Dept. of International Relations

Dept. of Political and Social Change

Strategic & Defence Studies Centre

Dept. of Pacific Affairs

Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs

Associate Professor Julien Barbara, School Director

Research expertise in the Pacific - Elections and electoral politics; development; governance, political economy and public policy; political participation; state-building and institutional development; developmental leadership; urbanisation

Associate Professor Christopher Hobson, Program Convenor, Bachelor of Asia Pacific Affairs

International political theory; political philosophy; democracy; liberalism; non-traditional security; human security; natural disasters; nuclear energy.

Faculty, Department of International Relations

Professor George Lawson, Head of Department

Revolutions; contentious politics; modernity; historical sociology; international relations

 

 

Associate Professor Nicolas Lemay-Hebert, Director of Studies

Statebuilding and Intervention issues in Asia/Pacific and beyond; local resistance to international interventions and the political economy of interventions.

Dr Deepak Nair, HDR Program Convenor

Microsociological study of international relations: everyday practices, face-to-face interactions, emotions, and embodied experiences.

Dr Eglantine Staunton, Postgraduate Program Convenor

Human protection (in particular, atrocity prevention and the Responsibility to Protect); norm diffusion; France's foreign policy.

Dr Kirsten Ainley

International criminal law; moral philosophy; international justice; humanitarian intervention, international affairs, international criminal court; responsibility; international relations. 

Professor Bina D'Costa

Human rights; justice and security issues in South Asia.

Associate Professor Mathew Davies

IR Theory; ASEAN; regional order building; human rights and governance in Southeast Asia

Dr Benjamin Day

Foreign policy analysis and decision-making; international development; the role of policy entrepreneurs in global politics

Dr David Envall

Japan's political leadership; foreign policy, and post-war security; Asia Pacific: regional security architecture; Sino-Korean-Japanese relations, Japan-India relations

Professor Toni Erskine

The moral agency & responsibility of formal organisations in world politics; the ethics of war; the responsibility to protect; AI, new technologies and organised violence; norms and cyber security. 

Associate Professor Luke Glanville

IR Theory, history of international thought; responsibility to protect doctrine; sovereignty 

Dr Catherine Hirst

International dimensions of revolution, and in particular the relationship between revolution, great power counterrevolution, and international order.

Associate Professor Cecilia Jacob

Politics and practice of civilian protection; critical security; human security; political violence; children and armed conflict; South and Southeast Asia

Dr Sarah Logan

Impact of technology, especially the intra2net, on IR; technology and understandings of statehood, power and agency

Dr Joseph MacKay

Empires in world history; IR Theory and qualitative methodological issues.

Dr Beverley Loke

Politics of great power responsibility and hegemonic ordering, global knowledge production practices, China’s foreign policy, and the international relations of the Indo-Pacific.

Professor Cian O'Driscoll

The development of the just war tradition over time; role of the just war tradition in contemporary debates about the rights and wrongs of warfare; normative international relations theory; history of political thought; ethics of war.

Dr Lauren Richardson

Japan-Korea peninsula relations; state-society relations; transnational social movements; victim redress; Asia-Pacific security.

Dr Maria Tanyag

Government and politics of Asia and the Pacific particularly the Philippines; global political economy and social reproduction in crises settings; feminist methodologies in IR

Professor Wesley Widmaier

Economic theory; Political Science; IR; international political economy; international security; interplay of wars; crisis and change; Australian foreign policy

Dr Benjamin Zala

Great power politics; international security issue; IR Theory

Faculty, Department of Political and Social Change

Professor Edward Aspinall, Head of Department

Indonesian national politics; Southeast Asian politics; democratisation; social movements; nationalism and ethnic conflict; patronage and clientelism.

Professor Paul Hutchcroft, Director of Studies

Southeast Asian politics; comparative politics; state formation and territorial politics; politics of patronage; political reform and democratic quality; state-society relations; structures of governance; corruption

Associate Professor Marcus Mietzner, HDR Program Convenor

Indonesia: politics and parties, the political role of the military and campaign financing issues; comparative electoral politics in Southeast Asia.

Dr Nick Cheesman

Nexus between global and local discourses of the rule of law; sovereignty; authority; power; political order; ideology; post colonialism in South and Southeast Asia; Myanmar (Burma); Thailand.

Emeritus Professor Robert Cribb

Indonesia; mass violence and crime; national identity; environmental politics; historical geography.

Emeritus Professor Greg Fealy

Indonesian politics; modern Islamic political history; democratisation and Islamism; jihadist ideology and strategy.

Emeritus Professor Virginia Hooker

Social change; Law and society; Islamic studies and Asian History

Emeritus Professor Tamara Jacka

Gender and rural-urban inequalities; rural-urban migration and social change in contemporary China.

Dr Sana Jaffrey

Political violence; challenges of state-building in Asia; vigilante violence; collusive relationships between vigilantes and street-level bureaucrats; violence and extremism in Southeast Asia.

Emeritus Professor Benedict Kerkvliet

Comparative government and politics; Government and politics of Asia and Pacific

Dr Fengming Lu

China politics; authoritarian politics; elite politics; the role of information in politics; political economy with a primary focus on China.

Dr Katrin Travouillon

Transformation of Cambodia’s political system; identities, ideas and interests of Cambodia’s political actors.

Emeritus Professor Jonathan Unger

Social stratification in China; rural Chinese social, political and economic change; workers and factory life; Chinese nationalism.

Dr Sally White

Indonesia: politics and parties, the political role of the military and campaign financing issues; comparative electoral politics in Southeast Asia.

Dr Eve Warburton

Democracy; representation; business-state relations; political economy; politics of Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

Faculty, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre

Professor Brendan Taylor, Head of Department

Strategy in Asia; Asian security architecture; Australian strategic policy in the Asia-Pacific.

Dr Stuti Bhatnagar, HDR Program Convenor

Comparative government and politics; Government and politics in Asia and the Pacific.

Dr Andrew Carr, Undergraduate Program Convenor & Director of Studies

Australian foreign and strategic defence policy; middle power theory; Asia-Pacific security.

Dr Iain D. Henry, Postgraduate Program Convenor & Director of Studies

Asian security, the Cold War in Asia, diplomatic history, and Australian strategic policy; US alliances in Asia.

Dr Bianca Baggiarini

Sociology of war; international political sociology; critical military studies; impacts of autonomy and AI-enabled technologies in military and security contexts.

Admiral (Ret.) Honorary Professor Chris Barrie

Strategic leadership and decision-making in complex organisations; defence transformation and military operations; climate change and security.

Professor Emerita Joan Beaumont

Australian history; WWI & WWII history; Australian defence and foreign policy; history of prisoners of war; memory and heritage of war.

Professor John Blaxland

Intelligence; security; Australian military history and strategy; military operations; Southeast Asia/ASEAN; North America.

Dr Jean Bou

History of Australian peacekeeping; Australian military history; post-Cold War operations.

Honorary Professor Richard Brabin-Smith AO

Australian and regional security; defence capability and strategy.

Honorary Professor Leszek Buszynski

Asia-Pacific security; South China Sea maritime disputes; Japan and Korean Peninsula; North Korea’s nuclear ambitions; Sino-American rivalry.

Emeritus Professor Paul Dibb

Defence studies; international relations; natural resource management.

Associate Professor Stephan Frühling

Australian strategic and defence policy; missile defence and nuclear weapons; NATO; strategic theory.

Professor Evelyn Goh

East Asian international relations and security ('traditional' and 'non-traditional'); U.S.-China and China-Japan diplomatic history and contemporary strategic relations; International Relations theory; Cold War history; Security studies.

Emeritus Professor David Horner

Australian defence history and strategy, command, intelligence and operations; history of Australian peacekeeping; post-Cold War operations; history of Australian security and intelligence.

Associate Professor Amy King

China in International order; economics-security nexus; China-Japan relations; history of Chinese foreign and economic policy.

Dr Meighen McCrae

International history and history of war; the way coalitions fight; notions of victory; perceptions of future war during periods of conflict or great international tension.

Dr Greg Raymond

Southeast Asian security with a focus on Thailand and Indonesia; Southeast Asia’s relations with the Great Powers; strategic culture, regional militaries, institutions and history; Australia: defence, foreign policy; South China Sea disputes.

Dr Emily Robertson

The role that propaganda plays in military strategy and recruiting.

Professor Jochen Prantl

Political science; international relations; global governance; international security; strategic diplomacy.

Associate Professor Garth Pratten

Military theory and operations; Second World War history; Australian military history; command, cohesion, identity and motivation in military forces; insurgency and counter-insurgency; peacekeeping

Emeritus Professor Hugh White AO

Australian strategic and defence policy; Asia-Pacific security issues; global strategic affairs; Australian alliances with the US and China.

Faculty, Department of Pacific Affairs

Professor Anthony Regan, Acting Head of Department

Constitutional development and conflict resolution; Papua New Guinea, Bougainville post-referendum consultations; civil society in Melanesia.

Dr Amanda H A Watson, HDR Program Convenor

Digital technology in the Pacific, mobile telephones in Papua New Guinea and strategic uses of information and communication technologies in development efforts.

Dr Rochelle-lee Bailey, Director of Studies

Labour mobility; development; migration; Melanesian anthropology and politics; economic anthropology; circulation of economic and social remittances; Pacific governance and politics.

Professor Nicole Haley, Postgraduate Program Conveor

Contemporary land politics; elections and electoral politics in PNG; social identity; governance; conflict and armed violence; peace building; small arms; human security; security and development; women and conflict; gender; HIV/AID

Dr Kerryn Baker

Elections and electoral reform; women's political representation; politics in the Pacific Islands region.

Mr James Batley

Australia's relations with the Pacific: the geopolitics, security cooperation, governance and international relations with an emphasis on Melanesia; Solomon Islands; Vanuatu

Dr George Carter

Pacific island peoples’ and states influence and agency in international and regional politics; international politics of (negotiations, security, gender, finance, traditional knowledge) climate change, geopolitics and regionalism(s)

Associate Professor Paul D'Arcy

Problems and benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration; Asia and Pacific: visions of history and development issues; history of conflict and conflict resolution; conflicts over natural resources with reference to the Pacific Ocean.

Associate Professor Sinclair Dinnen

Post-colonial state formation; plural policing; regulatory pluralism; law & justice reform; political ordering; development discourse and practice; crime; conflict; peacebuilding; nation-building.

Dr Stewart Firth

Pacific history and politics; German colonial rule in Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia; development and international relations in the Pacific.

Dr Nicholas Hoare

Colonial and environmental histories of the Pacific region (both Francophone and Anglophone); Specialised interests in the Pacific’s phosphate islands and Pacific biography.

Dr Gemma Malungahu

Experiences and perspectives of Tongan Families in South Auckland. Housing and housing policies, health sciences, public health and qualitative research.

Dr Theresa Meki

Women’s political participation in Papua New Guinea and the broader Pacific region.

Dr Thiago Oppermann

Anthropology of development; political, social and cultural anthropology; pacific history; Melanesian social movements; Bougainville; Austronesian social organisation.

Dr Sonia Palmieri

Women's political participation and leadership in the Pacific and globally; gender-sensitive parliaments; capacity building for gender research.

Dr Judy Putt

Domestic and family violence; community safety and crime prevention; evaluation and feminist methodologies; transnational and resource crime; policing and criminal justice reform.

Associate Professor Graeme Smith

The political economy of Chinese outbound direct investment in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, service delivery in rural China, development assistance, migration, resource projects, search engines, and agribusiness.

Dr Colin Wiltshire

National General Election Observation in PNG and Solomon Islands. Political economy of budget and expenditure practices and its implications for development outcomes. 

Dr Denghua Zhang

International relations, development studies, Chinese foreign policy and aid, China's relationships with Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific island countries, Asian politics, emerging powers and global governance, as well as Pacific studies.