Australian Foreign Policy under the Abbott Government: Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics?

While foreign policy featured prominently on the Australian political agenda in late 2014, the manner of Australia's engagement with the world challenges the idea of a ‘pivot’ from domestic politics to foreign policy. In particular, the government demonstrated a tendency to prioritise domestic political considerations, in particular public opinion, in its dealings with the outside world. This was evident across a range of issue areas: from the ‘internationalist’ agenda of asylum, climate change and aid to more traditional concerns such as bilateral relations with Indonesia and international security. This article explores these dynamics and asks what implications this has for both Australian foreign policy and theoretical accounts of the role and desirability of public engagement with foreign policy in international relations thought.     

Brazil as an intermediate state and regional power: action, choice and responsibilities

Since the early years of the twentieth century, Brazil's major foreign policy aspiration has been to achieve international recognition based upon the belief that it should assume its 'natural' role as a 'big country' in world affairs. Although the bases for an autonomous foreign policy have become more restricted in the post-Cold War period, Brazil still seeks to preserve an independent voice within the international community and a certain level of independent capacity to determine its actions. In addition, the country has demonstrated a clear intention of wanting to expand the roles that it plays and the responsibilities that it assumes in regional politics, in Third World agendas and in multilateral institutions. As democracy deepens its roots within the country, Brazil has attempted to link an increasingly activist stance in world affairs with political support at home based upon a more active partisan involvement in foreign policy. In this context, the present government's fight against poverty and unequal income distribution at home and its assertive and activist foreign policy can be viewed as two sides of the same coin. In this article the authors provide an overview of the core features of Brazilian foreign policy, focusing upon four aspects: (i) the instrumental nature of Brazilian foreign policy and its close relationship with the country's economic and development objectives; (ii) the commitment of Brazil to multilateralism; (iii) the growing importance for Brazil of regional politics and security; and (iv) the recent evolution of Brazil's relations with the United States. The conclusion reviews the main challenges facing Brazil and the difficulty of matching increased ambition with concrete results.     

India's ‘non‐alignment’ conundrum: a twentieth‐century policy in a changing world

The idea of non‐alignment has remained a central component of Indian identity in global politics that is manifest in continuities: since independence in 1947 India has been in pursuit of strategic autonomy, a quest that in practice has led to semi‐alliances fashioned under the cover of non‐alignment and shaped by regional dynamics. In this setting, the rise of China now raises an interesting conundrum for Indian policy‐makers as New Delhi seeks to balance the benefits and risks of an increasingly assertive neighbour and a network of alliances with like‐minded countries. This article approaches this enigma by delineating continuities of non‐alignment from the early roots of the policy, through the Cold War‐era and into the modern‐day international system. Though domestic factors have had a significant influence on the trajectory of Indian foreign policy, the continuities of non‐alignment have prevailed through changes in leadership and domestic vicissitudes. By exploring the foundation of non‐alignment and how India has operationalized the policy, this article maintains that to some extent continuity will persist: India will likely continue its rhetoric in favour of strategic autonomy while moving closer to the West and its allies in practice. Yet in order to effectively balance China's growing influence, India will need to be more assertive in building these alliances, as the success of its modern‐day pursuit of strategic autonomy may well rest on a strong foundation of strategic partnerships. The coming to office in May 2014 of the National Democratic Alliance government led by Narendra Modi has signalled a move away from even the rhetoric of non‐alignment, with significant implications for the future of Indian foreign policy.     

The International Character of a Trimmer: Interest,Reason of State,and Balance of Power in Halifax's Political Thought

This article argues that George Savile's thought casts light on international relations in the seventeenth century. Halifax's life and works concern not only England's domestic politics, but also its foreign affairs. Indeed, he develops a clear vision of international politics. This article analyses Halifax's international thought, in particular three concepts that are closely related to one another: ‘interest’, ‘reason of state’, and ‘balance of power’. Through the study of these ideas, this article will try to point out both the novelty of Halifax's thought compared with that of his contemporaries, and to reverse the stereotypical understanding of his intellectual legacy and political behaviour. The ‘trimmer’ contrasts with Louis XIV's attempt to establish a universal monarchy across Europe, outlining a doctrine of moderation that seeks to ensure liberty, security, and restraint in international relations.     

Kin state non‐interventionism: Albania and regional stability in the Western Balkans

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of Albanian regional policy from 1992 to 2013. Situated in a conflict‐ridden region and surrounded by co‐ethnics living in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, Albania has successfully resisted pressure to undertake interventionist regional policies. However, there are no structured accounts as to how Albania fashioned its non‐interventionist regional policy. This article fills this gap and retraces the development of Albanian regional policy as a function of its inter‐mingled domestic politics and regional and international dynamics. The article concludes that the Albanian regional approach has been shaped by its legacy of communist isolation, pro‐Western predisposition and recognition that accommodation of Western interests would overcome its constraints and advance the rights of Albanians living in the Western Balkans. The analysis is important not just for understanding Albania's actions but also for disentangling the relationship between regional policy, nationalism and a kin state's domestic and international constraints.     

From Pristina to Tskhinvali: the legacy of Operation Allied Force in Russia's relations with the West

This article reviews the main developments in the Kosovo crisis in the context of relations between Russia and NATO/the West. For Moscow, Operation Allied Force constituted a flagrant breach of international law, a threat to post-Cold War European security governance and a challenge to Russia's status in the international order. Official Russian interpretations, heavily influenced by domestic politics, reflect a perception among Russia's political elite that, rather than upholding liberal democratic values, NATO's intervention constituted a selective defence of the interests of the leading western powers.
Such views have influenced Moscow's position on the thorny question of Kosovo's independence and Russia's more assertive foreign and security policy in the recent period, not least in the conflict over South Ossetia in August 2008. Ultimately, Operation Allied Force resulted in the Russian governing elite reassessing its views on statehood, the international order and the norms underpinning international society.     

Twenty‐first Century Industrial Policy in a Small Developing Country: The Challenges of Reviving Manufacturing in Rwanda

The Rwandan government — widely lauded for its political commitment to development — has refocused its efforts on reviving growth in the manufacturing sector. This article examines how pressures from different levels — international, regional and domestic — have shaped the evolving political economy of two priority sectors (apparel and cement). To achieve its goals of manufacturing sector growth, the Rwandan government aims to access foreign markets (on preferential terms) and larger regional markets while developing effective state–business relationships with locally based firms. Despite the government's political commitment to reviving its manufacturing sector, its strategy has been both shaped and impeded by shifting pressures at the international level (through Rwanda's recent suspension from the African Growth and Opportunity Act), the regional level (through competition from regional firms) and the domestic level (through over‐reliance on single firms). Within the current industrial policy literature, there is limited reflection on how developing countries are dealing with the multi‐scalar challenges of enacting industrial policy in a much‐changed global trading environment. This article contributes to the industrial policy literature by addressing this lacuna.     

China's energy security

As the Chinese energy deficit increases at rates equal to or exceeding its economic growth, energy security raises an alarm among its policy-makers and the international community. This article asks whether China faces any threat to its energy security; and whether China's worldwide quest for energy is a threat to the regional and international stability. The main argument is that while China faces serious challenges in meeting its rising energy demand, its efforts to do so have been primarily domestically focused. In its foreign energy policy, China has behaved like a normal player in the international energy market, buying as much oil as it can and investing in as many places as it can afford. It is unlikely that the country is willing to seek overseas energy supplies at the expense of a peaceful regional and international environment which is a necessary condition for its continuing economic development.     

Examining the Impact of Turkey's Approach Vis‐à‐Vis Syria into Turkey's Iraq Policy

The tension between “international order” and justice has long been a focus of critical attention of many scholars. Today, with the rise of the humanitarian crises, the debate is once again visible, and Turkish foreign policy is one of the most important areas of observation of this tension. Indeed, the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq in 2003 paved the way for Turkey to actively engage in regional affairs. Meanwhile, the need to bring human justice into world politics makes Turkish foreign policy decision makers operate on a much more humanitarian basis. Nevertheless, active humanitarian engagement poses an important challenge to traditional Turkish foreign policy as it is mainly based on the notion of “non‐interference,” as well as on the elementary components of international order, by raising suspicions on the intentions of the Turkish authorities. This article aims to explore the challenges Turkey has been facing since the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq, and diagnose Turkish foreign policy vis‐à‐vis Iraq in the shadow of the Syrian civil war from Hedley Bull's framework of “order” and “justice.” It argues that Turkey's recent fluctuations in the Middle East could be linked to Turkey's failure to reconcile the requirements of “order” with those of “justice” and the Turkish governing party's (AKP) attempts to use justice as an important instrument to consolidate its power both in Turkey and in the Middle East.     

试析尼印《和平与友好条约》签订的历史背景

1950年尼泊尔与印度缔结的《和平与友好条约》有着复杂的历史背景。悠久的文化联系、开放的边界以及密切的经济和政治交往,是该条约签订的基础。从尼泊尔方面来看,在稳定国内政治局势以及发展经济方面求助于印度,是它签订该条约的现实考虑;对印度而言,该条约可用来对尼泊尔国内的政治改革施加必要的影响,进而在地区安全构想方面,让尼泊尔成为其南亚安全框架的一部分,并借此抵制中国在这一地区的影响,这是它此时对尼外交政策的指导思想。     

Book reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. International Relations theory Hegemony in international society. The problem of harm in world politics: theoretical investigations. The invention of International Relations theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 conference on theory. International law, human rights and ethics The last utopia: human rights in history. International law, security and ethics: policy challenges in the post‐9/11 world. International organization and foreign policy Humanitarianism contested: where angels fear to tread. Humanitarian intervention: a history. The future of power. A contest for supremacy: China, America, and the struggle for mastery in Asia. Conflict, security and defence Military Orientalism: eastern war through western eyes. Governance, civil society and cultural politics Women under Islam: gender, justice and the politics of Islamic law. Political economy, economics and development Global poverty: how global governance is failing the poor. Global governance, poverty and inequality. Energy, resources and environment China, oil and global politics. China's energy relations with the developing world. The Routledge handbook of energy security. Food security. History Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the most dangerous place on earth. Who killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War and white supremacy in Africa. Documents on British policy overseas, series I, volume IX: The Nordic countries: from war to Cold War, 1944–1951. All hell let loose: the world at war 1939–45. Europe The US–EU security relationship: the tensions between a European and a global agenda. Cultures of border control: Schengen and the evolution of European frontiers. Immigration and conflict in Europe. Les diplomates: derrière la façade des ambassades de France. Civic and uncivic values: Serbia in the post‐Milosevic era. Russia and Eurasia Popular support for an undemocratic regime: the changing views of Russians. Middle East and North Africa The Arab revolution: ten lessons from the democratic uprising. Iran, the Green Movement and the USA: the fox and the paradox. The other side of the mirror: an American travels through Syria. Sub‐Saharan Africa Season of rains: Africa in the world. Inventing Africa: history, archaeology and ideas. South Africa pushed to the limit: the political economy of change. Oil and insurgency in the Niger Delta: managing the complex politics of petroviolence. Consuming the Congo: war and conflict minerals in the world's deadliest place. South Asia Does the elephant dance? Contemporary Indian foreign policy. Religion, caste and politics in India. Secularizing Islamists? Jama'at‐e‐Islami and Jama'at‐ud‐Da'wa in urban Pakistan. The wrong war: grit, strategy, and the way out of Afghanistan. East Asia and Pacific Where China meets India: Burma and the new crossroads of Asia. China in 2020: a new type of superpower. From Mao to market: China reconfigured. Latin America and Caribbean The rise of Evo Morales and the MAS. From rebellion to reform in Bolivia: class struggle, indigenous liberation, and the politics of Evo Morales. Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo in Bolivia: the first term in context, 2006–2010. Latin America and global capitalism: a critical globalization perspective. Latin American foreign policies: between ideology and pragmatism.     

China's New Generation of Leaders and Regional Challenges in East Asia

A pair of Hong Kong and U.S. specialists on China examines the dynamic international environment China's new leadership now faces, focusing on East Asia. They first examine the complex balance the leadership seeks to strike between: (1) China's projection of increasing economic, military, and political power internationally; (2) the primary domestic goals of economic growth and stability; and (3) rising public awareness, demand for information access, and (in some quarters) nationalism among the Chinese people. The authors then proceed, in successive sections of the paper, to assess in greater detail China's international and regional security environment, Sino-American relations, China's relations with its East Asian neighbors, and the complex interconnections between the country's domestic and foreign policy. They conclude that Sino-American relations will continue to be pivotal to Beijing's foreign relations in general and its relations with countries in the East Asian region more specifically.     

Professionalism and Australia's Security Intellectuals: Knowledge,Power, Responsibility

This article examines critically the systemic 'professionalism' which has overtaken Australia's defence and security community in the 1990s. It focuses on the unhealthy convergence of academic security studies at the Australian National University with an overriding foreign policy priority of the Australian Government: the formation of a new regional identity based on themes of 'engagement' and 'enmeshment' with Asia. It argues that the main consequence of this 'professionalist' trend is a mode of inquiry that expunges politics, ethics and responsibility from academic discourse on security. The article also addresses briefly an emerging postmodern politics of dissidence in the disciplines of security studies and political geography which has transformed our understanding of the role and social responsibility of security intellectuals.     

The ‘R’ in BRICs: is Russia an emerging power?

The concept of emerging powers presupposes several features shared by the states in question including regional preponderance, aspiration to a global role and the contesting of US unipolarity. This article assesses the role of Russia as an emerging power. It asks how Russians interpret the international system, what kind of system they would prefer, what they are trying to do in the current system and why, and how these considerations affect their relations with the US hegemony, other centres of power such as the EU, and other emerging powers. The author discusses the structural, liberal and regional interpretations of state behaviour and how they relate to the Russian model, arguing that Russia's policy is strongly affected by its domestic economic and political context. Russia is highly responsive to trends in the former Soviet Union and regions it perceives to be in its own space (e.g. EU and NATO Europe and north-east Asia). In the larger international system, Russia's approach is a mix of partnership or acquiescence on matters of vital interest to the hegemonic power, and more competitive behaviour on issues deemed central to Russian but peripheral to US interests. The article concludes that Russia is not an emerging power in the conventional sense. Its foreign policy is dominated by efforts to reverse the decline of the 1980s and 1990s. This entails fostering international conditions conducive to allowing reconsolidation without external hindrance. Its second major priority is regional: to restore Russian influence over the former Soviet states. In essence, Russian policy aims to limit further losses and promote conditions that will allow it to re-emerge as a great power.     

Contest and conquest: Russia and global internet governance

For more than a decade, Russia's foreign policy has sought to challenge the international consensus on a number of issues. Today, as the international internet ecosystem is becoming more volatile, Moscow is eager to shift the western narrative over the current global internet governance regime, in which the United States retains considerable leverage. In a context wherein states increasingly forge links between cyberspace and foreign policy, this article explores Russia's deepening involvement in internet governance. The disclosure by Edward Snowden of the US government's wide net of online surveillance contributed to legitimize the Russian approach to controlling online activity. While the struggle around the narrative of internet governance has been heating up since then, Russia actively seeks to coordinate internet governance and cyber security policies with like‐minded states in both regional forums and the United Nations. By introducing security concerns and advocating more hierarchy and a greater role for governments, Moscow is contributing to the politicization of global cyber issues and seeking to reshape the network in accordance with its own domestic political interests. Indeed, the Russian leadership has come to consider the foreign policy of the internet as the establishment of a new US‐led hegemonic framework that Washington would use to subvert other sovereign states with its own world views and values.     

Wild Colonial Ploys? Currents of Thought in Australian Foreign Policy

This article proposes a new method of mapping domestic preferences and their effect on Australian foreign policy from the perspective of three distinct ‘currents of thought’s flowing through Australian society and policy makers about Australia and the world. Traditionalism prioritises security relationships with ‘great and powerful friends’s; Seclusionism stresses autarky and minimal international involvement; Internationalism advocates a creative, multilateralist role in building international stability and prosperity. A currents of thought approach, by looking for an underlying motivation for Australian foreign policy actions, assists in understanding the policy's intent, identifying its supporters and detractors, and in anticipating what types of policy responses will be motivated by different international stimuli. It is also useful for further understanding the underlying processes behind the broad changes of direction in Australian foreign policy.     

What contribution can International Relations make to the evolving global health agenda?

This article presents two approaches that have dominated International Relations in their approach to the international politics of health. The statist approach, which is primarily security-focused, seeks to link health initiatives to a foreign or defence policy remit. The globalist approach, in contrast, seeks to advance health not because of its intrinsic security value but because it advances the well-being and rights of individuals. This article charts the evolution of these approaches and demonstrates why both have the potential to shape our understanding of the evolving global health agenda. It examines how the statist and globalist perspectives have helped shape contemporary initiatives in global health governance and suggests that there is evidence of an emerging convergence between the two perspectives. This convergence is particularly clear in the articulation of a number of UN initiatives in this area - especially the One World, One Health Strategic Framework and the Oslo Ministerial Declaration (2007) which inspired the first UN General Assembly resolution on global health and foreign policy in 2009 and the UN Secretary-General's note "Global health and foreign policy: strategic opportunities and challenges". What remains to be seen is whether this convergence will deliver on securing states' interest long enough to promote the interests of the individuals who require global efforts to deliver local health improvements.     

China's regional policies: how much hegemony?1

China is commonly assumed to be seeking hegemony in its region. Yet China's region involves it in relationships with major states with their own hegemonic or leadership interests—the US, Russia, Japan and India. This article examines each of China's regional relationships in terms of the prime interests of China's foreign policy framework. It concludes that it is important to distinguish between hegemonic capabilities and intentions: that while China will want to extend its influence as a regional power, its capability to do that will continue to grow in each of its subregions, its ability to exercise that power and influence will be limited. In the past its efforts have been largely to seek secure borders and economic opportunities and that for some years those objectives, together with energy security, are likely to remain the priority.