Pauline Kerr

The utility of the human security agenda for policy‐makers

The idea of “human security” is gaining attention among policy‐makers and security analysts. Little scholarly attention has been given to the questions of why states accept (or reject) a human security agenda or how such an agenda is incorporated into policy practices. The article suggests that a human security approach is most likely to be applied when both humanitarian and national interests combine. Yet when states or organisations adopt a human security approach, they often misjudge the complex and long‐term commitment required of such an approach. There is also the potential for such an agenda to be manipulated to justify questionable courses of action. These issues frame an analysis of six recent case studies.

Diplomatic Persuasion: An Under-Investigated Process

The under-investigation in diplomatic studies of processes of persuasion in explaining diplomatic outcomes needs to be addressed in the interests of better scholarly explanations and diplomatic practice. Although such processes are implicit in nearly all concepts and practice of diplomacy, neither scholars nor practitioners explicitly investigate them. Yet other related fields of study and disciplines examine persuasion and demonstrate its explanatory value. Drawing on this literature, but also bearing in mind the nature of outcomes that diplomatic studies seeks to understand, this article offers a model of processes of persuasion and illustrates its potential for explaining a 2003 peace process negotiation in the Solomon Islands.

Conclusion: Tactical or Fundamental Change?

The question on the minds of many observers of China’s growth and development is, what role will China be playing in world politics over the next twenty years? There is no way that we can know. Three decades ago, nobody could foresee what is happening in China today, and it is equally difficult to predict what will happen in the two decades ahead. What the authors of this book set out to investigate is what we can learn from China’s diplomatic approaches and practices that offer some guide to understanding the likely international role for China over the next two decades. We assume that diplomacy, both as an instrument of foreign policy and as a learning and socializing process that fosters both positive and negative change, is an indicator of China’s present thinking about its future role. In this concluding chapter we will look directly at Chinese thinking behind its new diplomacy, considering particularly the issue of whether or not China’s embrace of new diplomacy is a tactical or fundamental change.

Introduction: Debating China’s Diplomatic Role in World Politics

Aquestion increasingly asked by professional China watchers and policy officials—and even casual observers of China—is, what role will China be playing in world politics over the next twenty years? This interest is hardly surprising given the rapidly growing economic, political, and security importance of contemporary China. The question is usually phrased in terms of what China’s strategic intentions will be as its material capabilities increase to enable it to choose more freely its international path.

Trends and options in transnational policy: a conference report

On 8 to 9 November 2004, the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University held its inaugural Transnational Policy Forum, drawing together invited scholars and practitioners from Australia, Canada, India, Japan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Sweden, and the United States. The discussions of the participants, divided into eight sessions, were wide-ranging and open-ended, based not on the examination of arguments in prepared papers but rather on an interchange of ideas in a decidedly Socratic mode. As a matter of deliberate policy, no final statement or communique was either planned, or submitted for discussion. In due course, the College will issue a detailed report on the discussions; this summary made by participants is designed to capture in brief some of the key points made by contributors to the discussions which may be of interest to a wider audience. The first session dealt with ‘Diplomatic instruments in the 21st century: the future of multilateralism’. A lively debate ensued, taking as its point of departure John G. Ruggie’s claim that multilateralism involves cooperation between three or more states based on reciprocally-binding rules of conduct. This kind of multilateralism faces significant challenges as a result both of the emergence of new transnational forces which are not immediately receptive to state-based responses, and of the scepticism of the United States, which is not committed to playing the role of hegemon within a multilateral framework (even though it is not in a position to function as an absolute hegemon either). This was not simply a product of the Bush Administration, which reflects more continuity from the policy settings of the Clinton Administration (as manifested for example in the 1999 Kosovo intervention) than is often credited. Indeed, one can go back at least as far as the Anglo-French Suez intervention of 1956 to find talk of a ‘crisis of multilateralism’. On the other hand, for poor or weak countries, the notion of a crisis of multilateralism is very real, since they depend upon frameworks of rules to constrain the exercise of power by the strong; and multilateral responses remain centrally important to dealing with collective action problems. One suggestion was that regional multilateralism might be a serious alternative to global multilateralism. Although definitions of ‘region’ may themselves be problematic, associations at regional level can have diverse political, economic and security focuses, and some issues have a supra-regional character. The US may end up Australian Journal of International Affairs Vol. 59, No. 1, pp. 19–23, March 2005