Policy Forum picks our 2021 favorites
Kick off the new year by reading some of our favorite articles of 2021, picked by Policy Forum Associate Editor Patrick Cooney.
Already fueled your library after a year of intermittent lockdown? Or have you been glued to the TV watching Australia dominate the Ashes? No matter how you spent a well-deserved Christmas break, you can start 2022 feeling well-informed on all things Asia-Pacific politics by reading Pat’s picks from 2021.
10. Bhutan’s Pursuit of Happiness in the Age of Pandemic by Dendup Chophel and Phurba (September 21)
“In a country that has made constitutional and regulatory provisions for the pursuit of happiness through inclusive and sustainable growth, COVID-19 has exposed fundamental structural weaknesses in its largest growth sectors.”
In August, we launched a new In Focus: Developing Asia section to highlight some of the challenges faced by the region’s less developed members as the pandemic continues to spread.
In this article for the section, Dendup Chophel, Research Officer at the School of Archeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University (ANU), and Phurba, Senior Planning Officer at the Gross National Happiness Commission of Bhutan , examined how COVID-19 has set back inclusive and sustainable development in Bhutan, highlighting the difficult choices the country faces as the pandemic evolves.
9. Gender Just Transition by Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt (October 20)
“The unplanned closure of the mine brings shock, grief, loss of confidence and a sense of powerlessness to workers and communities, and women are particularly marginalized and paralyzed by the process.”
As world leaders travel to Glasgow in November for the COP26 conference, energy transition issues have been at the forefront of policy makers’ minds over the past year. However, one aspect of this transition – gender – often goes unnoticed.
In October, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, a professor at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, wrote this article about what leaders can do to counter the gendered impacts of coal mine closures, revealing the importance of a just gender transition as the region moves away from coal. – drawn energy.
8. Australia must do more to support Papua New Guinea by Jennifer Tierney (29 March)
“Certainly the moral imperative to save lives outweighs the financial interests of pharmaceutical companies during a global pandemic.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic rages across the Asia-Pacific region, protection against the virus is far from equitable. Rich countries still have much greater access to vaccine and healthcare resources, and their less-developed neighbors are struggling to cope.
In March, as a third wave began to ripple through the region, the executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières Australia, Jennifer Tierney, argued that Australia should provide its closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea (PNG), and other Pacific countries for vaccines for high-risk people, especially frontline workers, even before low-risk Australians get the shot.
7. How the Myanmar coup will affect higher education by Charlotte Galloway (February 22)
“The most recent coup suspended foreign engagement at a critical time. COVID-19 has already slowed reform progress, but the coup could stall it completely.
On February 1 last year, Myanmar’s democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup. The coup has had, and will continue to have, far-reaching implications for international engagement between Myanmar and the rest of the world, and the higher education sector is no exception.
Exploring how the coup would change scholarly relationships between Myanmar institutions and their international counterparts, this article by the Director of the ANU Myanmar Research Center, Charlotte Galloway, explains why the military takeover has put a lot of momentum in space at risk.
6. How COVID-19 has improved Australia’s social fabric by Kate Reynolds (30 November)
“Whatever the explanation, no one can ignore the fact that Australia came through the COVID-19 crisis socially stronger.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic progressed in Australia, there was much concern about growing divisions in society. Vaccine hesitancy and protests in Australian capitals have dominated TV screens, but do they tell the whole story?
In this article, Kate Reynolds, Professor of Psychology at ANU, delves into an annual survey of social cohesion that suggests Australia has bucked the global trend and become a more cohesive nation, and uncovers what this means for the future.
5. What Governments Can Do About QAnon Believers by James Mortensen (August 18)
“As these movements continue to destabilize the security of communities around the world, policymakers, security agencies and community leaders will have to try to come to terms with an impossible task – keeping those for whom nothing is certain safe. .”
Just six days into 2021, with many Australians still firmly seated on the sofa waiting for cricket, the country’s smartphones lit up with the news that a shirtless ‘shaman’ in a cocked hat fluffy seemed to control the United States Capitol. In investigations following the riot, it became clear that QAnon, a “New World Order” conspiracy theory, had played a big role in the hysteria.
With QAnon followers active in Australia and posing a political problem, James Mortensen, a lecturer at the National Security College, wrote this article explaining why leaders may need to take action to prevent an event like the Capitol Riot. to happen in Australia, and what that action might actually look like.
4. Historical awareness is the key to good policymaking by Honae Cuffe (December 8)
“Historical training could teach the civil service basic skills in historical investigation, focusing on how to navigate organizational records and the ability of civil servants to analyze and weigh the value of sources of evidence. “
With debates over Australia’s national history curriculum filling the airwaves earlier this year, long-standing questions about national identity and how Australian history should be used, learned and taught have made their return to the national conversation in 2021.
Against this backdrop, Honae Cuffe, a research fellow at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government, looked at how the Australian Public Service (APS) could benefit from greater historical competence. His article explained the enormous potential for improving government decision-making that could be unlocked if APS invested in its historical awareness, including creating an office of Chief Historian.
3. Australia’s supply chain ‘vulnerability’ to China – much ado about nothing? By James Laurenceson (May 19)
“The oft-vaunted logic of decoupling Australian supply chains from China to build resilience is weaker than the common narrative suggests.”
Last February, Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg instructed the Productivity Commission to “undertake a study of Australia’s resilience to global supply chain disruptions”, but the government has largely ignored the analysis. the Commission.
In this article, James Laurenceson, director of the Institute of Australia-China Relations at the University of Technology Sydney, explains why. Breaking down Australia’s supply chain relationship with China in light of the report, he argued that concerns about Australia’s reliance on China for material goods may be overstated. in national discussions.
2. Parallel Unrest Helping North Korea Avoid Sanctions by Stephanie Koorey (August 17)
“Cyber activity is now one of North Korea’s most effective and lucrative ways, but not the only one, to circumvent the UN sanctions regime.”
On June 21, Shadow Deputy Minister for Cybersecurity Tim Watts introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Representatives calling for a strategy to prevent ransomware attacks against Australia. One reason for this is increased cyber activity by hackers in North Korea – who have been using such attacks to circumvent United Nations sanctions for some time.
Explaining these attacks and how the country is using them to reduce sanctions, Stephanie Koorey, a visiting fellow at the ANU Center for European Studies, explains what policymakers can do to build resilience and prevent the Kim regime from sowing cyber devastation in the region. .
1. Economic “opportunities” in Papua New Guinea by Michael Kabuni (February 11)
“Above all, Australia’s behavior shows a lack of respect for PNG’s right to guide its own development.”
In November 2020, a Chinese company signed a memorandum of understanding with the PNG government to establish a $200 million multifunctional fishing park in its western province. In response, the Australian government simultaneously claimed that it was really a plan to overfish the area – “vacuum everything” – and that such a facility could not really be about the “fish”. as this same area is “not known for its abundance”. of fish’.
Responding to the brouhaha, Michael Kabuni, a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Papua New Guinea, noted that the park would be very beneficial to PNG’s economy and workers, especially women. He argued that Australia’s intervention in PNG’s infrastructure in recent years has largely been a reaction to Chinese initiatives.
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