DFAT’s Culture and Approach to China: Understanding the impact of organisational culture on institutional behaviour

Abstract

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.