Prep Time

Once more i am making lame apologies for my lack of posting. Whilst most students are finally finished, this has been my busiest time of the whole year (and thats saying something in a hectic 2008), marking exams, organising final marks for students and writing my PhD Statement of Intent and speech, in order to justify being able to continue studying next year.

So as a small peace offering, and as my first real academic contribution to this blog (as it is eventually intended to become) I offer the abstract to my PhD & Presentation.

‘Middle Power States as Norm Entrepreneurs’
Australian engagement with the Asia-Pacific region 1983-2007



Abstract
Australia has always looked to the Asia-Pacific region with a sense of both foreboding and opportunity. While Australia has recognised its immense opportunities, being culturally and historically remote from its nearest neighbours, it has sometimes felt it had to choose – in the words of a former Prime Minister - ‘between its history and its geography’. Routinely denied the obvious resort to military ‘hard’ power to achieve its foreign policy objectives in the region, Australia developed an ‘irrepressible activism’ [Wesley 2007:222] along ‘soft power’ lines. First, in ensuring the support of ‘great and powerful friends' prepared to defend Australia and later branching out to establish bilateral, regional and multi-lateral relationships in service of its national interests. Although significant scholarship has already been expended on Australia’s efforts towards securing deliverable security or trade deals and institution creation, there exists a gap concerning Australia’s Foreign Policy cultivation and use of norms (i.e. ideas and values) to secure its foreign policy objectives. As a ‘Norm Entrepreneur’, Australia presents an ideal case study for how Middle Power countries may seek to generate and spread norms both bilaterally and multilaterally in service of foreign policy and national goals. This paper will outline the proposed course of further study, in identifying the approaches undertaken by Australia’s foreign policy towards the Asia-Pacific region, and explore the literature on norms, especially with regard to policy and identity issues, including related methodology. This will enable an analysis of both the Labor (1983-1996) and the Liberal Government’s (1996-2007) approach to spreading norms within the Asia-Pacific region in bilateral and multilateral forums, and the potential for a middle power country to act as a norm entrepreneur.

The big song and dance show starts 9am Monday Morning. Wish me luck!