Lawson
Biographic Data
| ID | 29295 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lawson |
| FAMILY NAME | Lawson |
| SIGNATURE | LAWSON |
| AFFILIATIONS | Macquarie University |
| ORCID | 0009-0003-4293-4098 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 49 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 168 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Regional Politics in Oceania: From Colonialism and Cold War to the Pacific Century
Decolonizing Regional Politics in Oceania: Re-examining the Historical Record
Contemporary scholarship on the decolonization of regional organizations in Oceania has emphasized the agency of Indigenous leaders and the extent to which they led the charge to both decolonize the South Pacific Commission and to set up a new regional organization, namely, the South Pacific Forum, in which political issues could freely be discussed.In doing so, there has been a tendency to treat the colonial powers as a homogeneous group all rea…
Introduction to Politics
Combining theory, comparative politics, and international relations, Introduction to Politics provides an introduction to the subject. It covers both comparative politics and international relations, and contextualizes this material with a wide range of international examples. The text takes a balanced approached to the subject, serving as a strong foundation for further study. The material is explored in an accessible way for introductory study,…
The West Papua issue in Pacific regional politics: Explaining Indonesia’s foreign policy failure
Pacific island countries have paid increasing attention to the situation in Indonesia’s easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua (commonly referred to collectively as West Papua) in recent years, prompted mainly by continuing human rights abuses as well as the more general political and economic marginalization of indigenous West Papuan people since integration with Indonesia in 1969. This article addresses some key questions concerning Indo…
Security and Insecurity
This chapter examines traditional concepts of security and insecurity in the realm of international politics. It first considers Thomas Hobbes's account of the state of nature and the emergence of the power politics approach to security as worked out by Hans Morgenthau and his successors. It then discusses the evolution of security thinking through to the end of the Cold War, ideas about collective security as embodied in the United Nations and t…
Critical Approaches to Global Politics
This chapter examines seven critical approaches to global politics: Marxism, Critical Theory, constructivism, feminism, postmodernism, postcolonial theory, and green theory. In their book The Manifesto of the Communist Party , Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels address the implications for global order of the rise of capitalism and the role of the bourgeoisie as controllers of capital. Their ideas have had a major influence on critical approaches to …
Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands Forum: A critical review
The relationship between the Pacific islands and the region’s ‘bigger brothers’ – Australia and New Zealand – is often seen in two-dimensional terms with the latter appearing to act in concert and in terms characterised by underlying neo-colonial attitudes and a determination to dominate the regional agenda. Given that both are former colonial powers with considerable political and economic resources and are the major aid donors in the region as …
Regionalism and Colonialism in Contemporary Oceania
Regionalism in Oceania emerged in a context shaped both by the decolonisation movement as well as the Cold War, the dynamics of which are still being played out today. This article considers two cases of particular interest in current regional politics which illustrate a number of important contradictions in conventional approaches to the analysis of colonialism. The first involves the two larger French territories in the region – New Caledonia a…
China in Pacific Regional Politics
Foreign aid from China to the island countries of the Pacific has grown rapidly over the last few decades and an expanding body of literature has examined various aspects of what this means for politics in the region generally. This article focuses on China’s impact on Pacific regional politics partly from the perspective of identity politics. It suggests that China has substantially increased its engagement with the Pacific island states by maki…
Regional Politics in Contemporary Oceania
West Papua, Indonesia and the Melanesian Spearhead Group: Competing logics in regional and international politics
The idea of a shared Melanesian identity has been consolidated over the last three decades or so through the most important subregional organisation in the South-West Pacific—the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). The solidarity of this group has been strained over various issues from time to time, but none is as fraught as the Indonesian occupation of what is commonly known as West Papua, whose indigenous Papuan people are ethnically Melanesian. …
Justice and equality: An introduction
All humans are judges of Truth, Justice, and Beauty – categories that shall be taken roughly to parallel Science, Ethics, and Esthetics. All knowledge fits into these categories and is exhausted by
Regionalism, sub-regionalism and the politics of identity in Oceania
Regional organization in Oceania has a history dating to the early post-war period while the rise of regional identities occurred somewhat later in the context of independence. This paper analyzes regionalization processes and accompanying discourses of regionalism relating to both pan-Pacific and more recent sub-regional developments. It pays particular attention to the dynamics of identity politics in the post-independence period and how these …
Fiji’s Foreign Relations: Retrospect and Prospect
Of all the island states of the Southwest Pacific, Fiji’s foreign relations have been the most fraught since the advent of independence in the region, due largely to a succession of coups d'état. These have invariably precipitated adverse responses from major partners and aid donors, notably Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the European Union. The last coup in 2006 also unsettled relations in Fiji’s more immediate region, especially …
The Politics of Indigenous Identity: An Introductory Commentary
The politics of indigenous identity has become a global phenomenon with numerous groups active at the international level, promoting their claims not just to recognition but to particular rights an
Nationalism and Biographical Transformation: The case of Boudicca
IntroductionIf the purpose of nationalist historiography is to construct a past worthy of the present and future then the role of heroic individuals in the course of key historical events and developments and the construction of suitable biographies to support the narrative is essential to the purpose. Episodes of warfare very often provide the most heroic figures, bolstering national imagery and myth with tales of renown as well as introducing a…
Melanesia: The History and Politics of an Idea
The term 'Melanesia' is a partly geographic, partly cultural referent to a subregion of the island Pacific that has become very much part of ordinary descriptive language along with terms categorising other parts of the Pacific island world, namely Polynesia and Micronesia. Yet 'Melanesia' is much more than a descriptor. The term has been loaded with significance in a variety of ways, carrying with it both negative and positive connotations. This…
Indigenous Nationalism, “Ethnic Democracy,” and the Prospects for a Liberal Constitutional Order in Fiji
The failure of democracy in Fiji is usually attributed to an ethnically fractured polity in which indigenous Fijians have asserted superior rights over those of immigrant communities, especially those of Indian descent. In 1987, an indigenous-dominated military ousted a government elected largely on the strength of Indo-Fijian votes, as did a civilian-led coup in 2000. Another in 2006, however, has confounded explanations of Fiji's politics based…
Is the Future a Foreign Country
The notion of the past as a foreign country has become a standard trope in contextual approaches to the study of history, emphasizing specificity, particularity and contingency. The logic of these approaches suggests that the future is equally foreign. While not dismissing the idea of context as useful and important in the study of history, politics, anthropology, sociology and most other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences for that…
War memories and Japan’s ‘normalization’ as an international actor: A critical analysis
The paradigmatic case in which an almost permanent impasse exists in coming to terms with a difficult war past and ‘normalizing’ its international relations is that of Japan. Although successive Japanese governments have apologized over the last few decades, these have been countered by periodic episodes within Japan revolving largely around history textbooks, the remembrance of war dead and the quest by nationalists to restore national pride in …
Cosmopolitan Pluralism: Beyond the Cultural Turn
The 'cultural turn' has had a profound influence across the humanities and social sciences in the last few decades. In calling into question the universalist basis on which conventional methodological and normative assumptions have been based, the cultural turn has focused on the extent to which specificity and particularity underpin what we can know, how we can know it, and how this affects our being-in-the world. This has opened the way to a ra…
The Pacific Way’ as Postcolonial Discourse: Towards a Reassessment
In 2005, an entry entitled ‘Pacific Way’ appeared in a collection of essays on postcolonial thought. While this seems unremarkable, it invites questions concerning both the Pacific Way idea and the nature of postcolonial critique. This article is especially concerned to examine the specific circumstances in which the term was initially articulated and the precise meaning with which it was imbued. Although the Pacific Way acquired some ‘postcoloni…
Political Studies and the Contextual Turn: A Methodological/Normative Critique
Recent developments in political studies have seen much greater attention paid to ideas about history, culture and associated notions of context. This reflects, at least in part, a dissatisfaction with positivism and modernist empiricism and an interest in alternative methodologies and epistemologies. As part of this general development, the language of non-traditional approaches to politics has become replete with the language of contextualism, …
Australia: Nation, Belonging, and Globalization by Anthony Moran
Culture and Context in World Politics
This wide-ranging, historically informed study examines the career of the culture concept and related notions of context in comparative and international politics, tracing connections through the disc
Conceptual Issues in the Comparative Study of Regime Change and Democratization
There is no richer field of enquiry in contemporary comparative politics than the study of regime change and especially democratization. Throughout the last two decades, and especially in the 1980s, many authoritarian regimes around the world, while perhaps not succumbing altogether, have certainly withered. The most extensive changes have come about in eastern Europe. In southern Europe and parts of Latin America, too, democratization has gained…
Melanesia: The History and Politics of an Idea
The term 'Melanesia' is a partly geographic, partly cultural referent to a subregion of the island Pacific that has become very much part of ordinary descriptive language along with terms categorising other parts of the Pacific island world, namely Polynesia and Micronesia. Yet 'Melanesia' is much more than a descriptor. The term has been loaded with significance in a variety of ways, carrying with it both negative and positive connotations. This…
Tailoring is a Profession, Seamstressing is Work! Resiting Work and Reworking Gender Identities among Artisanal Garment Workers in Quito
Geographers have paid relatively little attention to the processes by which occupations and sites of work become gendered. This case study of Ecuador provides a template for examining how gender identities are constituted in the physical and discursive sites of paid work. Neoliberal restructuring in Ecuador has wrought dramatic changes on work and daily life in Quito. Specifically, economic restructuring is producing new spaces of work in garment…
The New Agenda for Global Security: Cooperating for Peace and Beyond
The Myth of Cultural Homogeneity and Its Implications for Chiefly Power and Politics in Fiji
Since Fiji's independence in 1970, a chiefly establishment drawn largely from the eastern regions of the island group has dominated the government there and, through the Alliance Party, has managed, in one way or another, to retain power in successive electoral contests until its outright defeat in the general elections of April 1987. The new government comprised a coalition of the National Federation Party (NFP), supported largely by the Fiji In…
Political Studies and the Contextual Turn: A Methodological/Normative Critique
Recent developments in political studies have seen much greater attention paid to ideas about history, culture and associated notions of context. This reflects, at least in part, a dissatisfaction with positivism and modernist empiricism and an interest in alternative methodologies and epistemologies. As part of this general development, the language of non-traditional approaches to politics has become replete with the language of contextualism, …
China in Pacific Regional Politics
Foreign aid from China to the island countries of the Pacific has grown rapidly over the last few decades and an expanding body of literature has examined various aspects of what this means for politics in the region generally. This article focuses on China’s impact on Pacific regional politics partly from the perspective of identity politics. It suggests that China has substantially increased its engagement with the Pacific island states by maki…
West Papua, Indonesia and the Melanesian Spearhead Group: Competing logics in regional and international politics
The idea of a shared Melanesian identity has been consolidated over the last three decades or so through the most important subregional organisation in the South-West Pacific—the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). The solidarity of this group has been strained over various issues from time to time, but none is as fraught as the Indonesian occupation of what is commonly known as West Papua, whose indigenous Papuan people are ethnically Melanesian. …
Indigenous Nationalism, “Ethnic Democracy,” and the Prospects for a Liberal Constitutional Order in Fiji
The failure of democracy in Fiji is usually attributed to an ethnically fractured polity in which indigenous Fijians have asserted superior rights over those of immigrant communities, especially those of Indian descent. In 1987, an indigenous-dominated military ousted a government elected largely on the strength of Indo-Fijian votes, as did a civilian-led coup in 2000. Another in 2006, however, has confounded explanations of Fiji's politics based…
War memories and Japan’s ‘normalization’ as an international actor: A critical analysis
The paradigmatic case in which an almost permanent impasse exists in coming to terms with a difficult war past and ‘normalizing’ its international relations is that of Japan. Although successive Japanese governments have apologized over the last few decades, these have been countered by periodic episodes within Japan revolving largely around history textbooks, the remembrance of war dead and the quest by nationalists to restore national pride in …
The Pacific Way’ as Postcolonial Discourse: Towards a Reassessment
In 2005, an entry entitled ‘Pacific Way’ appeared in a collection of essays on postcolonial thought. While this seems unremarkable, it invites questions concerning both the Pacific Way idea and the nature of postcolonial critique. This article is especially concerned to examine the specific circumstances in which the term was initially articulated and the precise meaning with which it was imbued. Although the Pacific Way acquired some ‘postcoloni…
Sanitizing ethnicity: The creation of Singapore's apolitical culture
Since it came to power over 40 years ago, Singapore's governing party is generally considered to have achieved not only remarkable economic growth, but also to have created a high degree of social and political stability in circumstances which seemed conducive to neither in the earlier stages of Singapore's development. These circumstances included an ethnically diverse population perceived as prone to violence and therefore a significant threat …
Nationalism versus constitutionalism in Fiji
Since Fiji became an independent state in 1970 it has experienced three coups against elected governments. On each occasion, intervention has been justified on the grounds that the rights and interests of indigenous Fijians have been under threat from a government controlled by Indo‐Fijians, the country's second largest ethnic group. This is despite the fact that the constitutions under which these governments were elected contained extensive pro…
Democracy and the problem of cultural relativism: Normative issues for international politics
Constitutional change in Fiji: The apparatus of justification
The discriminatory racial and other non-democratic provisions which feature in the new constitution of the 'Sovereign Democratic Republic of Fiji' have been justified by the regime, at least superficially, on the grounds that they are essential for the protection and enhancement of indigenous Fijian rights and interests. This justification is underscored by two further related, claims which serve to promote the view that western democratic princi…
Regionalism, sub-regionalism and the politics of identity in Oceania
Regional organization in Oceania has a history dating to the early post-war period while the rise of regional identities occurred somewhat later in the context of independence. This paper analyzes regionalization processes and accompanying discourses of regionalism relating to both pan-Pacific and more recent sub-regional developments. It pays particular attention to the dynamics of identity politics in the post-independence period and how these …
Institutionalising peaceful conflict: Political opposition and the challenge of democratisation in Asia 1
(1993). Institutionalising peaceful conflict: Political opposition and the challenge of democratisation in Asia. Australian Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 15-30
An Argument for Critical and Comparative Research on the Urban Economic Geography of the Americas
The authors identify problems associated with the treatment of Latin American topics in the Anglo-American social science literature, particularly in geography. Latin American research has been peripheralized and the flow of concepts and learning between Latin and Anglo America has been almost entirely from North to South. To explain why research by Latin Americans, and by Latin Americanists, has had relatively limited influence on recent geograp…
The West Papua issue in Pacific regional politics: Explaining Indonesia’s foreign policy failure
Pacific island countries have paid increasing attention to the situation in Indonesia’s easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua (commonly referred to collectively as West Papua) in recent years, prompted mainly by continuing human rights abuses as well as the more general political and economic marginalization of indigenous West Papuan people since integration with Indonesia in 1969. This article addresses some key questions concerning Indo…
Regionalism and Colonialism in Contemporary Oceania
Regionalism in Oceania emerged in a context shaped both by the decolonisation movement as well as the Cold War, the dynamics of which are still being played out today. This article considers two cases of particular interest in current regional politics which illustrate a number of important contradictions in conventional approaches to the analysis of colonialism. The first involves the two larger French territories in the region – New Caledonia a…
Justice and equality: An introduction
All humans are judges of Truth, Justice, and Beauty – categories that shall be taken roughly to parallel Science, Ethics, and Esthetics. All knowledge fits into these categories and is exhausted by
Democratic Peace” and “Asian Democracy”: A Universalist-Particularist Tension
Fiji's communal electoral system: A study of some aspects of the failure of democratic politics in Fiji
The unique communal system which operated in Fiji from independence in 1970 until the coup of 1987 was ostensibly designed to ensure the equitable distribution of seats in the Fiji House of Representatives among the major racial groupings as a means of promoting political stability. The way in which the system was constructed, however, gave rise to gross imbalances in the ‘racial’ composition of both government and opposition parties. The aim of …
Fiji’s Foreign Relations: Retrospect and Prospect
Of all the island states of the Southwest Pacific, Fiji’s foreign relations have been the most fraught since the advent of independence in the region, due largely to a succession of coups d'état. These have invariably precipitated adverse responses from major partners and aid donors, notably Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the European Union. The last coup in 2006 also unsettled relations in Fiji’s more immediate region, especially …
Regional integration, development and social change in the Asia–Pacific: Implications for human security and state responsibility
Regional integration is generally seen as having positive security outcomes with respect to traditional inter-state relations as well as economic growth. However, there are also negative social and economic effects, which the broader concept of human security is useful in focusing attention on. The main aim of the article is to highlight some of the negative human security outcomes produced by the dynamic processes that have underscored regionali…
Fiji's communal electoral system: A study of some aspects of the failure of democratic politics in Fiji
The unique communal system which operated in Fiji from independence in 1970 until the coup of 1987 was ostensibly designed to ensure the equitable distribution of seats in the Fiji House of Representatives among the major racial groupings as a means of promoting political stability. The way in which the system was constructed, however, gave rise to gross imbalances in the ‘racial’ composition of both government and opposition parties. The aim of …
Problems in Australian Foreign Policy January‐June, 1989
Problems in Australian Foreign Policy, July‐December, 1988
The Myth of Cultural Homogeneity and Its Implications for Chiefly Power and Politics in Fiji
Since Fiji's independence in 1970, a chiefly establishment drawn largely from the eastern regions of the island group has dominated the government there and, through the Alliance Party, has managed, in one way or another, to retain power in successive electoral contests until its outright defeat in the general elections of April 1987. The new government comprised a coalition of the National Federation Party (NFP), supported largely by the Fiji In…
Constitutional change in Fiji: The apparatus of justification
The discriminatory racial and other non-democratic provisions which feature in the new constitution of the 'Sovereign Democratic Republic of Fiji' have been justified by the regime, at least superficially, on the grounds that they are essential for the protection and enhancement of indigenous Fijian rights and interests. This justification is underscored by two further related, claims which serve to promote the view that western democratic princi…
Institutionalising peaceful conflict: Political opposition and the challenge of democratisation in Asia 1
(1993). Institutionalising peaceful conflict: Political opposition and the challenge of democratisation in Asia. Australian Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 15-30
Conceptual Issues in the Comparative Study of Regime Change and Democratization
There is no richer field of enquiry in contemporary comparative politics than the study of regime change and especially democratization. Throughout the last two decades, and especially in the 1980s, many authoritarian regimes around the world, while perhaps not succumbing altogether, have certainly withered. The most extensive changes have come about in eastern Europe. In southern Europe and parts of Latin America, too, democratization has gained…
An Argument for Critical and Comparative Research on the Urban Economic Geography of the Americas
The authors identify problems associated with the treatment of Latin American topics in the Anglo-American social science literature, particularly in geography. Latin American research has been peripheralized and the flow of concepts and learning between Latin and Anglo America has been almost entirely from North to South. To explain why research by Latin Americans, and by Latin Americanists, has had relatively limited influence on recent geograp…
Cooperation in the Asia‐Pacific Region: Perspectives from the United States, Russia and Japan
(1994). Cooperation in the Asia‐Pacific Region: Perspectives from the United States, Russia and Japan. Australian Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 61-61
Tradition versus Democracy in the South Pacific: Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa
Much literature on non-Western traditions celebrates the renaissance of indigenous cultures. Others have been more critical of this renaissance, especially with respect to its political implications. This study analyses the assertion of 'tradition' by indigenous elites, looking especially at the way it is used to differentiate 'the West' from the 'non-West'. This is important to contemporary discussion about the validity of democracy outside the …
The New Agenda for Global Security: Cooperating for Peace and Beyond
Democratic Peace” and “Asian Democracy”: A Universalist-Particularist Tension
Dogmas of difference: Culture and nationalism in theories of international politics
A feature of recent social science theorizing has been a revival of interest in the concept of culture. While always fundamental to the discipline of anthropology, the culture concept is now commonly employed in other fields as well. Since the end of the Cold War in particular, theories of international politics have been in search of fresh explanatory categories and the culture concept has been adopted in some influential approaches to serve thi…
Democracy and the problem of cultural relativism: Normative issues for international politics
Perspectives on the study of culture and international politics: From Nihonjinron to the new Asianism∗
Stephanie Lawson, Professor of International Relations at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, considers the role that the concept of “culture” has come to assume in the study of international politics, especially in relation to the Asia‐Pacific region. Much of the cultural nationalist rhetoric associated with the “Nihonjinron” as well as discourses surrounding the “new Asianism” has had two main consequences. One has been to reinforce s…
Between Globalization and Localization: A Case Study of Human Rights Versus State Sovereignty
Le traditionalisme et les politiques de l'identité culturelle en Asie et dans le Pacifique: Une mise au point critique
Lawson Stéphanie. Le traditionalisme et les politiques de l'identité culturelle en Asie et dans le Pacifique : une mise au point critique. In: Journal de la Société des océanistes, 109, 1999-2. pp. 37-51
Tradition versus Democracy in the South Pacific. Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa
Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America" analyses legal and constitutional developments in all states or regions outside of Europe as well as their regional and international integration. Founded in 1968 and inspired by decolonization and the idea of a cooperative new beginning, the Journal also promotes a special interest in contributions on 'Law and development'. The journal aims to provide a forum for a variety of perspectives on th…
Tailoring is a Profession, Seamstressing is Work! Resiting Work and Reworking Gender Identities among Artisanal Garment Workers in Quito
Geographers have paid relatively little attention to the processes by which occupations and sites of work become gendered. This case study of Ecuador provides a template for examining how gender identities are constituted in the physical and discursive sites of paid work. Neoliberal restructuring in Ecuador has wrought dramatic changes on work and daily life in Quito. Specifically, economic restructuring is producing new spaces of work in garment…
Sanitizing ethnicity: The creation of Singapore's apolitical culture
Since it came to power over 40 years ago, Singapore's governing party is generally considered to have achieved not only remarkable economic growth, but also to have created a high degree of social and political stability in circumstances which seemed conducive to neither in the earlier stages of Singapore's development. These circumstances included an ethnically diverse population perceived as prone to violence and therefore a significant threat …
Europe and the Asia-Pacific: Culture, Identity and Representations of Region
Issues of culture and identity have been prominent themes in social and political enquiry over the last decade or so. They have become just as conspicuous in political debates outside the academy as well. This has been especially evident in the Asia-Pacific region, especially with respect to relations with Europe and, more generally, ‘the West’. For much of the 1990s, the ‘Asian values’ debate held sway as the major discourse surrounding key deve…
Nationalism versus constitutionalism in Fiji
Since Fiji became an independent state in 1970 it has experienced three coups against elected governments. On each occasion, intervention has been justified on the grounds that the rights and interests of indigenous Fijians have been under threat from a government controlled by Indo‐Fijians, the country's second largest ethnic group. This is despite the fact that the constitutions under which these governments were elected contained extensive pro…
Symposium on regional integration
The papers in this symposium are drawn from a major project on ‘Regional Integration in the Pacific Rim: Global and Domestic Trajectories’ run jointly by the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS)
Regional integration, development and social change in the Asia–Pacific: Implications for human security and state responsibility
Regional integration is generally seen as having positive security outcomes with respect to traditional inter-state relations as well as economic growth. However, there are also negative social and economic effects, which the broader concept of human security is useful in focusing attention on. The main aim of the article is to highlight some of the negative human security outcomes produced by the dynamic processes that have underscored regionali…
Culture and Context in World Politics
This wide-ranging, historically informed study examines the career of the culture concept and related notions of context in comparative and international politics, tracing connections through the disc
Political science (47 works) · Law (42 works) · Politics (42 works) · Sociology (40 works) · Law (26 works) · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs (22 works) · Political economy (18 works) · Geography (16 works) · Democracy (13 works) · Economics (11 works)