Australia in the world

Abstract

Foreign policy and international politics are often conceived of as separate from, or even above, domestic politics. This book has challenged that view by noting the links between the domestic and international spheres (see Chapter 6). This chapter rounds off the exercise by considering the international and domestic influences on Australia’s foreign policies. In addition to broad international factors, the chapter discusses the roles of domestic political institutions and the political behaviour of key individuals and groups in shaping Australian foreign policies (see Chapters 2 and 3). Critical theorists would, of course, point to the huge structural socio-economic differences between, say, China and Samoa as a key factor in Australia’s different interactions with each (see Chapter 4), while discourse theorists would argue that some international issues become recognised and others obscured via the discourses of ‘threat’, ‘security’, ‘cooperation’, and so on. This chapter also links back to Chapter 1. Both chapters suggest the difficulty of holding on to nationally bounded meanings of ‘the people’ and ‘democracy’ in a world that is increasingly connected.