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Who has responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change? States and the United Nations justify their existence on the promise of providing security. Yet, although the national and international security implications of climate change are increasingly acknowledged, incorporation of climate change in national security planning or institutional arrangements is far from universal, while debates in the UN Security Council about its role in addressing climate change have been characterized by contestation. This article examines key debates about the responsibilities these institutions have for providing security in the face of the threats posed by climate change, examining the extent to which these institutions accept responsibility for providing security in these contexts. Drawing on Toni Erskine's notion of institutional moral agency, the article examines a 2017 inquiry into the national security implications of climate change in Australia, and the September 2021 UN Security Council debate on the international security implications of climate change. These two case studies explicitly focus on the question of institutional responsibility – of the Australian Government and the UN Security Council respectively – for addressing the threat of climate change. In both cases these institutions stop short of accepting responsibility for providing security in the face of climate change, with limited policy responses or institutionalization as the result. With the security implications of climate change increasingly apparent, and increasingly recognized by these (and other) actors, the failure to accept responsibility raises potentially significant questions about the legitimacy of these institutions themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the topic of solar geoengineering as a potential response to climate change. It explains that geoengineering involves deliberate alterations to the climate system to counteract climate change, with two main forms being carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM). While CDR is widely used and recognized as crucial for addressing climate change, solar geoengineering remains controversial. The article highlights the lack of attention and research on solar geoengineering in Australia, despite its unique climate and geography. It also discusses the international debate and research on solar geoengineering, emphasizing the need for Australia to consider the potential regional impacts and governance of these interventions. [Extracted from the article]

The security implications of climate change are increasingly acknowledged in academic scholarship and in national security strategy documents. Climate change has also increasingly featured in UN Security Council (UNSC) debates since the first discussion of this topic in 2007. However, the UNSC has yet to agree a resolution formally recognizing its own role in addressing the implications of climate change for international security; a draft resolution on this issue was voted down in late 2021. Examining the statements and contours of 2021 debates preceding this vote, this article points to fundamental impediments to such a resolution, with the position of opponents (Russia, China and India) suggesting intractable obstacles linked to different visions of world order. While opponents' stated concerns about the UNSC's role in addressing climate change find some support in existing scholarship, the authenticity of claims made by opponents is called into question by the internal inconsistency of these arguments, the gap between stated concerns and foreign policy in other contexts, and the broader foreign policy interests and identities of these states. These factors present key impediments not simply to a UNSC resolution, but arguably to international action consistent with the urgency of the climate crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible to imagine the deployment of geoengineering in the service of ecological security? Ecological security––a concern with the resilience of ecosystems––appears to caution against forms of intervention that might serve to change and/or undermine the functionality of ecosystems. Yet ecosystem functionality is already challenged by processes associated with climate change, and some degree of climate change is already locked in. This paper examines this challenging but important issue. After defining ecological security and noting varied forms of geoengineering, the paper explores the opportunities for––and challenges of––imagining geoengineering in the service of ecological security, especially in the context of solar radiation management. While arguing that it is possible to conceive a role for geoengineering in the service of ecological security, this must be contingent on extensive research supporting deployment and must be tempered by restraint and a commitment to precaution, humility, reflexivity and dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author responds to the analysis of his book "Ecological Security: Climate Change and the Construction of Security." Topics include the author's clarification of the aims of his book, his arguments on the concerns raised by researcher Tor Benjaminsen such as his suggestion that the book might have benefited from engaging more directly with debates about climate justice, and the author's account of agency in ecological security in his book.

A brief reflection is offered on the debate with Sam Makinda about the English School (ES) and security in international relations and Makinda's second response. Makinda agrees with the claim that the ES provides a better normative framework for redressing individual suffering than that offered by traditional accounts of security.

The criticism of Samuel Makinda regarding the teaching of security in English School (ES) is discussed. According to him, the writers have erroneously claimed non-contribution of ES in understanding security.

In this paper, I explore the Australian Government's approach to international cooperation regarding global climate change from its emergence as an international political issue in the late 1980s to the present. In particular, I reflect on the ethical assumptions underpinning Australia's approach, and the ethical arguments invoked to justify Australia's stance on climate change. I argue that Australia's position has regressed from support for the central ethical principles (here defined as distributive and retributive justice) underpinning the climate change regime to an ultimate rejection of these principles. This regression is concerning for what it tells us about the Howard Government's conception of ethical responsibility in global politics. Further, and in light of the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol in 2005, it is concerning given its potential to undermine meaningful international cooperation on a complex but pressing environmental issue.

An English School discourse of security is examined. The tendency of traditional security praxes to privilege the state is also examined.

The devastating bushfires of late 2019/ early 2020 in Australia placed the country firmly in the international spotlight. The unprecedented scale, number and severity of these fires drew attention to the role of Australia's changing climate and the broader process of climate change. It also triggered debates about the link between climate change and security, not least given concerns over the deployment of military resources in response and the existential nature of the threat to people and ecosystems. This paper examines the climate change-security relationship in the Australian context. It examines how climate change and security are related before assessing the extent to which this connection is reflected in current policy and practices in Australia. The paper concludes by reflecting on whether the bushfire crisis of 2019–20 is likely to precipitate a major change in policy settings, practices and public debate on climate change and security in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current higher education context there are strong incentives for the development of work-ready skills for graduates. In this article, I reflect on the challenges of mediating between developing vocational skills and emphasising the immediate practical and policy relevance of coursework on one hand, and the development of critical thinking and research skills on the other, in the context of teaching Australian Foreign Policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is increasingly characterized as a security issue. Yet we see nothing approaching consensus about the nature of the climate change–security relationship. Indeed existing depictions in policy statements and academic debate illustrate radically different conceptions of the nature of the threat posed, to whom and what constitute appropriate policy responses. These different climate security discourses encourage practices as varied as national adaptation and globally oriented mitigation action. Given the increasing prominence of climate security representations and the different implications of these discourses, it is important to consider whether we can identify progressive discourses of climate security: approaches to this relationship underpinned by defensible ethical assumptions and encouraging effective responses to climate change. Here I make a case for an ecological security discourse. Such a discourse orients towards ecosystem resilience and the rights and needs of the most vulnerable across space (populations of developing worlds), time (future generations), and species (other living beings). This paper points to the limits of existing accounts of climate security before outlining the contours of an ‘ecological security discourse’ regarding climate change. It concludes by reflecting on the challenges and opportunities for such discourse in genuinely informing how political communities approach the climate change–security relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: We propose a new approach for calculating the dynamic range of an accelerometer based on an Allan deviation analysis of production seismic data. This test is intended as a field audit technique and does not require an unconditioned dataset from a low‐noise environment. We first show that Allan deviation can measure white noise levels using two commercial accelerometers. The analysis accurately captures the manufacturing noise density specifications and known relationships between white noise, preamplifier gain, and group forming. We then show that a production seismic dataset is suitable for an Allan deviation analysis because the results are not critically affected by a recording filter. Finally, we illustrate the proposed technique by calculating the dynamic range of an accelerometer channel in a seismic streamer using a production dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few could have predicted that an ill-fated landing of Allied troops in modern-day Turkey in April 1915 would become the founding moment of the Australian nation. Australians were amongst several nations represented and did not suffer the most casualties, while the battle itself and the campaign of which it was a part was a military failure. Yet the notion that this battle constituted a 'coming of age' for a nascent nation, and that Australian soldiers had exhibited the defining characteristics of a national type, has become a powerful - even hegemonic - story of Australian identity. Many analysts have pointed to the militaristic, masculine and mono-cultural dimensions of a myth that weds the nation to a colonial past and in the process imposes limits on the ways in which we can imagine the nation and its role in the world. Yet as the Australian government geared up for the 2015 centenary of that landing - Anzac Day - with an unprecedented commitment of resources for commemorative activities, the shadow cast by the broader Anzac myth over Australian society and politics triggered surprisingly little public debate. This paper explores the key contours of the Anzac myth, examining the politics of Anzac memory and memorialisation in the context of the centenary of the Great War and the landing of Australian troops at Gallipoli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Australia have struggled to generate and sustain public concern about climate change. If debates about climate policy can be viewed as sites of contestation between competing actors, Australia’s environmental NGOs have found it difficult to compete against countervailing forces that have sought to shape public attitudes to climate action and the contours of policy responses. While to a significant degree this reflects the power of those forces and the sentiments of the government of the day, there is also a case to be made that some of Australia’s most prominent environmental NGOs have appeared wedded to strategies inconsistent with building or sustaining public support for action or guiding policy responses. How have Australia’s largest environmental NGOs engaged climate politics, and why has this engagement taken that form? Pierre Bourdieu’s political sociology provides unique insight for coming to terms with the multifaceted nature of the constraints, opportunities, and drivers of political action, from the context of climate politics to the forces behind Australian NGOs’ engagement with that politics, and the limits of that engagement. Bourdieu’s work also suggests possible avenues for more effective forms of political communication on climate change in the Australian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While foreign policy featured prominently on the Australian political agenda in late 2014, the manner of Australia's engagement with the world challenges the idea of a ‘pivot’ from domestic politics to foreign policy. In particular, the government demonstrated a tendency to prioritise domestic political considerations, in particular public opinion, in its dealings with the outside world. This was evident across a range of issue areas: from the ‘internationalist’ agenda of asylum, climate change and aid to more traditional concerns such as bilateral relations with Indonesia and international security. This article explores these dynamics and asks what implications this has for both Australian foreign policy and theoretical accounts of the role and desirability of public engagement with foreign policy in international relations thought. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2007, Kevin Rudd was elected Prime Minister of Australia with the promise of pursuing strong action on global climate change. Less than 3 years later, he was deposed as leader of his party after walking away from proposed climate legislation. One important part of this puzzle concerns the nature of political debate in Australia about climate action, with this debate orienting around the economic costs of climate action. This can be read as a competition between discourses of security: one focused on securing Australia and vulnerable others from the long-term threat posed by climate change, the other on securing Australia and Australians from the short-term threat climate change action posed to continued economic growth. Over time, the latter came to dominate contestation over climate change. This article maps these competing discourses, reflecting on what this case tells us about the politics of climate change in Australia and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Australian foreign policy in the first half of 2013. Particular focus is given to Australia’s seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s role in Australia-China relations. Australian domestic politics and the 2013 federal elections are also discussed.

The essay discusses the future possibilities for Australian policy on climate change as of September of 2013, highlighting obstacles facing efforts to enact climate change mitigation policies and on potential changes in Australian climate politics following the country's 2013 Federal Election. Topics addressed include opposition to a carbon tax in Australia, and the roles of civil society, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the international community in addressing climate change.

An introduction is presented in which the editors discusses topics relating to political aspects of climate change in Australia, including potential international cooperation regarding climate change mitigation and obstacles facing the implementation of a progressive climate policy in Australia.

‘Critical security studies’ has come to occupy a prominent place within the lexicon of International Relations and security studies over the past two decades. While disagreement exists about the boundaries of this sub-discipline or indeed some of its central commitments, in this article we argue that we can indeed talk about a ‘critical security studies’ project orienting around three central themes. The first is a fundamental critique of traditional (realist) approaches to security; the second is a concern with the politics of security — the question of what security does politically; while the third is with the ethics of security — the question of what progressive practices look like regarding security. We suggest that it is the latter two of these concerns with the politics and ethics of security that ultimately define the ‘critical security studies’ project. Taking the so-called Welsh School and Copenhagen School frameworks as archetypal examples of ‘critical security studies’ (and its limits), in this article we argue that despite its promises, scholarship in this tradition has generally fallen short of providing us with a sophisticated, convincing account of either the politics or the ethics of security. At stake in the failure to provide such an account is the fundamental question of whether we need a ‘critical security studies’ at all. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the content of the Australian foreign and defence policy agenda over the past 50 years, finding evidence of both continuity and change. Australian political leaders have generally committed to cooperation with international institutions, wealth creation through engagement with Asian economies in particular, and security through the American alliance. In this period, changes in foreign policy approach either concerned marginal issues or were driven significantly by exogenous factors: by changes in the international environment or by global events that propelled a reconsideration of Australian foreign and defence policy interests. However, periods of policy change and significant public attention in - particular around the Vietnam and Iraq wars - illustrate the continued relevance of political choices and agency. Both conflicts and debates around them ushered in changing foreign and defence policy considerations, and both raised fundamental questions about Australian security and independence in the context of the American alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many of the contributions to this special issue focus on the content of internationalism and the dilemmas of ethical (state) action in world politics, this article focuses on the possibilities for internationalism to be meaningfully incorporated into state foreign policy. Here, my concern is with the extent to which a commitment to internationalism might be conceived as legitimate at the domestic level. In international relations, constructivists have come closest to directly addressing the domestic constraints and possibilities associated with foreign policy agenda. Theorists working in this tradition, however, have largely worked with binary logics (structure/agency, material/ideational, continuity/change) that emphasise one set of factors over another. Building on insights from the recent 'practice turn' in international relations, this article employs the work of Pierre Bourdieu in an attempt to transcend these binaries and develop a more nuanced and sophisticated sociological account of political possibility. I suggest the utility of his conceptions of field, habitus, capital and symbolic power in coming to terms with both possibilities for and limits to internationalism as a foreign policy orientation. I illustrate the utility of this framework with the example of Australia's retreat from internationalism under the Rudd Government from 2007 to 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is it that internationalism has become the dominant form of statecraft pursued by liberal states and by international organisations, and yet it has received relatively scant attention in International Relations (IR) both historically and conceptually? It is time that the field addressed the paucity of writings on an institutionalised idea that has shaped order-building for more than two centuries. The article opens with a consideration of internationalism and its status in political theory and IR, arguing that a variety of different configurations have taken hold in different historical moments. We then consider the coexistence of internationalism and imperialism as an illustration of how the ambiguities and tensions in liberal statecraft can be manifested. The article closes with a consideration of the international normative order-building that has taken place after 1945 and the critical issue of the resilience of liberal internationalism given the 'crisis' identified with it. For all its dangers and dilemmas, we make the case for engaging the politics of liberal internationalism as a site in which normative and practical concerns of global politics meet, and in which the calls to protect the interests of national communities are mediated by the imperative of 'purposes beyond ourselves'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's first National Security Statement in 2008 identified climate change as a ‘fundamental’ threat to national security. Two years later, Rudd was deposed with little to show for climate activism beyond the largely symbolic ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Australians largely accepted Rudd's claim that climate change constituted a threat, yet relatively mainstream climate-policy measures were subjected to significant, and ultimately effective, political opposition. This has important implications for climate politics in Australia. This paper, however, focuses on implications for the securitization framework. Specifically, the author argues that this case raises serious questions about the capacity of the framework to account for the mobilising power of security or the dynamics of its construction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the lead-up to the Australian federal election in 2010, both major political parties represented the 'unauthorised' arrival of asylum-seekers as a security issue. This article explores the dynamics of this resecuritization of asylum in Australia, suggesting the case has important implications for both the securitization framework and Australia's treatment of asylum-seekers. The relationship between securitization and calls for an open debate about asylum-seekers challenges the securitization framework's normative claims about political debate and deliberation as a progressive development illustrative of desecuritization (the removal of issues from the security agenda). This case also illustrates that without political leadership to engage with the social and cultural context that allows the securitization of asylum to resonate with large segments of the Australian population, the exploitation of this issue for short-term political gain will continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In justifying participation in military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the “war on terror,” Australian Prime Minister John Howard invoked the memory of Australian sacrifice in war, linked most prominently to the so-called “Anzac myth.” This paper explores the role of memory politics in enabling military intervention, discussing in the process the relationship between sites and forms of remembrance and broader discourses of national identity. This use of collective memory has significant implications for debates about Australian identity, and suggests the need for approaches to the study of international relations to take seriously the role of memory politics in coming to terms with conditions of possibility for particular security policies and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a range of accounts have engaged with the important question of why Australia participated in military intervention in Iraq, few analyses have addressed the crucial question of how this participation was possible. Employing critical constructivist insights regarding security as a site of contestation and negotiation, this article focuses on the ways in which the Howard Government was able to legitimise Australian involvement in war in Iraq without a significant loss of political legitimacy. We argue that Howard was able to 'win' the 'war of position' over Iraq through persuasively linking intervention to resonant Australian values, and through marginalising alternatives to war and the actors articulating them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those interested in the construction of security in contemporary international politics have increasingly turned to the conceptual framework of 'securitization'. This article argues that while an important and innovative contribution, the securitization framework is problematically narrow in three senses. First, the form of act constructing security is defined narrowly, with the focus on the speech of dominant actors. Second, the context of the act is defined narrowly, with the focus only on the moment of intervention. Finally, the framework of securitization is narrow in the sense that the nature of the act is defined solely in terms of the designation of threats. In outlining this critique, the article points to possibilities for developing the framework further as well as for the need for those applying it to recognize both limits of their claims and the normative implications of their analysis. I conclude by pointing to how the framework might fit within a research agenda concerned with the broader construction of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the insights of critical security studies, this article argues that an understanding of emancipation as a process of freeing up space for dialogue and deliberation enables a focus on crucial questions, experiences and practices neglected in most orthodox accounts of security and terrorism. In particular, emancipation has the potential to serve as a philosophical anchorage for a nascent critical terrorism studies research agenda. The paper goes on to outline what a critical terrorism studies informed by a concern with emancipation might look like, focusing on a series of key questions that such an approach might encourage in the context of the post-2001 ‘war on terror’.European Political Science (2007) 6, 252–259. doi:10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210142 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 2003 the Australian government distributed an anti-terrorism kit to all Australian residences, aimed (according to the government) at indicating what was being done to protect Australians from terrorism and suggesting what Australians themselves could do to prevent or respond to a terrorist attack. I argue here that the kit portrayed the threat of terrorism as imminent and ubiquitous, and positioned militaristic responses to this threat as the most effective means of responding to it. Such representations may be viewed as attempts to justify anti-terror legislation and intervention in Iraq, and contribute to the legitimacy of the government more generally. I conclude by pointing to the choices inherent in the depiction of security and terrorism in this way, and to immanent possibilities for more alternative (and more normatively progressive) security discourses to emerge.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English School approaches to international politics, which focus on the idea of an international society of states bound together by shared rules and norms, have not paid significant explicit attention to the study of security in international relations. This is curious given the centrality of security to the study of world politics and the recent resurgence of English School scholarship in general. This article attempts to redress this gap by locating and explicating an English School discourse of security. We argue here that there is indeed an English School discourse of security, although an important internal distinction exists here between pluralist and solidarist accounts, which focus on questions of order and justice in international society respectively. In making this argument, we also seek to explore the extent to which emerging solidarist accounts of security serve to redress the insecurity of security in international relations: the tendency of traditional security praxes to privilege the state in ways that renders individuals insecure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]