A dysfunctional family: Australia’s relationship with Pacific Island states and climate change

ABSTRACT

I argue the instrumental, paternalistic strategic culture often adopted in Australian foreign policy circles is counter-productive, preventing Australia from having productive and sustainable relationships with Pacific states. If Australian officials want to follow through on rhetorical commitments to enhance Australia’s relationships in the Pacific, Australia must actively recognise the agency Pacific states have and place itself within this community of actors. Australia often positions itself as part of the ‘Pacific family,’ but to be a collaborative member of this family it must go beyond headline commitments and fundamentally reconsider the evolving agency of small Pacific states and how this shapes Australia’s interactions with them. We can understand this through the lens of normative communities. Revisiting constructivist International Relations theory, I reexamine who is included and excluded in the communities of actors that norms apply to. This has particularly significant implications around norms of climate change action and mitigation. Australia has historically tried to water down agreements and slow-role actions in this space. The ongoing bid to host COP31 perhaps offers an opportunity to both show leadership on climate-related issues and to reconfigure assumptions around Pacific agency and address the effects this has on Australia’s relationships in the Pacific.

KEYWORDS:

• Australia
• Pacific
• foreign policy
• climate change
• norms

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Wallis notes that simultaneously the Australian government has manifested a simultaneous parallel world that excludes Pacific peoples from living and working in Australia through aggressive securitised bordering practices (Wallis 2023, 1).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Liam Moore

Liam Moore has recently submitted his PhD in International Relations at the University of Wollongong. He has a background in research on norm theory, forced displacement and human mobility, and climate change in Pacific Island states.