March Event: Navigating the New International Disorder - Book Launch with Mark Beeson.

Australia in World Affairs series

Navigating the New International Disorder edited by Mark Beeson and Shahar Hameiri

Since 1950, the Australian Institute of International Affairs has been publishing what its first editors, Gordon Greenwood and Norman Harper, described as “a series of volumes …in which at regular intervals Australian scholars would attempt to measure the problems of the Australian position, present the actual course of policy, and appraise the record”. The latest book in this invaluable national resource is Navigating the New International Disorder: Australia in World Affairs 2011 to 2015. Two new editors, Mark Beeson and Shahar Hameri, have taken on the task.

In contrast to earlier volumes, the new book is arranged thematically in five broad sections covering Australia and world order; security; prosperity; global issues; and managing Australia’s foreign policy. The editors explain their decision by noting that the “most important issues today … cannot be simply or adequately captured through an emphasis on the relations between two or more governments”. In addition, the period saw the international disorder of the title reflected in domestic politics as four Australian prime ministers brought very different approaches to foreign policy.

Individual chapters deal in more detail with subjects ranging from international order-building to gender and foreign policy. Important contributions come from Nick Bisley on the contested regional order, Hugh White on the ‘China choice’, Melissa Conley Tyler, Shirley V. Scott and Duc Dao on the UN, G20 and international law, and Michael Wesley on the foreign policy process. Sara Davies covers the international question that most preoccupied Australian governments over these five years, refugees and asylum seekers. Andrew Walter, Elizabeth Thurbon and Jeffrey Wilson deal effectively with the principal international economic concerns of the period.

….as Australian policy makers grapple with a new sort of global environment, deglobalising and fragmented, it is all the more important that the lessons of the past are learned. Navigating the New International Disorder is an important place to begin this task. (From the review by Alan Gyngell).

About Mark Beeson

Mark Beeson is Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia.

Before joining UWA, he taught at Murdoch, Griffith, Queensland, York (UK) and Birmingham, where he was also head of department. His work is centred on the politics, economics and security of the broadly conceived Asia-Pacific region. He is the co-editor of Contemporary Politics, and the founding editor of Critical Studies of the Asia Pacific.