Dr Brendon O'Connor
 Dr Brendon O'Connor |
Professional Award in Australia-United States Alliance Studies sponosred by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Media Profile
“In Australia, much is made of our importance, or lack of importance, to America without a firm understanding of the conflicts within American politics or how Americans perceive Australia. A more realistic understanding of American interests and perceptions of our alliance would undercut certain anti-American currents."
Dr Brendon O’Connor has won the Fulbright Professional Award in Australian-US Alliance Studies sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This award was established in 2001 to recognise the 50th Anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty and encourage new research and discussion on issues affecting Australia and the United States.
A graduate in Politics from Monash and La Trobe universities, Dr O’Connor’s research has focused on the field of American welfare politics and policy; and more recently on anti-Americanism. His book, published in 2004, A Political History of the American Welfare System has been described as ‘setting the standard of scholarship on the politics of welfare reform’. In 2005 his co-edited book The Rise of anti-Americanism will be published. Dr O’Connor is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and Public Policy at Griffith University.
Through his Fulbright Award, Dr O’Connor will research American national interests and perceptions of Australia. He will specifically look at the viewpoint, that these sensitivities are often more diverse and divergent than is generally acknowledged. He will spend time at the Australian and New Zealand Studies Centres at Georgetown University in Washington DC and the University of Texas, Austin.
The academic political science literature on nation-states is filled with warnings not to overlook the importance of national interest in understanding and predicting the behaviour of states. Having a strong sense of the national interest of different states is undoubtedly a crucial part of international diplomacy for Australia and any other states. One of the benefits of acknowledging the variety of opinion and competing traditions within the U.S. is that it undercuts the one-dimensional anti-American interpretations of America's national interests. Acknowledging diversity and divergence would allow Australia as a nation, to respond to the U.S. in a more nuanced and less polarised fashion.
Dr O’Connor’s research will be a series of semi-structured interviews with U.S. policymakers from the Department of State, Defence Department and the U.S. Congress. This research will result in a series of academic publications and a range of more popular writings, thereby making a significant contribution to our understanding of the U.S. and the Australian-U.S. alliance.
In 2003, Dr O’Connor was the coordinator and academic organiser of the Fulbright Symposium "Are we all Americans now" which featured a group of prominent Australian, U.S. and international speakers discussing the concept and issues of anti-Americanism.