Papers by Aulia Octa Vestaliza
During his 2016 presidential campaign and his inauguration speech, Donald Trump frequently used t... more During his 2016 presidential campaign and his inauguration speech, Donald Trump frequently used the phrase “America First” to summarise his views on US trade and foreign policy. Trump’s campaign was not the first example of protectionist, nationalist and exclusivist rhetoric being used in the American political arena. Throughout US history, politicians and activists have referenced the idea of “America First” in order to champion policies varying from stricter immigration laws to foreign policy isolationism. Only in the latter decades of the 20th century did America embrace (comparatively) more open policies on trade and economic integration, and indeed, the Trump phenomenon has been seen as a backlash against this extended period of relative liberal economic hegemony. Nonetheless, the practical implications of Trump’s economic policies remain rather ambiguous, and experts are still trying to ascertain what it means in trade and economic terms to put “America first”.
This essay seeks to investigate implications of Trump’s “America First” trade policy for international multilateral trade, by examining how his rhetorical position translates into actual economic and foreign policy. The essay is divided into three sections. The first section assesses the policy preferences of the Trump administration on issues of trade, protectionism and multilateral economic institution-building. It examines Trump’s protectionist rhetoric, and his advocacy of a transactional approach – implicit in his self-proclaimed role as a ‘deal-making’ president – to trade and foreign policy issues. The second section focuses on the extent to which Trump’s campaign agenda has been translated into policy outcomes under his leadership, and the effects of Trump-era changes to US trade policy upon the continued development of multilateral trade architecture. The third section contrasts Trump’s approaches to multilateral and bilateral trade, cosidering the degree to which his reluctance to engage in multilateral trade may encourage a shift towards greater bilateralism in coming months and years.
This essay holds that the policy decisions taken by the Trump administration are undermining US engagement in multilateral trade organisations, may weaken US leadership in international trade, and may erode institutions at the heart of a rules-based international economic order. However, despite the protectionist rhetoric he has directed towards trade partners in strategically key regions of the world, Trump has been far more amenable to negotiation conducted on bilateral terms, which may represent a shift from multilateral institution-building to a narrow, transactional bilateral approach. This is likely to have significant consequences for America’s continued leadership role in the global economic system.
The George W. Bush government’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 led to the largest, longest and m... more The George W. Bush government’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 led to the largest, longest and most costly use of armed force undertaken by the United States since the Vietnam War. Though supported by a coalition of allies – including the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain and Poland – the invasion was the US’s first major post-Cold War military action not to be supported by an international organisation. It was also America’s first experience as an occupying power in a Middle Eastern country. That violence and instability continues to wrack the region to this day indicates the enormous ramifications of the US invasion and occupation. It is little wonder that many commentators consider the Iraq War to be the most controversial and momentous foreign policy decision taken by the US in recent history.
In reflecting on the reasons for the war, a sharp cleavage exists between the formal justifications for the war advanced by its proponents – which were premised on Iraq’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and preparedness to use them against external targets – and more critical interpretations that have sought to identify alternative motives and causes. Following the invasion, detractors of the Bush administration’s casus belli appeared to be vindicated by the failure of US officials to locate any WMDs. However, even prior to the war, numerous ex-weapons inspectors from the UN, as well as Iraqi specialists, had argued that Saddam Hussein had no serious WMD capabilities, and that Iraq was incapable of seriously threatening neighbouring states (let alone the US or UK). Negligible empirical evidence has come to light that supports the claims made by the Bush government (as well as by then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair) that a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein’s regime was necessary in order to prevent a WMD-equipped attack on Western targets. The weight of verifiable evidence, both before and after the invasion, indicated that Iraq posed little threat to the US; much subsequent analysis has suggested that the claims of urgency made by the US and UK governments were deliberately exaggerated to advance the case for war.
Scholars and analysts remain deeply divided over explanations for the decision to go to war, especially given the dubious and highly contested nature of official claims about the threat posed by Iraq. This essay seeks to unpick the reasons for the invasion by applying the tools of foreign policy analysis. One method for the examination of foreign policy decisions, including the US invasion of Iraq, applies a conceptual framework based on three levels of analysis: the international, the national (or domestic), and the individual. Using this conceptual framework, foreign policy outcomes can be understood by examining the impact of international circumstances, national politics and individual preferences.
This essay argues that the international or systemic level of analysis in foreign policy is essential to explaining the range of strategic and political choices available to any given state at any given time. In 2003, America’s preponderant global status represented a necessary – though not sufficient – condition for the invasion of Iraq. However, domestic-level analysis, taking account of political, social and cultural dynamics, as well as the preferences and biases of individual leaders, must also be examined in order to develop a meaningful understanding of the reasons for war. This paper will show how these three levels of analysis intersect in complex ways to shape the course of foreign policy. It finds that while domestic- and individual-level analyses play an important part in explaining America’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, the very possibility of an invasion rested on a post-Cold War international power arrangement in which the US was globally preponderant and had unmatched power projection capabilities.
The leaked transcript of the Trump-Turnbull call provides useful insights into President Trump’s ... more The leaked transcript of the Trump-Turnbull call provides useful insights into President Trump’s approach to foreign policy, broadly confirming McAdams’ mid-2016 assessment of his key dispositions. Trump’s interaction with the Australian PM revealed a foreign policy actor who is deeply concerned with how others perceive him – particularly his own domestic constituency in a highly polarised nation. By maintaining a personalised frame of reference, Trump struggles to disaggregate his own political interests from those of the nation at large. On display also is Trump’s disagreeableness, embodied in his rude, cynical and highly transactional approach to diplomacy. Finally, Trump’s reluctance to embrace alternative viewpoints, confirmed by Turnbull’s at times obsequious efforts to echo Trump’s blinkered worldview, indicate the president’s lack of conscientiousness and openness. Applying the agent-oriented approach of foreign policy decision-making, it is possible to appreciate the foreign policymaking impact of Trump’s unusual psychological profile.
By the late 1970s, with the last formal vestiges of the White Australia policy repealed, the Aus... more By the late 1970s, with the last formal vestiges of the White Australia policy repealed, the Australian government had a burgeoning humanitarian reputation for granting asylum to people fleeing oppression and persecution in their home countries. Notably, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, thousands of refugees escaping political turmoil in Indochina – many of them by boat – were resettled in Australia. Similar waves of refugee resettlement had occurred in the 1950s, after the Second World War, and in the 1990s following the collapse of Yugoslavia.
Over the last two decades, however, there has been a notable shift in the approach taken by the Australian government to people seeking asylum in Australia, and particularly towards those arriving to Australian shores by boat. The adoption of a controversial ‘mandatory detention’ policy under Prime Minister Paul Keating foreshadowed a more significant shift in Australia’s approach to asylum seekers which took place during John Howard’s prime ministership. In 2001, with a federal election looming, the Howard government sought to link the issue of ‘irregular maritime arrivals’ (‘IMAs’ – i.e. asylum seekers travelling to Australian shores by boat) to concerns about national security. A sharp increase in the number of IMAs around the turn of the century prompted increasingly draconian responses from the Australian government, which stoked public concerns about ‘border security’. This reached a head during the ‘Tampa affair’ in August 2001, when a Norwegian ship carrying hundreds of asylum seekers who had been rescued at sea was refused permission to land on Australian territory.
This discourse evolved following the devastating ‘9/11’ attacks on the United States, as the Howard government then sought to connect the ‘boat people’ issue to the spectre of terrorism. The ‘securitisation’ of the discourse around IMAs, which arose during the second half of 2001, has since become entrenched in the policy approach of subsequent governments. The Australian government has often sought to justify the extraordinary measures it has adopted to deal with ‘unauthorised maritime arrivals’ – including extended periods of mandatory detention, offshore processing deals with neighbouring countries, and the use of Temporary Protection Visas – in the language of border security. More recently, this has been combined with concerns about human security (particularly, the prevention of drownings at sea), which represents a broadening of the securitisation discourse around Australia’s policy responses to IMA issue.
This essay seeks to examine the idea that the maritime arrivals of asylum seekers in Australia represents a threat to Australian national security, by employing the concept of ‘securitisation’ derived from the ‘Copenhagen School’ of International Relations scholarship. I argue that the socio-political securitisation of the IMA issue has enabled successive governments to implement and justify disproportionately harsh policies. This has been achieved through political campaigns which seek popular support by generating a sense of anxiety and insecurity, based on rhetorically constructed threats. Although discourses around IMAs have evolved over the past two decades, the bipartisan tendency in Australian politics has been to engage in a process of securitisation around the IMA issue.
The idea of human rights originated during the European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centur... more The idea of human rights originated during the European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) formulated the idea that natural rights — to life, liberty, and property — arise from natural law, a code of rules which derives legitimacy from human reason. For Locke and the French social reformer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), these natural rights predate governments; by organising society into states, human beings do not surrender these rights, but only give up the right to enforce them. The ideas of Locke and Rousseau enjoyed prominence during the American and French Revolutions in the latter part of the 18th century. The natural and self-evident rights of mankind were embedded in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. For Thomas Jefferson, a participant in the drafting of all those documents, human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
In the 21st century, human rights are generally understood as being anchored in the concept of human dignity, rather than in notions of divine or natural law. The central premise of human rights is that every human being, regardless of their cultural, social or economic background, is entitled to the same basic rights and freedoms. Human rights are not ‘privileges’, and so they cannot be granted or revoked. Human rights are therefore conceived of as inalienable and universal.
In practice, however, the implementation and protection of universal human rights is often complex and problematic. In particular, the idea of universal human rights has been challenged by cultural relativists, on the basis that the claim to universal applicability reflects a form of cultural imperialism or hegemony. Relativists hold that the universal human rights discourse originates from Western philosophical positions which conceptualise the individual as the fundamental political actor, rather than the collective or communal units privileged in many non-Western traditions. Human rights discourses can only make universalist claims, argue cultural relativists, because of the global political ascendency of the West. In response, universalists accuse relativists of allowing politically and socially repressive practices, which subordinate individual wellbeing to collective utility, to be justified and legitimised on the basis of cultural difference.
This essay accepts that the human rights discourse originated in Western thought, but it rejects the notion that the attempt to establish universal human rights norms, particularly in the post-war era, is a form of Western imperialism. Rather, this essay argues that the opponents of universal human rights exploit the principles of state sovereignty and self-determination – legal constructs designed to protect weak political collectives from stronger ones – in order to mount their arguments. It holds that the cultural relativist critique of universal human rights is often advanced by actors seeking to maintain insidious and violent power imbalances within the political systems of certain states. This essay argues that such criticisms generally reflect calculations of political interest rather than consistent ideological opposition to the adoption of foreign (i.e. Western) values.
Scholars of International Relations have long engaged in debates about the concept of global stab... more Scholars of International Relations have long engaged in debates about the concept of global stability. A variety of positions have been advanced on how best to define the concept of ‘global stability’, and on whether a stable international order can be achieved and maintained in an otherwise anarchic world. Moreover, scholars offer divergent perspectives when it comes to identifying the greatest threats to global stability.
This essay is primarily concerned with the latter question: it is focused on how best to identify and understand threats to global stability in the 21st century. Yet in order to address this question effectively, it is necessary to reflect on the definitional and theoretical issues touched on above. Firstly, the scope of what is meant by ‘global stability’ remains contested. One position holds that stability simply implies not being prone to war. Another more conceptually inclusive definition defines stability as a lack of change in the fundamental pattern of interactions in the global system.
This essay draws on a broad conception of global stability, in which threats to the global order of nation-states may arise from state or non-state actors, and can be conceived in both military and non-military terms: in understanding threats to stability, it is important to consider the effects of environmental, social and technological changes.
The major international conflicts which took place during the 20th century, notably the two World Wars and the Cold War, have had significant consequences for the scholarly analysis of international stability and instability. Waltz points out that two schools of thought exist with reference to what is meant by ‘stability’: these are more optimistic (i.e. idealist) perspectives, and more pessimistic (i.e. realist) perspectives. During the post-First World War period, idealist notions were privileged, with the establishment of the League of Nations one notable attempt to maintain a stable global order based on international institution-building. However, during the Cold War, realism became the dominant school of thought in international affairs. Violence and conflict were seen as perpetual characteristics of interstate relations, manageable only through the maintenance of stable international power structures. This essay looks beyond the realist focus on the interactions between nation-states, considering how non-state actors, technological advances and environmental factors present significant challenges to global stability in the 21st century.
In this essay, I argue that rather than attempting to identify the ‘most significant’ of multiple, discrete threats to global stability, it is necessary to conceive of different types of threat, and to understand these as potentially interrelated and mutually reinforcing phenomena. As these types of threat differ in their origins, timescales and inherent destructive capacity, it is overly reductionist to seek to identify a single most significant threat to global stability. Rather, I consider how these varied types of threat may interact, enhancing their destructive potential and presenting far deeper challenges to global stability.
This literature review examines some of the key threats to global stability discussed by scholars... more This literature review examines some of the key threats to global stability discussed by scholars and analysts of international relations. It identifies three broad approaches in the literature on this subject. The first of these emphasises immediate, visible and ongoing efforts to destabilise or destroy the existing political order, in which the sovereign nation state serves as the primary actor. This body of scholarship particularly emphasises the destabilising activities of violent non-state groups – notably terrorist organisations. The second approach is focused on the destructive and destabilising potential of modern weapons, and the relative ease with which this potential may be harnessed and deployed. It is the possibility that this destructive power may be unleashed, rather than the growth of violent anti-system organisations, that most concerns these scholars. The third area of scholarship is relatively broader in scope, but shares a neo-Malthusian concern with the environmental consequences of human development and consumption. This approach holds that the greatest threats to global stability are those arising from unchecked population growth, rampant environmental degradation and the overexploitation of finite resources. As a result, the global political order faces impending demographic and health crises, as well as the heightened threat of conflict over control of resources. In reviewing these various approaches in the scholarship, I argue that rather attempting to identify the most dangerous of multiple, discrete threats, it is necessary to consider these as potentially interrelated and mutually reinforcing phenomena. Moreover, as these threats vary in their origins, timescales and inherent destructive capacity, it is all but impossible to identify a single most significant threat to global stability. It is more helpful to consider the way in which these varied threats may coalesce, magnifying their destructive potential and generating far deeper challenges to global stability.
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Papers by Aulia Octa Vestaliza
This essay seeks to investigate implications of Trump’s “America First” trade policy for international multilateral trade, by examining how his rhetorical position translates into actual economic and foreign policy. The essay is divided into three sections. The first section assesses the policy preferences of the Trump administration on issues of trade, protectionism and multilateral economic institution-building. It examines Trump’s protectionist rhetoric, and his advocacy of a transactional approach – implicit in his self-proclaimed role as a ‘deal-making’ president – to trade and foreign policy issues. The second section focuses on the extent to which Trump’s campaign agenda has been translated into policy outcomes under his leadership, and the effects of Trump-era changes to US trade policy upon the continued development of multilateral trade architecture. The third section contrasts Trump’s approaches to multilateral and bilateral trade, cosidering the degree to which his reluctance to engage in multilateral trade may encourage a shift towards greater bilateralism in coming months and years.
This essay holds that the policy decisions taken by the Trump administration are undermining US engagement in multilateral trade organisations, may weaken US leadership in international trade, and may erode institutions at the heart of a rules-based international economic order. However, despite the protectionist rhetoric he has directed towards trade partners in strategically key regions of the world, Trump has been far more amenable to negotiation conducted on bilateral terms, which may represent a shift from multilateral institution-building to a narrow, transactional bilateral approach. This is likely to have significant consequences for America’s continued leadership role in the global economic system.
In reflecting on the reasons for the war, a sharp cleavage exists between the formal justifications for the war advanced by its proponents – which were premised on Iraq’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and preparedness to use them against external targets – and more critical interpretations that have sought to identify alternative motives and causes. Following the invasion, detractors of the Bush administration’s casus belli appeared to be vindicated by the failure of US officials to locate any WMDs. However, even prior to the war, numerous ex-weapons inspectors from the UN, as well as Iraqi specialists, had argued that Saddam Hussein had no serious WMD capabilities, and that Iraq was incapable of seriously threatening neighbouring states (let alone the US or UK). Negligible empirical evidence has come to light that supports the claims made by the Bush government (as well as by then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair) that a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein’s regime was necessary in order to prevent a WMD-equipped attack on Western targets. The weight of verifiable evidence, both before and after the invasion, indicated that Iraq posed little threat to the US; much subsequent analysis has suggested that the claims of urgency made by the US and UK governments were deliberately exaggerated to advance the case for war.
Scholars and analysts remain deeply divided over explanations for the decision to go to war, especially given the dubious and highly contested nature of official claims about the threat posed by Iraq. This essay seeks to unpick the reasons for the invasion by applying the tools of foreign policy analysis. One method for the examination of foreign policy decisions, including the US invasion of Iraq, applies a conceptual framework based on three levels of analysis: the international, the national (or domestic), and the individual. Using this conceptual framework, foreign policy outcomes can be understood by examining the impact of international circumstances, national politics and individual preferences.
This essay argues that the international or systemic level of analysis in foreign policy is essential to explaining the range of strategic and political choices available to any given state at any given time. In 2003, America’s preponderant global status represented a necessary – though not sufficient – condition for the invasion of Iraq. However, domestic-level analysis, taking account of political, social and cultural dynamics, as well as the preferences and biases of individual leaders, must also be examined in order to develop a meaningful understanding of the reasons for war. This paper will show how these three levels of analysis intersect in complex ways to shape the course of foreign policy. It finds that while domestic- and individual-level analyses play an important part in explaining America’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, the very possibility of an invasion rested on a post-Cold War international power arrangement in which the US was globally preponderant and had unmatched power projection capabilities.
Over the last two decades, however, there has been a notable shift in the approach taken by the Australian government to people seeking asylum in Australia, and particularly towards those arriving to Australian shores by boat. The adoption of a controversial ‘mandatory detention’ policy under Prime Minister Paul Keating foreshadowed a more significant shift in Australia’s approach to asylum seekers which took place during John Howard’s prime ministership. In 2001, with a federal election looming, the Howard government sought to link the issue of ‘irregular maritime arrivals’ (‘IMAs’ – i.e. asylum seekers travelling to Australian shores by boat) to concerns about national security. A sharp increase in the number of IMAs around the turn of the century prompted increasingly draconian responses from the Australian government, which stoked public concerns about ‘border security’. This reached a head during the ‘Tampa affair’ in August 2001, when a Norwegian ship carrying hundreds of asylum seekers who had been rescued at sea was refused permission to land on Australian territory.
This discourse evolved following the devastating ‘9/11’ attacks on the United States, as the Howard government then sought to connect the ‘boat people’ issue to the spectre of terrorism. The ‘securitisation’ of the discourse around IMAs, which arose during the second half of 2001, has since become entrenched in the policy approach of subsequent governments. The Australian government has often sought to justify the extraordinary measures it has adopted to deal with ‘unauthorised maritime arrivals’ – including extended periods of mandatory detention, offshore processing deals with neighbouring countries, and the use of Temporary Protection Visas – in the language of border security. More recently, this has been combined with concerns about human security (particularly, the prevention of drownings at sea), which represents a broadening of the securitisation discourse around Australia’s policy responses to IMA issue.
This essay seeks to examine the idea that the maritime arrivals of asylum seekers in Australia represents a threat to Australian national security, by employing the concept of ‘securitisation’ derived from the ‘Copenhagen School’ of International Relations scholarship. I argue that the socio-political securitisation of the IMA issue has enabled successive governments to implement and justify disproportionately harsh policies. This has been achieved through political campaigns which seek popular support by generating a sense of anxiety and insecurity, based on rhetorically constructed threats. Although discourses around IMAs have evolved over the past two decades, the bipartisan tendency in Australian politics has been to engage in a process of securitisation around the IMA issue.
In the 21st century, human rights are generally understood as being anchored in the concept of human dignity, rather than in notions of divine or natural law. The central premise of human rights is that every human being, regardless of their cultural, social or economic background, is entitled to the same basic rights and freedoms. Human rights are not ‘privileges’, and so they cannot be granted or revoked. Human rights are therefore conceived of as inalienable and universal.
In practice, however, the implementation and protection of universal human rights is often complex and problematic. In particular, the idea of universal human rights has been challenged by cultural relativists, on the basis that the claim to universal applicability reflects a form of cultural imperialism or hegemony. Relativists hold that the universal human rights discourse originates from Western philosophical positions which conceptualise the individual as the fundamental political actor, rather than the collective or communal units privileged in many non-Western traditions. Human rights discourses can only make universalist claims, argue cultural relativists, because of the global political ascendency of the West. In response, universalists accuse relativists of allowing politically and socially repressive practices, which subordinate individual wellbeing to collective utility, to be justified and legitimised on the basis of cultural difference.
This essay accepts that the human rights discourse originated in Western thought, but it rejects the notion that the attempt to establish universal human rights norms, particularly in the post-war era, is a form of Western imperialism. Rather, this essay argues that the opponents of universal human rights exploit the principles of state sovereignty and self-determination – legal constructs designed to protect weak political collectives from stronger ones – in order to mount their arguments. It holds that the cultural relativist critique of universal human rights is often advanced by actors seeking to maintain insidious and violent power imbalances within the political systems of certain states. This essay argues that such criticisms generally reflect calculations of political interest rather than consistent ideological opposition to the adoption of foreign (i.e. Western) values.
This essay is primarily concerned with the latter question: it is focused on how best to identify and understand threats to global stability in the 21st century. Yet in order to address this question effectively, it is necessary to reflect on the definitional and theoretical issues touched on above. Firstly, the scope of what is meant by ‘global stability’ remains contested. One position holds that stability simply implies not being prone to war. Another more conceptually inclusive definition defines stability as a lack of change in the fundamental pattern of interactions in the global system.
This essay draws on a broad conception of global stability, in which threats to the global order of nation-states may arise from state or non-state actors, and can be conceived in both military and non-military terms: in understanding threats to stability, it is important to consider the effects of environmental, social and technological changes.
The major international conflicts which took place during the 20th century, notably the two World Wars and the Cold War, have had significant consequences for the scholarly analysis of international stability and instability. Waltz points out that two schools of thought exist with reference to what is meant by ‘stability’: these are more optimistic (i.e. idealist) perspectives, and more pessimistic (i.e. realist) perspectives. During the post-First World War period, idealist notions were privileged, with the establishment of the League of Nations one notable attempt to maintain a stable global order based on international institution-building. However, during the Cold War, realism became the dominant school of thought in international affairs. Violence and conflict were seen as perpetual characteristics of interstate relations, manageable only through the maintenance of stable international power structures. This essay looks beyond the realist focus on the interactions between nation-states, considering how non-state actors, technological advances and environmental factors present significant challenges to global stability in the 21st century.
In this essay, I argue that rather than attempting to identify the ‘most significant’ of multiple, discrete threats to global stability, it is necessary to conceive of different types of threat, and to understand these as potentially interrelated and mutually reinforcing phenomena. As these types of threat differ in their origins, timescales and inherent destructive capacity, it is overly reductionist to seek to identify a single most significant threat to global stability. Rather, I consider how these varied types of threat may interact, enhancing their destructive potential and presenting far deeper challenges to global stability.
This essay seeks to investigate implications of Trump’s “America First” trade policy for international multilateral trade, by examining how his rhetorical position translates into actual economic and foreign policy. The essay is divided into three sections. The first section assesses the policy preferences of the Trump administration on issues of trade, protectionism and multilateral economic institution-building. It examines Trump’s protectionist rhetoric, and his advocacy of a transactional approach – implicit in his self-proclaimed role as a ‘deal-making’ president – to trade and foreign policy issues. The second section focuses on the extent to which Trump’s campaign agenda has been translated into policy outcomes under his leadership, and the effects of Trump-era changes to US trade policy upon the continued development of multilateral trade architecture. The third section contrasts Trump’s approaches to multilateral and bilateral trade, cosidering the degree to which his reluctance to engage in multilateral trade may encourage a shift towards greater bilateralism in coming months and years.
This essay holds that the policy decisions taken by the Trump administration are undermining US engagement in multilateral trade organisations, may weaken US leadership in international trade, and may erode institutions at the heart of a rules-based international economic order. However, despite the protectionist rhetoric he has directed towards trade partners in strategically key regions of the world, Trump has been far more amenable to negotiation conducted on bilateral terms, which may represent a shift from multilateral institution-building to a narrow, transactional bilateral approach. This is likely to have significant consequences for America’s continued leadership role in the global economic system.
In reflecting on the reasons for the war, a sharp cleavage exists between the formal justifications for the war advanced by its proponents – which were premised on Iraq’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and preparedness to use them against external targets – and more critical interpretations that have sought to identify alternative motives and causes. Following the invasion, detractors of the Bush administration’s casus belli appeared to be vindicated by the failure of US officials to locate any WMDs. However, even prior to the war, numerous ex-weapons inspectors from the UN, as well as Iraqi specialists, had argued that Saddam Hussein had no serious WMD capabilities, and that Iraq was incapable of seriously threatening neighbouring states (let alone the US or UK). Negligible empirical evidence has come to light that supports the claims made by the Bush government (as well as by then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair) that a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein’s regime was necessary in order to prevent a WMD-equipped attack on Western targets. The weight of verifiable evidence, both before and after the invasion, indicated that Iraq posed little threat to the US; much subsequent analysis has suggested that the claims of urgency made by the US and UK governments were deliberately exaggerated to advance the case for war.
Scholars and analysts remain deeply divided over explanations for the decision to go to war, especially given the dubious and highly contested nature of official claims about the threat posed by Iraq. This essay seeks to unpick the reasons for the invasion by applying the tools of foreign policy analysis. One method for the examination of foreign policy decisions, including the US invasion of Iraq, applies a conceptual framework based on three levels of analysis: the international, the national (or domestic), and the individual. Using this conceptual framework, foreign policy outcomes can be understood by examining the impact of international circumstances, national politics and individual preferences.
This essay argues that the international or systemic level of analysis in foreign policy is essential to explaining the range of strategic and political choices available to any given state at any given time. In 2003, America’s preponderant global status represented a necessary – though not sufficient – condition for the invasion of Iraq. However, domestic-level analysis, taking account of political, social and cultural dynamics, as well as the preferences and biases of individual leaders, must also be examined in order to develop a meaningful understanding of the reasons for war. This paper will show how these three levels of analysis intersect in complex ways to shape the course of foreign policy. It finds that while domestic- and individual-level analyses play an important part in explaining America’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, the very possibility of an invasion rested on a post-Cold War international power arrangement in which the US was globally preponderant and had unmatched power projection capabilities.
Over the last two decades, however, there has been a notable shift in the approach taken by the Australian government to people seeking asylum in Australia, and particularly towards those arriving to Australian shores by boat. The adoption of a controversial ‘mandatory detention’ policy under Prime Minister Paul Keating foreshadowed a more significant shift in Australia’s approach to asylum seekers which took place during John Howard’s prime ministership. In 2001, with a federal election looming, the Howard government sought to link the issue of ‘irregular maritime arrivals’ (‘IMAs’ – i.e. asylum seekers travelling to Australian shores by boat) to concerns about national security. A sharp increase in the number of IMAs around the turn of the century prompted increasingly draconian responses from the Australian government, which stoked public concerns about ‘border security’. This reached a head during the ‘Tampa affair’ in August 2001, when a Norwegian ship carrying hundreds of asylum seekers who had been rescued at sea was refused permission to land on Australian territory.
This discourse evolved following the devastating ‘9/11’ attacks on the United States, as the Howard government then sought to connect the ‘boat people’ issue to the spectre of terrorism. The ‘securitisation’ of the discourse around IMAs, which arose during the second half of 2001, has since become entrenched in the policy approach of subsequent governments. The Australian government has often sought to justify the extraordinary measures it has adopted to deal with ‘unauthorised maritime arrivals’ – including extended periods of mandatory detention, offshore processing deals with neighbouring countries, and the use of Temporary Protection Visas – in the language of border security. More recently, this has been combined with concerns about human security (particularly, the prevention of drownings at sea), which represents a broadening of the securitisation discourse around Australia’s policy responses to IMA issue.
This essay seeks to examine the idea that the maritime arrivals of asylum seekers in Australia represents a threat to Australian national security, by employing the concept of ‘securitisation’ derived from the ‘Copenhagen School’ of International Relations scholarship. I argue that the socio-political securitisation of the IMA issue has enabled successive governments to implement and justify disproportionately harsh policies. This has been achieved through political campaigns which seek popular support by generating a sense of anxiety and insecurity, based on rhetorically constructed threats. Although discourses around IMAs have evolved over the past two decades, the bipartisan tendency in Australian politics has been to engage in a process of securitisation around the IMA issue.
In the 21st century, human rights are generally understood as being anchored in the concept of human dignity, rather than in notions of divine or natural law. The central premise of human rights is that every human being, regardless of their cultural, social or economic background, is entitled to the same basic rights and freedoms. Human rights are not ‘privileges’, and so they cannot be granted or revoked. Human rights are therefore conceived of as inalienable and universal.
In practice, however, the implementation and protection of universal human rights is often complex and problematic. In particular, the idea of universal human rights has been challenged by cultural relativists, on the basis that the claim to universal applicability reflects a form of cultural imperialism or hegemony. Relativists hold that the universal human rights discourse originates from Western philosophical positions which conceptualise the individual as the fundamental political actor, rather than the collective or communal units privileged in many non-Western traditions. Human rights discourses can only make universalist claims, argue cultural relativists, because of the global political ascendency of the West. In response, universalists accuse relativists of allowing politically and socially repressive practices, which subordinate individual wellbeing to collective utility, to be justified and legitimised on the basis of cultural difference.
This essay accepts that the human rights discourse originated in Western thought, but it rejects the notion that the attempt to establish universal human rights norms, particularly in the post-war era, is a form of Western imperialism. Rather, this essay argues that the opponents of universal human rights exploit the principles of state sovereignty and self-determination – legal constructs designed to protect weak political collectives from stronger ones – in order to mount their arguments. It holds that the cultural relativist critique of universal human rights is often advanced by actors seeking to maintain insidious and violent power imbalances within the political systems of certain states. This essay argues that such criticisms generally reflect calculations of political interest rather than consistent ideological opposition to the adoption of foreign (i.e. Western) values.
This essay is primarily concerned with the latter question: it is focused on how best to identify and understand threats to global stability in the 21st century. Yet in order to address this question effectively, it is necessary to reflect on the definitional and theoretical issues touched on above. Firstly, the scope of what is meant by ‘global stability’ remains contested. One position holds that stability simply implies not being prone to war. Another more conceptually inclusive definition defines stability as a lack of change in the fundamental pattern of interactions in the global system.
This essay draws on a broad conception of global stability, in which threats to the global order of nation-states may arise from state or non-state actors, and can be conceived in both military and non-military terms: in understanding threats to stability, it is important to consider the effects of environmental, social and technological changes.
The major international conflicts which took place during the 20th century, notably the two World Wars and the Cold War, have had significant consequences for the scholarly analysis of international stability and instability. Waltz points out that two schools of thought exist with reference to what is meant by ‘stability’: these are more optimistic (i.e. idealist) perspectives, and more pessimistic (i.e. realist) perspectives. During the post-First World War period, idealist notions were privileged, with the establishment of the League of Nations one notable attempt to maintain a stable global order based on international institution-building. However, during the Cold War, realism became the dominant school of thought in international affairs. Violence and conflict were seen as perpetual characteristics of interstate relations, manageable only through the maintenance of stable international power structures. This essay looks beyond the realist focus on the interactions between nation-states, considering how non-state actors, technological advances and environmental factors present significant challenges to global stability in the 21st century.
In this essay, I argue that rather than attempting to identify the ‘most significant’ of multiple, discrete threats to global stability, it is necessary to conceive of different types of threat, and to understand these as potentially interrelated and mutually reinforcing phenomena. As these types of threat differ in their origins, timescales and inherent destructive capacity, it is overly reductionist to seek to identify a single most significant threat to global stability. Rather, I consider how these varied types of threat may interact, enhancing their destructive potential and presenting far deeper challenges to global stability.