Many EU member states are either internally divided between security circles and economic stakeholders, or fall in one of the following two categories: those having commercial interests in the Chinese market (largely, Northern Europe), and
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Category: Research & commentary
Forward to the past? New-old theatres of Russia’s International Projection (ISPI)
…according to Putin, Russia must remain a strong presidential republic. Just a few days after delivering the [January 2020] Address, the President again emphasised that he considers the parliamentary form of government unsuitable for Russia
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Voices of Central and Eastern Europe: Perceptions of democracy & governance in 10 EU countries (Globsec)
Published 23 June 2020 | Authors: Dominika Hajdu and Katarina Klingová Only in 5 of 10 countries surveyed would more than 50% of the respondents choose liberal democracy over an autocratic leader. Globsec’s survey of
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The pandemic and the limits of realism (Foreign Policy)
Author: Seth A Johnston | Published 24 June 2020 | Foreign Policy Realism is sometimes regarded as the foundational international relations theory. In this thoughtful piece, Johnston notes that realist scholars of international relations see
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Who’s first wins? International crisis response to COVID-19 (EUISS)
European Union Institute for Security Studies | Report published 20 May 2020 | Authors: Florence Gaub, Lotje Boswinkel In this Brief, we put this hypothesis to the test: did democracies really respond less swiftly than authoritarian
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Inequality and repression undermine democracy and market economy worldwide (BTI Transformational Index)
Restricted freedom of expression, a gagged press or disempowered constitutional courts – as a rule, these are characteristics of autocracies. But our latest Transformation Index shows that the rule of law and political freedoms are
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Predation and predators in the post-alliance era (INSS)
Institute for National Security Studies (University of Tel Aviv) | Policy Analysis | Volume 23 | No. 1 | January 2020 | Author: François Heisbourg In historical terms, it is the seventy-year era of alliances that is the exception.
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Securitisation – turning problems into threats (Allan Behm, The Australia Institute)
Author: Allan Behm, Head of the International & Security Affairs Program at The Australia Institute | Published June 2020 | Download the full report (pdf opens, 322kb) One of the more disturbing tendencies of modern
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Year of the rat. The strategic consequences of the coronavirus crisis (FRS)
By Bruno Tertrais | Published 6 April 2020 | Foundation for Strategic Research (Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique | France This pandemic is the perfect stress test for the contemporary global society – and, because
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Serbian democracy: a case of state capture? (BCSP)
The Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) has produced a disturbing report on what it describes as the “deliberate political undertaking in which political actors use the consequences (both real and imagined) of the previous
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Lessons from a global crisis: coronavirus, the international order and the future of the EU (CIDOB)
By Pol Morillas | The coronavirus crisis may turn out to be a bump in the road for recent international dynamics. After a period of hibernation in the major global economies, perhaps life will return to normal, the storm weathered thanks to stimulus plans, and the world will once again be flat and hyperconnected. Alternatively, coronavirus may be a turning point in the era of globalisation.
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Anticipating a new US Foreign Policy (FES, Lauren Schwartz)
Lauren Schwartz from the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung considers what US foreign policy might look like under a Democrat president – after Trump, and after coronavirus. The paper canvasses “30 years of ambivalent foreign policy” –
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Cultures of expertise and politics of behavioral science: A conversation with Erik Angner (Cambridge)
An interview Professor Erik Angner of Stockholm University as part of the Humanities and Social Change Centre at the University of Cambridge‘s series on expertise and COVID-19. Erik Angner is a philosopher and an economist writing on
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Global dissatisfaction with democracy at record high (Cambridge)
Many large democracies are now at their highest-ever recorded level for democratic dissatisfaction, including the UK, US, Brazil, Mexico and Australia A report released in January 2020 by the new Centre for the Future of
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Strategic rivalry between United States and China: causes, trajectories, and implications (SWP)
A comprehensive and insightful paper that looks at the various dimensions of the rivalry between the United States and China.
Australia, already caught up in the global competition for influence, is likely to be subject to ‘increased pressure from Washington on its allies to take a clear position on the sharpening US-China conflict and clearly side with the United States’.
The paper seeks a strategy for Europe ‘to escape the bipolar logic that demands it choose between the American and Chinese economic/technological spheres’ – but the recommendations for Europe should resonate equally with Australian policy-makers and strategic thinkers.
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Coronavirus is a dress rehearsal for what awaits us if governments continue to ignore science (John Hewson)
Former Australian politician, Dr John Hewson, now chair of Australia’s Commission for the Human Future and a professorial fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, warns that ‘the coronavirus
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The Future of the Undersea Deterrent: A Global Survey (ANU NSC)
Amid rapid geopolitical change at the start of the 2020s, nuclear weapons manifest grim continuity with the previous century. Especially persistent is a capability that has existed since the 1960s: the deployment of nuclear weapons on
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The Return: Russia and the Security Landscape of Northeast Asia (IFRI)
In recent months, China – and the potential for conflict in Northeast Asia – has been prominent in discussion amongst Australian strategists. However, the complexity of strategic relationships in the region is often overlooked in
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Perspectives on Nuclear Deterrence (Chatham House)
ChathamHouse Nuclear deterrence theory, with its roots in the Cold War era, may not account for all eventualities in security and defence in the 21st century, given the larger number of nuclear actors in a
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DGAP: Deterrence and defense in times of COVID-19 – Europe’s political choices
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Europe is headed for a recession that will dwarf the economic downturn after the 2008 financial crisis. The impact on national defense sectors could be devastating. But as crisis and
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