Enabling authoritarianism in the Indo-Pacific: Australian exemptionalism

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn recent white papers, Australia has identified rising authoritarianism in the region as a key challenge to its regional security interests. Foreign policy discourses highlight Australia’s normative commitment to global democracy, and Australia engages in a range of democratic promotion activities. Democracy promotion by Western states has come under scrutiny by analysts of different ideological persuasions. Critics have framed American ‘exceptionalism’ as really meaning ‘exemptionalism’, referring to its capacities to create exceptions for itself and its own conduct on the global stage, particularly regarding democracy and human rights. This paper argues that this exemptionalism is not limited to the United States: Australia also engages in practices that have undermined its democracy promotion principles. In some cases, Australia’s policies have enabled authoritarianism to flourish unchecked. This paper uses Australia’s refugee policy and its effect on the small Pacific Island state of Nauru as a case study. It highlights how the securitisation of asylum seekers for electoral purposes has contributed to Australia carving out an exception for itself in both adherence to international refugee law and the promotion of democracy. It finds that formal democratic processes within Australia have produced undemocratic outcomes in foreign policy.