Cultural shifts, changing relationships: Australia and the United States

Abstract

This article moves beyond generalisations which view Australia's deepening links to the US as reflections of the dependent nation's unique openness to imported cultural forms and forces. It is argued that American influences consolidated local cultural formations and discursive practices that built on persistent geopolitical insecurities and were sharpened by wars in the Asia-Pacific, decolonisation and Cold War. The pursuit of national interests, not foreign cultural (‘soft') power, and certainly not so-called ‘Americanisation', stimulated Australia's strategic reorientation after Word War II.