The Abbott government and the Islamic State: a securitised and elitist foreign policy discourse

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the foreign policy discourse that surrounded the Abbott government’s 2014 decision to fight the Islamic State (IS). An analysis of parliamentary Hansard reveals that the debate featured three prominent axes: the legacy of the 2003 Iraq War; the strategies and objectives of the 2014 mission; and Australia’s domestic terror threat level. Throughout, the Abbott government not only marginalised dissenting views, but also justified its renewed engagement in the Middle East via a highly securitised and elitist foreign policy discourse. This finding has consequences beyond the battle against the IS. It reveals a deep-seated tension between the ideals of democratic pluralism and the reality that securitised and elitist foreign policy discourses protect governments from serious scrutiny.

本文研究了围绕2014年艾伯特政府决定打击伊斯兰国时的对外政策话语。根据对国会议事录的分析，辩论有三个突出的轴心：2003年伊拉克战争的遗产；2014年使命的策略及目标；澳大利亚国内恐怖威胁的水平。艾伯特政府不但将反对的声音边缘化，还通过高调的国安及精英主义对外政策话语，为其再次染指中东辩护。这样的发现，其意涵就不限于打击伊斯兰国了。它说明民主多元主义与为政府辩护的国安精英主义对外政策话语之间深刻的紧张。

KEYWORDS:

• Australian foreign policy
• Islamic State
• Tony Abbott
• discourse
• parliamentary debate

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the insightful comments and suggestions of the three anonymous reviewers and the editors of this journal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Peter E. Mulherin is a casual research fellow and doctoral candidate in the Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Australia. His research focuses on the forming of foreign policy in democracies, as well as international relations and Middle Eastern politics.

Benjamin Isakhan is Associate Professor of Politics and Policy Studies and Founding Director of Polis, a research network for Politics and International Relations in the Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Australia. He is also Adjunct Senior Research Associate, Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Notes

1 Information on the ‘Global Coalition against Daesh’ can be found on the official mission website: http://theglobalcoalition.org/en/home/.

2 At the time, the National Security Committee (NSC) of Cabinet—Australia’s foreign policy decision-making body—consisted of Prime Minister Tony Abbott; Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss; Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop; Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey; Attorney-General George Brandis; Minister for Defence David Johnston; and Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Scott Morrison (Uhlmann 2014).

3 While failing in its broader democratic duty to provide public justification for action, the government was legally unrequired to do so, based on Australia’s ‘war-power’ arrangements, which permit the executive to deploy the ADF unconstrained by Parliament. Further work is needed to assess the impact of these arrangements on the decision to fight the IS. For a legal and historical background on the war-making powers of the Australian government, see Sampford and Palmer (2009). For the post-9/11 context, see Barratt (2014) and Larkin and Uhr (2009). For a survey of nearly 50 democracies and their respective approaches to declaring war, see Peters and Wagner (2011).

4 At the height of the mission, there were approximately 780 ADF personnel deployed to the Middle East under Operation Okra (Department of Defence 2017).

5 The authors acknowledge that a key limitation of this study is the narrow range of sources analysed. The article focuses exclusively on parliamentary Hansard across the capture period. While an exhaustive analysis might have included print media, television, social media content, and radio interviews, the authors sought to provide a level of detail that would not have been possible if a wider range of sources had been considered. Specifically, this article sought to focus principally on parliamentary debate rather than broader public opinion or media coverage. Parliament of Australia Hansard can be accessed at: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard.

6 Despite the Opposition leadership’s support for the fight against the IS, it should be noted that several ALP members voiced concerns about Australia’s involvement in the war against the IS and the legacy of the 2003 war. Labor MP Melissa Parke (2014a) decried that the lack of a robust debate was reminiscent of the ‘folly of 2003’. Similarly, Labor MP Kelvin Thomson (2014) argued that Australia ‘would be crazy to go back [to Iraq]’, and that rather than becoming involved in an intractable conflict, the government ‘should get down on their hands and knees and ask forgiveness for having got it so comprehensively wrong and having created such a political and humanitarian catastrophe’ in the first place.

7 In addition to the role of Australia’s ‘war-power’ arrangements, the fact that bipartisanship dominates the formation of Australian foreign policy must be considered in further works as a contributing factor to the government’s lack of detailed justification for action. Parliament’s commitment to bipartisanship on foreign policy, which prevents effective opposition, is considered by Carr (2017) and Matthews and Ravenhill (1988).

8 A fourth point of contention also arose briefly in the debate. In September, Leader of the Greens Christine Milne asked Leader of the Government in the Senate Eric Abetz whether delivering weapons to the Kurds was legal under international law. Abetz initially avoided answering the question, by talking instead about the illegalities of the IS’ actions. Upon further questioning, Abetz (2014b) ‘assured’ the Senate and the country that the government was ‘clearly within the law’ as it engaged in the ‘hideous theatre’ in Iraq. Again, Milne (2014c) asked whether the UN Security Council had passed a resolution authorising action, or if an official request from the Iraqi Government has been received by Australia at that time. Abetz addressed neither points, but instead asserted that Milne was trying to ‘get a headline’, and was wrong about the requirements of international law. He continued, ‘We, as a nation, are joining with other peace-loving democracies in an attempt to lessen the huge horrific burden, indeed extinction, that some of these people are facing. I would have thought, as a minimum, we might have got unanimity from this place, and if not unanimity at least silence’ (Abetz 2014b). This point, as with the three axes, again demonstrates the government’s attitude towards dissenters or questioners of their policy, and further illuminates their commitment to perpetuating politically expedient cultural narratives.

Additional information

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge the funding for this research from both the Australian Department of Defence and the Australian Research Council [DE120100315]. The views expressed in this article do not reflect those of Defence or Government policy.