Advancing Australia through soft power: virtue & virtuosity

ABSTRACT

Migration is an important soft power effect in Australia. Many migrants are attracted to Australia today because of the opportunity it would provide for a better life. Australia’s political values, rule-of-law and economic and social conditions are among the attractions. Virtue as reposed in adherence to liberal values and virtuosity in crafting messages, cultural objects, events, programmes and laws are viewed as key soft power predicates. Yet there are instances where members of diasporic groups choose to support values of authoritarian countries of origin within the liberal Australian polity that are antithetical to Australian liberal democratic values. This soft power oration-based article addresses the seeming paradox of migrants presumably attracted by liberal values and benefits supporting values that are in sharp contrast. It suggests that research is required to understand diasporic communities relations with their states-of-origin, legitimate right and need to evolve to be Australians who are proud of their cultures-of-origin and how the Australian story could be better told in order that the virtues of liberalism become more evident to all migrants resident in Australia.

KEYWORDS:

• Australian-migration
• sharp-power
• soft-power
• virtue
• virtuosity

Acknowledgements

Professor Naren J. Chitty A.M. is the Inaugural Director of the Soft Power Analysis & Resource Centre (SPARC) and Foundation Chair in International Communication, Macquarie University. This is the text of the 16th Soft Power Oration of 2019 (3650 words) that was based on Professor Chitty’s 6700-word submission to the Australian Soft Power Review initiated by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of Australia in 2018. JIC has historically published the orations delivered under the Bruce Allen Memorial Lecture Series initiated in 2003.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Naren Chitty (Ph.D. American, 1992) is Professor of International Communication at the Department of International Studies: Languages and Cultures and Inaugural Director of the Soft Power Analysis and Resource Centre, Macquarie University, Australia.

ORCID

Naren Chitty http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3700-9028

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 A negative reaction is evinced in the point of view of nine-year old Harper Nielsen who said that ‘[w]hen it says ‘we are young’ it completely disregards the Indigenous Australians who were here before us for over 50,000 years …  ‘Advance Australia Fair is an anthem that is racist at so many levels’.

2 Australia’s National Reconciliation Week marks an important desire for atonement (Reconciliation 2019)

3 Reconciliation is an aspect of the third, of four soft power ‘make-ups’, three make-ups being attractive and one not. ‘Make-up three is reconciliation, a process of harmonizing opposing beliefs, ideas, or contexts, resolution of disputes, rekindling of friendship, encouraging of harmony, compatibility, consistency’ (Chitty 2017, 25–29).

4 I have discussed internal soft power (I-SP) and external soft power (E-SP) in terms of the relationship between state and people (Chitty 2014,  2017).

5 ‘Borrowed from ethology, the action chain is closely linked conceptually to the situational frame. An action chain is a set sequence of events in which usually two or more individuals participate’. See (Hall 1976, 141)

6 Professor Eric Novotny taught me 35 years ago at the School of International Studies, American University when he was an Adjunct Professor, his substantive appointment being at Comsat.

7 Also see Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1999).

8 ‘Nye takes a strategic view of soft power. Because of his instrumental focus, he consistently uses the term “targets” for the recipients of soft power messages and “agents” for those who deploy soft power. But he explains that targets’ thinking about agents is important to consider, as “[a]ttraction and persuasion are socially constructed” (Nye 2011). This suggests that Nye’s targets are more than targets – they are more akin to the active receivers of reception theory (Hall 1980).’ See (Chitty 2017, 20).

9 See the NSW Government State Archives & Record.

10 See Hassam (2007).