DSpace Collection:https://hdl.handle.net/2440/156212024-03-18T15:59:12Z2024-03-18T15:59:12Z“I do not consent”: political legitimacy, misinformation, and the compliance challenge in Australia’s Covid-19 policy responseDowling, M.-E.Legrand, T.https://hdl.handle.net/2440/1399162023-11-20T02:28:46Z2023-01-01T00:00:00ZTitle: “I do not consent”: political legitimacy, misinformation, and the compliance challenge in Australia’s Covid-19 policy response
Author: Dowling, M.-E.; Legrand, T.
Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between policy compliance, the emergence of alternate epistemes and authorities in online spaces, and the decline of trust and legitimacy in democratic institutions. Drawing on insights from public policy, regulation theory, and political theory, the paper critically engages with scholarship on “policy-takers” to illuminate the tensions of compliance and legitimacy in liberal states. It proposes a compliance–legitimacy matrix that identifies the features of policy compliance—including consent, legitimacy, expertise, and trust—and their relationship to the disaggregation of policy knowledge. The article applies this framework to a case study of social media posts that respond to policy information during the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia. Through analysis of these posts, the study reveals the distrust in “the science” and experts advocated by government and the calls from skeptic groups for noncompliance with public health measures. The paper argues that public policy faces an epistemic crisis of public confidence, with significant downstream consequences for compliance with public policy initiatives that has been brought on both by the failures of states to cultivate trust in science and the government. The compliance–legitimacy matrix offers a useful tool for policymakers to anticipate and address objections from policy-takers and to preempt and diffuse their fears.2023-01-01T00:00:00ZThe enclosure and exclusion of Australia's ‘Pacific family’Wallis, J.https://hdl.handle.net/2440/1396922023-11-19T02:09:15Z2023-01-01T00:00:00ZTitle: The enclosure and exclusion of Australia's ‘Pacific family’
Author: Wallis, J.
Abstract: Since 2018 the Australian government has displayed anxiety about its apparently declining influence in the Pacific Islands region due to the growing presence of China, a power with potentially inimical interests. The government has long been anxious about threats to its physical security that may arise from the Pacific Islands region. But reports in April 2018 that China was in talks to build a military base in Vanuatu were a wake-up call that its ability to influence the actions of Pacific Island countries (PICs) was limited. In response to its anxiety, the government has engaged in ‘worldmaking’ by seeking physical and ontological security through a discursive and practical ‘geopolitical project’. This project has tried to enclose PICs through a ‘domestication strategy’ that has aimed at normalising Australia’s presence in the Pacific Islands region. Yet despite these efforts at worldmaking through enclosure, the government has simultaneously made a parallel world that excludes Pacific peoples from Australia. To unpack this apparent contradiction, this article draws on ontological security scholarship and uses discourse analysis techniques to analyse the government’s discursive efforts at enclosure by framing the Pacific as its ‘family’ and ‘home’, and practical efforts at enclosure through two schemes within which bordering practices are evident: labour mobility and scholarships. Drawing on criticisms of the exclusionary consequences of those schemes, this article then analyses how the government’s migration rules seek to exclude Pacific peoples from Australia. Based on this analysis, it argues that the contradiction between the two worlds made by the government’s foreign and security discourse and policy represent its longstanding ambivalence about its proximity to, and relationship with, PICs and Pacific peoples.2023-01-01T00:00:00ZVariants of PopulismJohnson, C.https://hdl.handle.net/2440/1393212023-08-30T02:42:18Z2023-01-01T00:00:00ZTitle: Variants of Populism
Author: Johnson, C.
Editor: Gauja, A.; Sawer, M.; Shappard, J.2023-01-01T00:00:00ZAn emotions agenda for peace: Connections beyond feelings, power beyond violenceTravouillon, K.Lemay-Hébert, N.Wallis, J.https://hdl.handle.net/2440/1391772023-11-19T02:09:15Z2023-01-01T00:00:00ZTitle: An emotions agenda for peace: Connections beyond feelings, power beyond violence
Author: Travouillon, K.; Lemay-Hébert, N.; Wallis, J.
Abstract: While the ‘emotion turn’ has emerged as an influential analytical lens in International Relations (IR), there is not yet a well-developed understanding of the role that emotions play in facilitating or inhibiting peace. This special issue of Cooperation and Conflict engages with the analytical potential of emotions and the promise this perspective holds for innovative analyses of peace processes and peacebuilding. To demonstrate the political significance of emotions to peace, the contributors explore how emotions shape the bounds and boundaries of actors and alliances committed to fostering peaceful societies. This introductory article offers possible avenues to leverage the analytical potential of IR’s emotions agenda to engage with peace and peacebuilding. First, we discuss how the emotions agenda contributes to the conversation about what peace is and should look like. Second, we argue that emotions can help us to articulate peace as an embodied knowledge of complex socio-political relations and power dynamics. To visualize ‘peace’ without the permanent contrast of violence, we mobilize this perspective to illuminate actors’ practices and the constraints they face in the pursuit of a peaceful political order. Third, we discuss what an emotions agenda for peace might entail for critical and constructive peacebuilding studies.
Description: OnlinePubl2023-01-01T00:00:00Z