How and why have Australians come to view some infringement of their civil liberties as an acceptable trade-off in the interest of countering terrorism? This article contributes to understandings of ...preference formation by placing the focus on the interaction of public and elite perceptions of terrorism and counter-terrorism, over an extended time period. I trace the trajectory of Australian public debate over the course of four decades, through the lens of three intervening critical junctures; the 1978 Hilton bombing, Australia's experience with international terrorism in the early twenty-first century, and the rise of 'home grown' terror from 2014. By uncovering the domestic dynamics that characterise public discourse and debate at each of these junctures, a more complete picture emerges of how Australian society understands and enacts counter-terror policy in response to the transnational terror threat.
If we are to help students develop opinions and perspectives on world politics, and understand at the same time what it means to hold these opinions and perspectives in the Australian context, we ...need to bring the world to the classroom. Information overload has led to feelings of alienation among students, and the way we teach needs to instil in students a sense that they are stakeholders in Australian foreign policy, and help them develop strategies for incorporating the complex information environment into their learning. In this short piece I propose two forms of assessment that authentically place the focus on these learning outcomes.
The evidentiary weight of North Korean defectors' testimony depicting crimes against humanity has drawn considerable attention from the international community in recent years. Despite the attention ...to North Korean human rights, what remains unexamined is the rise of the transnational advocacy network, which drew attention to the issue in the first place. Andrew Yeo and Danielle Chubb explore the 'hard case' that is North Korea and challenge existing conceptions of transnational human rights networks, how they operate, and why they provoke a response from even the most recalcitrant regimes. In this volume, leading experts and activists assemble original data from multiple language sources, including North Korean sources, and adopt a range of sophisticated methodologies to provide valuable insight into the politics, strategy, and policy objectives of North Korean human rights activism.
The further isolation of North Korea in response to the Covid-19 pandemic is a timely reminder that when it comes to the question of how to bring about change with relation to North Korea, a ...combination of creative and differentiated approaches are needed. In this piece, we argue that preparations for a just future transition on the Korean peninsula must start now. This commentary considers the possibilities for Australia to support just transition, in whatever form it may take, through immediate action not focused on bilateral or state-centric relations, but instead through other spaces in a broadly defined civil society. Effective Australian support for transitional justice and overall wellbeing of North Koreans must overcome structural barriers to opportunity for North Koreans within Australia, as well as barriers of overly securitised paradigms.
What a difference a yearmakes. Throughout 2017 – Trump’s first year in office –we witnessed rising tensions between North Korea and the United States. North Korea continued to test ballistic missiles ...throughout the year, and conducted its largest nuclear test to date. The year progressed with a fiery exchange between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump promised to rain ‘fire and fury’ down on North Korea, deriding Kim as ‘rocketman’. In turn, Kim warned that Trump would ‘face results beyond his expectation’, and that North Korea ‘will surely and definitely tame thementally derangedU.S. dotard with fire’. Fast forward to late 2018. Following a summit between the two leaders in June (the Singapore Summit), Trump has declared that he has ‘fallen in love’ with Kim Jong Un. A second summit is on the horizon. And coming to power behind the weight of the 2016 candlelight revolution in South Korea, President Moon Jae-in has carefully managed diplomatic relations with and between his tempestuous counterparts in Pyongyang and Washington DC., What a difference a yearmakes. Throughout 2017 - Trump's first year in office -we witnessed rising tensions between North Korea and the United States. North Korea continued to test ballistic missiles throughout the year, and conducted its largest nuclear test to date. The year progressed with a fiery exchange between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump promised to rain 'fire and fury' down on North Korea, deriding Kim as 'rocketman'. In turn, Kim warned that Trump would 'face results beyond his expectation', and that North Korea 'will surely and definitely tame thementally derangedU.S. dotard with fire'. Fast forward to late 2018. Following a summit between the two leaders in June (the Singapore Summit), Trump has declared that he has 'fallen in love' with Kim Jong Un. A second summit is on the horizon. And coming to power behind the weight of the 2016 candlelight revolution in South Korea, President Moon Jae-in has carefully managed diplomatic relations with and between his tempestuous counterparts in Pyongyang and Washington DC.
In South Korea, the contentious debate over relations with the North transcends traditional considerations of physical and economic security, and political activists play a critical role in shaping ...the discussion of these issues as they pursue the separate yet connected agendas of democracy, human rights, and unification.
Providing international observers with a better understanding of policymakers' management of inter-Korean relations, Danielle L. Chubb traces the development of various policy disputes and perspectives from the 1970s through South Korea's democratic transition. Focusing on four case studies -- the 1980 Kwangju uprising, the June 1987 uprising, the move toward democracy in the 1990s, and the decade of "progressive" government that began with the election of Kim Dae Jung in 1997 -- she tracks activists' complex views on reunification along with the rise and fall of more radical voices encouraging the adoption of a North Korean--style form of socialism. While these specific arguments have dissipated over the years, their vestiges can still be found in recent discussions over how to engage with North Korea and bring security and peace to the peninsula.
Extending beyond the South Korean example, this examination shows how the historical trajectory of norms and beliefs can have a significant effect on a state's threat perception and security policy. It also reveals how political activists, in their role as discursive agents, play an important part in the creation of the norms and beliefs directing public debate over a state's approach to the ethical and practical demands of its foreign policy.
This article examines Australian attitudes towards foreign aid and the intersection of these attitudes with broader debates around the purpose and level of the aid program. Drawing on surveys ...conducted over six decades, we show that the public broadly supports the principle of foreign aid, but are much less supportive of aid expenditure, especially judged against other areas of government spending. Using the 2022 Lowy Poll, we test four hypotheses to explain public support for foreign aid. The results show that both values and interests shape the public's views of foreign aid spending. The challenge for policymakers is to craft messages about foreign aid which present aid expenditure as being relevant to both the values and interests relevant to the lives of everyday Australians.
Global values or national interest? Danielle Chubb; Ian McAllister
Australian journal of international affairs,
08/2023, Volume:
77, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This article examines Australian attitudes towards foreign aid and the intersection of these attitudes with broader debates around the purpose and level of the aid program. Drawing on surveys ...conducted over six decades, we show that the public broadly supports the principle of foreign aid, but are much less supportive of aid expenditure, especially judged against other areas of government spending. Using the 2022 Lowy Poll, we test four hypotheses to explain public support for foreign aid. The results show that both values and interests shape the public's views of foreign aid spending. The challenge for policymakers is to craft messages about foreign aid which present aid expenditure as being relevant to both the values and interests relevant to the lives of everyday Australians.
This article examines disability rights in North Korea as an area of shared interest between humanitarian workers (who operate inside, with the consent of North Korean authorities) and human rights ...actors (who work outside, in defiance of the regime). Disability issues represent a notable deviation from the usual separation evident between these actors when it comes to their work on North Korea, insofar as the issue is one that both groups agree represents a critical area for engagement. Drawing from a small but deep pool of expert interviews, this article argues that international practitioners across these approaches recognise evidence of improvements in the area of disabilities inside North Korea and perceive potential for further meaningful change in a country that can be difficult to understand and challenging to achieve progress within. It further argues that the human rights model of disability provides a conceptual framing rooted in the disability studies literature, which allows for a clearer articulation of the shared meanings embedded in the different approaches to disability in North Korea.
The gradual transformation of Australia's relationship with Asia over the past half century has been accompanied by major shifts in public opinion. These changes have been prompted by numerous ...changes in the social composition of the electorate, by globalisation which has brought many foreign firms to Australia, and by the political elite's changing approach to engagement with Asia. There is, however, considerable elite anxiety concerning the economic and military rise of China, and these concerns are expressed in public debate and attitudes. Using opinion surveys collected over half a century, the first part of this article examines the trends emerging from debates over Australia's economic and political relationship with China. In the second part, we use the 2018 and 2020 Lowy Polls to explain who changed their views of China and why. The results suggest that the dramatic shift in attitudes towards China between 2018 and 2020 was mainly driven by concerns about foreign influence in Australian politics. Overall, public opinion towards China has become more polarised, between economic opportunity on the one hand and fear of an authoritarian neighbour on the other.
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