Australia and France’s Mutual Empowerment: Middle Powers’ Strategies for Pacific and Global Challenges

Description

How did France and Australia develop a deep strategic partnership, when only about two decades ago, a group of Australians bombed the French consulate in Perth to protest against French nuclear testing in the Pacific? Which interests, which personalities, which elements of the global context have led France and Australia to engage in a regional and global rapprochement, and what have been the human, economic and political prerequisites which enabled it? This book aims to investigate the dynamics behind this historically ambiguous relationship. More precisely, this study explains why and how France and Australia are currently engaged in a process of strategic and economic mutual empowerment and how this rapprochement has been possible, owing to thirty years of diplomatic efforts to overcome ongoing culturally and historically constructed misunderstandings and conflicts. This book demonstrates how French and Australian foreign policy-makers have understood that, in regard to their numerous common interests, both countries had to mutually empower each other in order to strengthen their own power, regionally and globally. This book argues that these inclusive dynamics of empowerment constitute the response of two diverse middle powers to current global threats and represent a tool suitable for modernising the strategies and practices of both countries’ diplomacies. Soyez’ research is the first to propose an answer to these questions through the development of the French-Australian strategic partnership. Front Matter ....Pages i-xi Introduction (Paul Soyez)....Pages 1-21 Methodological and Theoretical Frameworks (Paul Soyez)....Pages 23-53 Economic Diplomacy, an Innovative Force of the French–Australian Relationship (Paul Soyez)....Pages 55-100 Threatening Australia’s Backyard? French–Australian Tensions on Nuclear Policies and Their Resolution (Paul Soyez)....Pages 101-135 Global Security as a Central Objective of the Bilateral Partnership (Paul Soyez)....Pages 137-178 New Caledonia, Cornerstone of an Ambiguous French–Australian Relationship (Paul Soyez)....Pages 179-210 An Appeased Neighbourhood: French–Australian Cooperation in the South Pacific Region (Paul Soyez)....Pages 211-260 Conclusion (Paul Soyez)....Pages 261-268 Back Matter ....Pages 269-300