Australia, Japan and the United States are moving openly now to balance the rising economic and military power of China, and their primary strategic lever is nuclear energy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how such questions and concepts of resilience may apply in the complex setting of a metropolitan region, that is, to understand what we'll call "regional resilience." How might regions, like individuals, adapt to adversity and stress? What factors account for a region's resilience and how can we...

As Australia’s prominent role in the ‘coalition of the willing’ in Iraq demonstrates, the strategy of cultivating close ties with the Leviathan or – in more contemporary parlance – the hegemon, is alive and well. In this essay Mark Beeson asks whether this is an appropriate strategy at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and...

Richard Engstrom provides a comparative analysis of the methods used to determine electoral boundaries in the United States and Australia. This paper provides an insight into the largely partisan nature of redistribution ('redistricting') in the US and highlights the benefits of the more independent nature of Australian electoral commissions.

Australia's alliance with the United States has never been stronger. This has given rise to a sometimes heated debate in Australia over the degree to which ever-closer relations with our 'great and powerful friend' erodes the independent discretion available to the Australian government. This paper aims to 'de-parochialise' the debate in Australia by turning the...