeks to do two things. First it aims to show that through the suspension of material capabilities we can instead focus on the norms surrounding regional powers as well as role conception, which can lead to a better understanding of Egypt’s status in the region which is often ascribed as more political, cultural and social rather than based around military and economics. This research uses certain fixed variables to better understand this; Egypt’s self-conception as a leader, its identity and its absorbing nature. Secondly, it aims to map out, historically, how Egypt’s role has taken different forms and manifested itself differently throughout time. This thesis uses the presidencies of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak as three distinct eras that can provide us an insight into three different ways we can observe Egypt occupying a distinct role in the Arab world. In order to understand how role behaviour is not static, it is posited that it is necessary to recall some of the major political events and how they have acted as catalysts, for more general contextual changes. It is noted however that all the variables cannot be taken into account further research is suggested on this topic. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8890 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8882 Comparative Nationalism: Imperial Legacies and the Strength of Nationalism: The Case of China and India since the 1990s Zylowski, Maike Since the 1990s, there have been strong displays of nationalism in China, while in India the once dominant ‘secular’ nationalism has been challenged by a fragmentation of national identity along ethno--‐religious lines. This thesis seeks to explain why Chinese nationalism, since the 1990s, appears to be stronger and indeed more prevalent than nationalism in India. The phenomenon of nationalism in India and China has been extensively researched, yet there remains a deficiency in comparative research. Thereby, this thesis takes a historical Comparative approach through which five explanatory hypotheses are evaluated; these are entitled: direct rule, types of foreign rule, regime type, foreign threat, and diversity. The findings of this thesis suggest that China’s nationalism remains more prevalent since the 1990s, due to its experience of informal imperialism, a strong centralized Chinese state, and higher levels of militarized inter--‐state disputes. Simply, it is illustrated that because the experience of informal imperialism has centrally defined Chinese nationalism, it reacts Intensely to foreign threats that are equated to imperial acts, while the unified nature of nationalism is reinforced by a strong centralized state. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8882 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8888 Parables Of Mass Atrocity: A Comparative Analysis Of The Nigerian And Liberian Yu, Chuan (Catrina) In the aftermath of conflict, the demand for societies to acknowledge the existence and impact of political violence has instigated creative policy developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) operate as mediated sites of historical contestation, offering states an opportunity to ‘come to terms’ with their own pasts. Despite the extensive body of scholarship assessing the TRC’s potential in promoting developmental goals, minimal academic attention has been given to the Report the Commissioners are mandated to produce. This study adopts a critical approach in comparatively examining key sections of the Nigerian and Liberian Commission Reports by using the ‘judgment’ substructure, as part of the ‘Appraisal System’. This thesis argues that the Reports, in summarising the findings of the TRC’s investigations, do not seek to recount objective ‘facts’; rather, project a specific image of the past, framed by the Commissioners’ assessment of how state power should be judged. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8888 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8889 Fact or Fiction? Hate Crime in Sweden and it's Representations in Swedish Popular Culture Ralph, Ngaire Sweden’s global representation suggests that it is one of the most gender- equal, open and forward- thinking countries in the world. This thesis, however, exposes Sweden’s darker side, where hate crime towards immigrants, women and homosexuals is a serious social and political issue. Through a case study analysis of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy and Swedish white power music, this thesis examines the role of popular culture in the dissemination of ideas, protest against cultural and political norms, and the way in which it exposes ideologies which threaten the Swedish global image. This thesis finds that popular culture is a valuable medium through which the ideology of hatred can be studied. It finds that Swedish artists and authors use popular culture to convey their concerns about society but that it is also used as a tool through which hate ideology can be disseminated throughout society too. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8889 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8881 The President as a Perception-setting agent: Presidential Rhetoric, the Russian State and Identity, and the Search for Political Legitimacy in Post-Soviet Russia. Thorncraft, Kyra Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the state that has emerged, the Russian Federation, has been engulfed in a search for a legitimate and valuable identity and role for the state. This search was given new life in 2000, with the ascendency of Vladimir Putin to the Presidency, and a new Russia attempted to rise from the decay and instability of the 1990's. The Presidential perceptions of the Russian state and identity, under Putin and his successor Dmitri Medvedev, have represented a concerted and largely continuous attempt at crafting a Russian idea that both projects an image of the Russian state and identity, and simultaneously confers legitimacy to state structure. Through a discourse analysis of the President's Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, from 2000 to 2011, this perception of state and identity can be illuminated. The use of narratives, symbols, myths and cultural memory to create this continuous image of Russia and craft Presidential legitimacy from this narrative, constitutes the main concern of this thesis. The research aims to analyse the Presidential perceptions of state and identity, asking two core questions: how has the Presidency attempted to shape the Russian state and identity through their rhetoric? and Why? Analysing the specific narratives used, the attempts at narrating an idea of Russia that provides continuity with periods of past state legitimacy and the attempt at legitimating both Presidential power and the new state (the Russian Federation), this article provides an invaluable understanding of the President's attempts at shaping and legitimising the new Russia. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8881 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8873 The Case of Egypt (1981-2011) Hudson, Antonia The 2011 Egyptian revolution ousted President Hosni Mubarak after nearly thirty years in power. An agency centred approach dominated the discourse that followed the revolution. This dissertation contends that this lilterature is inadequate because it fails to consider structural factors at play in Egypt. Sultanism is a valuable heuristic tool by which to elucidate the role of the nature of the regime and its breakdown. The characteristics of the sultanistic category include: 1) fusion of regime and state, 2) personalism, 3) dynasticism, 4) constitutional hypocrisy, 5) narrow social base, and 6) distorted capitalism. These features have important implications in shaping relationships between key actors that determine paths out of sultanism. In addition, while analysing Egypt, this dissertation simultaneously performs an immanent critique of sultanism. The application of sultanism to Egypt reveals the need for two particular revisions to the theory: 1) the integration with the insights of 'gray zone' theory, and 2) consideration of the regional political climate. Thus, this dissertation puts forward a meaningful framework by which to assess the 2011 Egyptian revolution and the theory of sultanism. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8873 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8869 Exploring Secularity Studying Australian Secularists Abadee, Daniel Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8869 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8875 Power/Knowledge in Discourses of Climate Justice McLoughlin, Liam Rawlsian political philosophers and theorists approach climate justice using ideal theories of the fair distribution of climate change burdens, and the rights to be protected in the face of those burdens. Other theorists and activists embrace these ideal principles, but also identify structural causes of climate injustice, calling for the profound transformation of the global political, economic, and cultural order. Using a Foucaultian framework, this thesis argues that liberal and activist discourses of climate justice are specific configurations of power/knowledge with particular constraints and material effects. Distributive and rights-based climate justice discourses vitiate the voices of those most affected by climate change, overlook and conceal root causes of climate injustice, marginalise alternative political projects, and thereby reinforce existing power relations. By contrast, across critical, utopian, and spatial dimensions, activist climate justice discourse exposes and confronts these fundamental relations of oppression and domination. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/2123/8875 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z