Matt Mcdonald
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 3688065 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Matt Mcdonald |
| PRENOMES | Matt |
| SOBRENOME | Mcdonald |
| ASSINATURA | MCDONALD M |
| AFILIAÇÕES | The University of Queensland |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6636-2731 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 57 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 505 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 55 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 2 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2002 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 13 |
Climate Change and National Security
States increasingly recognize the security implications of climate change and have moved to institutionalize responses in policy and practice. Yet in recognizing the relationship between climate change and security, states have identified the nature of the threat posed in different ways, enacted different policies, and prioritized different agencies in dealing with that threat. Crucially, these varied choices have different implications for the p…
Governing Nature and the Making of World Order
Ecological Crises and Ecopolitics Research in Australia
It is difficult to exaggerate the scale of contemporary ecological crises. These challenges, particularly climate change, necessitate new modes of politics and policy, even potentially new institutions, that seem anathema to the emphases of traditional accounts of environmental political science. In this paper, we explore contemporary ecopolitics research in Australia that is attempting to come to terms with the reality of ecological crises and t…
On Fire
In recent years, forest fires have brought destruction to large swathes of land around the world and will increase in frequency and intensity with the onset of climate change. This article examines dominant discourses of fire origins, prevention, and management among the key policy communities in two Western countries that have been (and will be) affected by forest fires/bushfires: the United States and Australia. Alongside this analysis, the art…
Defence and climate change
Australia, we need to talk about solar geoengineering
Accepting responsibility? Institutions and the security implications of climate change
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 abo…
Climate change, security and the institutional prospects for ecological security
States approach the security implications of climate change in different ways. • Different climate security ‘discourses’ have different implications in practice. • Ecological security represents the most progressive approach to climate security. • Ecological security is gaining in prominence and attention, even among states. • Climate crisis makes exploring ecological security’s institutional prospects vital. In the academic literature on this re…
Emergency measures? Terrorism and climate change on the security agenda
The significantly divergent trajectories of terrorism and climate change as security issues for Western states in the early years of the 21st century represent a puzzle. While sharing some attributes – uncertainty and the primacy of risk-management responses – climate change clearly represents a more fundamental threat to life than terrorism. Despite this, terrorism has occupied a prominent place on states’ security agendas, while climate change …
Fit for purpose? Climate change, security and IR
As the contributions to this special issue suggest, IR has had a problematic relationship with environmental issues. Indeed it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that IR has treated environmental change almost as a distraction from important concerns of global politics, and gives us few significant resources for understanding these challenges or addressing them effectively. This is perhaps most starkly evident in the subfield of security studie…
Security Studies
In defence of ecological security
Geoengineering, climate change and ecological security
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 pape…
Immovable objects? Impediments to a UN Security Council resolution on climate change
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 resolu…
Ecological Security
Climate change is increasingly recognised as a security issue. Yet this recognition belies contestation over what security means and whose security is viewed as threatened. Different accounts – here defined as discourses – of security range from those focused on national sovereignty to those emphasising the vulnerability of human populations. This book examines the ethical assumptions and implications of these 'climate security' discourses, ultim…
From the Ashes
I don’t feel as though this short commentary warrants one, but could provide one if required
Ejil Roll of Honour; 2021 Ejil Peer Reviewer Prize; Changes in the Masthead; Germany v Italy
After the fires? Climate change and security in Australia
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 e…
The Politics of Exceptionalism
The suggestion that we “are at war” with the coronavirus pandemic was not uncommon in national representations of the challenge posed by the virus. Such a representation was in turn frequently linked to the imperative of emergency responses, including expanded police powers, national lockdowns, and border closures. For theorists of securitization, this is not surprising. For them, the language of security and existential threat enables extraordin…
Teaching Australian foreign policy
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
Security Studies
Climate change and security
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 …
Critical Security in the Asia-Pacific
Introduction: Asia-Pacific security legacies and futures - Matt McDonald & Anthony Burke PART I: AGENTS 1. Regionalism and security in East Asia - Julie Gilson 2. Emancipation and force: the role(s) of the military in Southeast Asia - Alex J. Bellamy and Bryn Hughes 3. The political economy of security: geopolitics and capitalist development in the Asia-Pacific - Mark Beeson 4. Deconstructing the discourse of epistemic agency: a Singaporean tale …
Remembering Gallipoli
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 sol…
Vale Colin Hughes
Securitization and the Construction of Security
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 a…
Discourses of climate security
Deliberation and Resecuritization
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 a…
The future of critical security studies
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 traditio…
Climate change and security
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 …
The Failed Securitization of Climate Change in Australia
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, an…
The Politics of Exceptionalism
The suggestion that we “are at war” with the coronavirus pandemic was not uncommon in national representations of the challenge posed by the virus. Such a representation was in turn frequently linked to the imperative of emergency responses, including expanded police powers, national lockdowns, and border closures. For theorists of securitization, this is not surprising. For them, the language of security and existential threat enables extraordin…
The Utility of Human Security
Thomas & Tow's evaluation of the utility of human security is an important contribution to an ongoing debate about what security is and for whom security should be provided. In particular, the authors' engagement with the human security agenda is important given the centrality of this approach to recent attempts to rethink security. This article argues, however, that Thomas & Tow's approach to the human security agenda is problematic for two cent…
Lest We Forget'
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 nation…
How was Howard's war possible? Winning the war of position over Iraq
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 …
Human Security and the Construction of Security
(2002). Human Security and the Construction of Security. Global Society: Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 277-295
After the fires? Climate change and security in Australia
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 e…
Emancipation and Critical Terrorism Studies
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 pa…
Securing international society
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 lo…
Constructing Insecurity
This article explores the construction of security in the contemporary Australian context, arguing that the Australian government has represented, and attempted to construct support for, a statist, exclusionary and militaristic conception or discourse of security. This understanding of security is evident in the government's representation and response to a range of issues since 2001, including asylum-seekers, terrorism and the war in Iraq. In ex…
The politics of liberal internationalism
Climate security and economic security
Bourdieu, environmental NGOs, and Australian climate politics
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 signifi…
Australian Foreign Policy under the Abbott Government
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 ‘i…
Foreign and Defence Policy on Australia's Political Agenda, 1962–2012
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 …
Accepting responsibility? Institutions and the security implications of climate change
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 abo…
Climate change, security and the institutional prospects for ecological security
States approach the security implications of climate change in different ways. • Different climate security ‘discourses’ have different implications in practice. • Ecological security represents the most progressive approach to climate security. • Ecological security is gaining in prominence and attention, even among states. • Climate crisis makes exploring ecological security’s institutional prospects vital. In the academic literature on this re…
Critical Security in the Asia-Pacific
Introduction: Asia-Pacific security legacies and futures - Matt McDonald & Anthony Burke PART I: AGENTS 1. Regionalism and security in East Asia - Julie Gilson 2. Emancipation and force: the role(s) of the military in Southeast Asia - Alex J. Bellamy and Bryn Hughes 3. The political economy of security: geopolitics and capitalist development in the Asia-Pacific - Mark Beeson 4. Deconstructing the discourse of epistemic agency: a Singaporean tale …
Trouble in paradise
The last decade in Indonesia has seen the emergence of localized militia groups. In Bali, these groups are now particularly prolific. Conventional wisdom in international relations thought is that these organizations constitute a threat to the authority of the state (its monopoly on the legitimate use of force) and may require national security measures to deal with them. Yet these organizations ultimately define their own role in terms of the pr…
Foreign policy internationalism and political possibility
Human Security and the Construction of Security
(2002). Human Security and the Construction of Security. Global Society: Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 277-295
The Utility of Human Security
Thomas & Tow's evaluation of the utility of human security is an important contribution to an ongoing debate about what security is and for whom security should be provided. In particular, the authors' engagement with the human security agenda is important given the centrality of this approach to recent attempts to rethink security. This article argues, however, that Thomas & Tow's approach to the human security agenda is problematic for two cent…
Environment and security
This paper seeks to explore the ways in which security is constructed, focusing on the example of deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon. Prior to the late 1980s, the Brazilian government represented deforestation of the Amazon as a tool for the attainment of national security. Following the onset of international environmental pressure on Brazil, however, the government moved away from associating deforestation with the provision of security. Thi…
Securing international society
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 lo…
Fair Weather Friend? Ethics and Australia's Approach to Global Climate Change
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…
Be alarmed? Australia's anti-terrorism kit and the politics of security
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 …
Because I said so
The insecurities of an english school gatekeeper
Perspectives on Australian foreign policy, 2004
The most fundamental challenges facing Australian foreign policy in 2005 are much the same as those of 2004. Centrally, these include Australia's continued role in Iraq; its approach to the 'war on terror'; its response to the possible development of WMDs in countries such as Iran and particularly North Korea; its position on the broader regional security dynamics in east Asia, specifically the question of China's role in the evolving balance of …
Constructing Insecurity
This article explores the construction of security in the contemporary Australian context, arguing that the Australian government has represented, and attempted to construct support for, a statist, exclusionary and militaristic conception or discourse of security. This understanding of security is evident in the government's representation and response to a range of issues since 2001, including asylum-seekers, terrorism and the war in Iraq. In ex…
Ethics and exclusion
From 2001, the Australian government has justified a hard-line approach to asylum-seekers on the basis of the need to preserve its sovereignty. This article critically evaluates this justification, arguing that the conception of sovereignty as the ‘right to exclude’ involves a denial of responsibility to the most vulnerable in global politics. We particularly focus here on the ways in which the Australian government has attempted to create suppor…
Emancipation and Critical Terrorism Studies
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 pa…
Securitization and the Construction of Security
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 a…
How was Howard's war possible? Winning the war of position over Iraq
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 …
Lest We Forget'
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 nation…
Deliberation and Resecuritization
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 a…
Security, the Environment and Emancipation
This book offers an examination of the role of emancipation in the study and practice of security, focusing on the issue of environmental change. The end of the Cold War created a context in which traditional approaches to security could be systematically questioned. This period also saw a concerted attempt in IR to argue that environmental change constituted a threat to security. This book argues that such a notion is problematic as it suggests …
The politics of liberal internationalism
Foreign policy internationalism and political possibility
The Failed Securitization of Climate Change in Australia
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, an…
The Politics of Climate Change in Australia
Global climate change has become one of the most contentious and divisive issues in Australian politics. In part, this reflects the nature of the problem itself and Australia’s vulnerability both to manifestations of climate change on one hand and its mitigation on the other. While a land of heat and drought, and still a major agricultural producer, Australia also has an immediate economic interest in the maintenance of a global fossil fuel econo…
The Future of Australian Climate Politics
Australian Journal of Politics & HistoryVolume 59, Issue 3 p. 449-456 The Future of Australian Climate Politics Matt McDonald, Matt McDonald University of QueenslandSearch for more papers by this author Matt McDonald, Matt McDonald University of QueenslandSearch for more papers by this author First published: 16 September 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.12026Citations: 4Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to fav…
Issues in Australian Foreign Policy
On 1
Foreign and Defence Policy on Australia's Political Agenda, 1962–2012
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 …
The future of critical security studies
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 traditio…
Political science (48 obras) · Law (38 obras) · Politics (37 obras) · Sociology (35 obras) · Law (23 obras) · Political economy (19 obras) · Climate change (18 obras) · Global Security and Public Health (18 obras) · Peacebuilding and International Security (15 obras) · Security studies (14 obras)