Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the challenges of globalisation

Abstract

This article critically examines the argument that the forces of globalisation will see the end of the foreign ministry in the context of Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). It suggests that globalisation is affecting the subject matter of foreign policy-making through four processes: diffusion, enmeshment, contradiction, and transformation. It then looks at three prominent challenges these processes have made to the work of DFAT: politicisation; the volume and contestation of information; and resource-cutting. It concludes that rather than being eroded by globalisation, DFAT has been forced to play a more assertive and diversified role, and that it has responded to these challenges in a highly creative way.