Australian foreign policy and news media: national identity and the sale of uranium to India and China

ABSTRACT

This article explores the utility of a constructivist-media communications approach to understanding the production of national identity in Australia through a case study of the Australian Labor Party's 2011 decision to allow uranium sales to India. The decision came at a time when Australian foreign policy, political debate and news media discourse were increasingly concerned with India and China, as ‘rising’ superpowers whose prominence offered opportunities for economic prosperity even as it undermined settled regional power balances. This article finds that, rather than a matter of rational strategy, the decision was made in a context of considerable anxiety about the ‘Asian century’ as the Australian public, politicians and policymakers struggled to comprehend geopolitical change. It further argues that the constructivist project in international relations can benefit from engaging with insights from media and communications methodologies and by taking a less hierarchical approach to ‘elite’ and ‘non-elite’ discursive agency.

本文通过澳大利亚工党2011年决定向印度售铀的个案，探讨了从建构主义媒体通讯的角度理解澳大利亚国家认同的发生。售铀决定作出之日，正是澳大利亚对外政策、政治辩论、新闻媒体话语日益关注中印作为新兴超强既带来经济繁荣机会又破坏地区权力平衡之时。作者认为，该决定并非理性策略，而是在在澳大利亚公众、政治家以及政策制定者急于理解地缘政治的变化、对“亚洲世纪”惴惴不安的形势下做出的。作者进而指出，国际关系中的建构主义计划，可以受益于来自媒体及通讯方法视角的真知灼见，受益于别用太等级制的方式跟“精英”及“非精英”话语主体交流。

KEYWORDS:

• Australian foreign policy
• media and communications
• constructivism
• identity

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the advice given by anonymous referees and early readers of this research, especially Professor Carol Johnson and Dr William Clapton.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Alexander E. Davis is a doctoral candidate in Politics and International Studies, the University of Adelaide.

Stephanie Brookes is a lecturer in journalism studies in the School of Media, Film and Journalism, Faculty of Arts, Monash University.

ORCID

Stephanie Brookes http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7841-6530

Notes

1 Media and communications scholarship has considered foreign policy: see Robinson (2001) and Nacos, Shapiro, and Isernia (2000).

2 For a history of these narratives, see Walker (2002).

3 For an analysis of representations of ‘Asia’ in Australian political narratives, see Brookes (2012).

4 In the larger sample, Tony Abbott is quoted describing the decision as ‘un-stuffing a stuff-up’ (Nicholson 2011: 4).

5 Then-Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson made this argument, which was quoted throughout the sample. See, for example, a West Australian editorial (‘Party politics wins out again at lacklustre ALP conference’, 2011: 20).

6 A version of this letter appeared in three major newspapers within our sample: The Age, The Advertiser and The Australian.

7 India's security forces are widely regarded to be comfortably under the control of government (Cohen 2002).

8 India has fought four wars with Pakistan and one with China.

9 This is common colloquial terminology (see Beeson 2011).

10 On the gendered politics of the Gillard era, see Johnson (2015).

Additional information

Funding

Brookes would like to acknowledge that early stages of this research were supported by a 2013 early-career researcher grant from the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne.