Gary Dean - Posts
The Development of Australian Foreign Policy
It only been these past few decades that Australia has begun to pursue a relatively independent foreign policy, from under the shadows Britain and the US. Australia's unique historical circumstances have led to the development of a certain set of attitudes and characteristics that underlie its foreign relation's behaviour. Among other characteristics there has been a dependency syndrome, first with Britain, and then with the US, an acute sense of geographic isolation from the European cultural hearthlands and a corresponding sense of threat from Asia, and an attempt to identify and project an Australian identity to the outside world. Australia's early history was dominated by British outlooks and interests, reflecting the immigrant population that was overwhelmingly of British stock. Australia was a mere home away from home, a far-flung outpos
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The development and future of the nation-state
Humanity's political 'state of nature' has characteristically been defined in terms of small, nomadic family groups with little need for complex organisational structures. Continuously moving across the landscape with tenuous attachment to the land upon which they walked, organisational requirements were simple and perhaps often instinctive. To go to one place or to another was a choice often dictated by environmental or seasonal factors, and upon the limited accumulated generational knowledge of the small collective. That Homo sapiens is a social animal is clear enough; s/he functions poorly and unhappily as an isolate. The family-sized collective group is his/her natural home. From this group there is sufficient mass to successfully perform the full range of survival tasks, such as hunting, gathering, shelter construction. There is also sufficient m
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Globalisation and the Nation-State
It is frequently alleged that the nation-state in the 1990's is at a precarious moment of history, poised to somehow inevitably disintegrate under the pressure of globalisation. It has been a mere decade since this word 'globalisation' started to infiltrate the everyday language of nations worldwide. And like many new catchwords which suddenly enter a language, it's precise meaning can be lost or obscured in amongst the new, exciting and often stimulating concepts which orbit about it; Internet, Free Trade, Borderless World, Information Superhighway, and many others. In fact, globalisation as a process of world economic integration and interdependency is far from being new, and it could be argued that this process has its roots in time immemorial when humanity first found it advantageous to trade surpluses of goods with one another. It is sometime
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Globalisasi, Kedaulatan Nasional dan Konflik Masa Depan
Gary Dean (Universitas Gadjah Mada, NIM 96/111909/EK/13500) Yogyakarta, Desember 1997 Selama dasawarsa belakangan ini kata 'globalisasi' secara berangsur-angsur masuk ke dalam bahasa sehari-hari di negara-negara di seluruh dunia. Tetapi, apa sebenarnya artinya kata 'globalisasi' ini? Seperti banyak kata-kata baru lain yang secara tiba-tiba masuk ke dalam sebuah bahasa, arti sesungguhnya bisa dihilangkan atau dikaburkan di antara konsep-konsep baru yang kedengaran lebih enak dan merangsang, yang berkaitan dengannya; misalnya Internet, Perdagangan Bebas (Free Trade), Dunia tanpa batas (Borderless World), Jalan Raya Informasi (Information Superhighway), dan sebagainya. Thomas Freidman -- seorang penganjur awal gagasan globalisasi -- mendefinisikan globalisasi sebagai "integrasi perdagangan, keuangan, dan informasi yang sedang menciptakan satu pasar global dan kebudayaan tunggal".
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