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

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• Australian foreign policy
• international relations
• public opinion

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Australian Political Science Association conference in Sydney in September 2014.

I am grateful to the members of the panel and the audience for their feedback, and grateful also for comments on this article by Jack Holland and Caroline Yarnell, along with the reviewers and editors of the journal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This is evident, for example, in the use of consultation processes to encourage input into foreign policy decision-making or oversight of foreign policy. In Australia, White Paper development and parliamentary committees entail opportunities for public involvement and submissions, even while some are sceptical about the extent to which these constitute genuine policy input (for example, Cheeseman 2001).

2 This is evident in claims that the ‘marketplace of ideas’ around foreign policy decision-making failed to operate as it should have in the USA in the context of the ‘War on Terror’ (Cramer 2007; Kaufmann 2004). For Kaufmann (2004, 5), for example, ‘the marketplace of ideas helps to weed out unfounded, mendacious, or self-serving foreign policy arguments because their proponents cannot avoid wide-ranging debate in which their reasoning and evidence are subject to public scrutiny’.

3 Other surveys have generally supported these conclusions, with a recent Newspoll (2014) survey conducted for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade pointing to widespread misconceptions about Indonesia, for example.

4 Kevin Rudd (2006–08) was eager to tie an increase in Australian aid spending to traditional strategic concerns associated with the so-called ‘arc of instability’ (see Hameiri 2008), but the goal of an increase in aid spending was initially bipartisan, which also strengthened the case for this increase.