Abstract
This chapter interrogates the Lowy Institute’s influence on the understanding and treatment of Australia’s so-called diplomatic deficit (the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade purported resource deficiency). The chapter finds that Lowy played a discernible and influential role in the debate. Lowy positioned the issue on the political agenda and was primarily responsible for establishing a political priority. Nonetheless, Lowy has not been able to establish a policy priority. There has been progress on several of Lowy’s proposals, but DFAT has not received the required funding to redress the decay that Lowy identified.
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Notes
- 1.
Gyngell served as an Australian diplomat in Rangoon, Singapore, and Washington D.C.
- 2.
The chapter is informed by ten semi-structured interviews and analysis of primary and secondary documents.
- 3.
To be clear, all references to ‘Lowy’ in this chapter refer to the Institute itself and not to Sir Frank Lowy.
- 4.
Lowy commenced its investigation into Australia’s ‘diplomatic deficit’ in July 2008 but released its final report in March 2009 (Blue Ribbon Panel, 2009, p. v).
- 5.
The Interpreter is the Lowy Institute’s web-based blog. It provides daily commentary on items of interest in world affairs. Dave Sharma lost his House of Representatives seat in the Federal election on May 21, 2022.
- 6.
James Wise is also the former head of DFAT’s Corporate Management division.
- 7.
Allan Gyngell asserts that the report was motivated by his desire to ‘do something specifically about the instruments of Australian foreign policy because I thought it was an underexplored area of Australian statecraft’ (interview, 2020). Alex Oliver also points to Andrew Shearer’s appointment as Lowy’s new Director of Studies as an impetus for the report (interview, 2020).
- 8.
- 9.
Fergus Hanson was employed by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute at the time of the interview.
- 10.
The measures included expectations that travellers would address their own travel insurance requirements and would take personal responsibility for their actions while abroad. DFAT might also require travellers to reimburse it for services provided, depending on the circumstance.
- 11.
Peter Varghese was Secretary of DFAT from 2012–2016 (UQ, 2021).
- 12.
This interviewee has approved identification but has been anonymised here to mitigate the possibility of blowback.
- 13.
- 14.
The five non-Lowy panel members included Jillian Broadbent AO, Professor William Maley AM, Brad Orgill, Professor Peter Shergold AC, and Ric Smith AO (Blue Ribbon Panel, 2009).
- 15.
This Factiva search was executed on February 14, 2021, with search criteria ‘Lowy’ AND ‘diplomatic deficit’ for the period January 1, 2009, to December 31, 2020.
- 16.
Andrew Shearer became the Director-General of the Office of National Intelligence on December 18, 2020.
- 17.
Wise and Engel confirmed this meeting. Wise also identified Shearer’s and Chester’s attendance. Oliver’s attendance is less certain, although Wise recalls it being so. Oliver was unable to directly recall this meeting due to her large number of meetings at that time (interviews with Oliver, 2020; Wise, 2020a; Engel, 2021).
- 18.
The citation count excludes duplicate footnote references.
- 19.
Melissa Conley-Tyler recently revisited the thesis in Australian Foreign Affairs (Tyler, 2019).
- 20.
Chapter 12 more specifically discusses policy networks and the similarities and differences across the three case studies.
- 21.
External frames resonate with external audiences and indirectly prompt policymaker action (Shiffman & Smith, 2007, pp. 1371–1372).
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Hagland, T. (2023). Lowy Institute: Australia’s Diplomatic Deficit. In: Think Tanks in Australia. Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27044-4_11
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