Lowy Institute

The last wave of globalisation delivered enormous economic benefits. But the massive social disruption and displacement fell disproportionately on less-skilled workers, helping to spawn the current populist revolt. The next wave of globalisation, however, might prove different, as emerging technologies combine with global economic forces to create a whole new set of opportunities and challenges. R...

Indonesian President Joko Widodo was decisively re-elected in April but his second, and final, term in office looks set to be anything but plain sailing. The election revealed deep divides in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, with politics polarised along religious lines. The economy remains sluggish despite promises of structural reforms to unlock rapid growth. And Indonesia’s dem...

What does Russia want in the world? The dissident Russian journalist and academic Yevgenia Albats talks to Rules Based Audio host Kelsey Munro about how President Vladimir Putin has successfully dominated Russian politics for two decades; and then former Moscow-based diplomat and veteran analyst Bobo Lo discusses Russian foreign policy and worldview, and whether Russia is forming an authoritarian...

Indonesian President Joko Widodo was decisively re-elected in April but his second, and final, term in office looks set to be anything but plain sailing. The election revealed deep divides in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, with politics polarised along religious lines. The economy remains sluggish despite promises of structural reforms to unlock rapid growth. And Indonesia’s dem...

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is charged with protecting Australia and its citizens from terrorism, foreign interference, espionage, sabotage, and politically motivated violence. ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis gave a public address at the Lowy Institute, followed by a Q&A with the Institute’s Executive Director, Dr Michael Fullilove. Duncan Lewis has served as the Di...

Modern technologies offer enormous opportunities for police and for criminals. Most crimes have a digital element. Rapid technological advances have led to new tools such as facial recognition, camera-equipped drones, and fingerprint scanners. These advances provide enormous amounts of data to be assessed and interpreted, generating a role for artificial intelligence in modern policing. They also...

Anna Fifield, a long-time foreign correspondent, is one of the most knowledgeable journalists writing about North Korea, a nation that has largely walled itself off to outsiders. In her new book, 'The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un,' she draws on her dozen-plus trips to the country to penetrate the layers of myth and propaganda surrounding the young leader and his nuclear...

In this wide-ranging conversation, Bobo Lo and Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove discussed key themes in Russian domestic and foreign policy, including the stability of the Putin regime, the issue of political succession, and Moscow’s growing activism in the Asia-Pacific region. Dr Bobo Lo is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute. He is an independent analyst and an Associat...

Was the Philippines Patient Zero of the disinformation era? Democracy expert Dr Nicole Curato unpacks the role networked disinformation has played in the dramatic and fractious political moment we are living in; and discusses how disruptive populists like Duterte and Trump may be the new normal for democracies. Nicole Curato is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Gl...

The Lowy Institute hosted a discussion with esteemed archaeologist and historian Professor Ian Morris on the forces that drove the rise of the West to global dominance in the 16th–19th centuries and those that now propel China. The Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen chaired this conversation on the patterns of history and what they reveal about the future. Ian Morris is Jean and Rebecca Willard Profes...

It is two decades since a bloody secessionist conflict on Bougainville was settled – first in a truce, and then in a peace agreement that deferred the question of the region’s future political status. In 2019, that question will be answered when the people of Bougainville vote on whether to become independent from Papua New Guinea. Ben Bohane is a photojournalist who has covered Asia and the Pacif...

The withdrawal by the Trump administration from the Obama-era nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) and the subsequent campaign of ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran by the United States in an effort to get a better deal from Tehran, has raised regional tensions to near boiling point. Five ships have been attacked in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, a US drone shot down by an Iranian missile, and an Ir...

Hong Kong is facing the deepest political crisis since it was handed back to China by the United Kingdom in 1997. The partially autonomous Chinese territory has been shaken by weeks of huge democracy protests, and violent clashes between activists, the police and supporters of the Chinese Government. The spark for the latest tensions was a now-suspended bill that would have allowed Hong Kongers to...

Australia, along with many other Western countries, has a strong interest in the ongoing stability of Afghanistan. Not only in the sunk cost in collective blood and treasure but also because we have seen how semi-governed territory provides opportunities for jihadists to plan and train for attacks against the West. Lowy Institute Research Fellow Dr Rodger Shanahan had a discussion with Christine F...

Lowy Institute Research Fellow Ben Bland and Financial Times journalist Primrose Riordan talk about the roots of the ongoing political unrest in Hong Kong, and where it might end. The semi-autonomous Chinese territory is being squeezed by an increasingly authoritarian Beijing, putting pressure on its autonomy and rule of law. The city has been convulsed for over two months by mass protests, includ...

On August 8, the Lowy Institute held the Sydney launch of the latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House Australia, Xi Jinping: The Backlash by Richard McGregor. China’s president Xi Jinping has transformed China at home and abroad with a speed and assertiveness that few foresaw when he came to power in 2012. Finally, he is meeting resistance, both at home among disgruntled offi...

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave a public address at the Lowy Institute on 7 August 2019. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the world’s most important military alliance. Now in its 70th year NATO remains a lynchpin of the liberal world order. Jens Stoltenberg is NATO’s Secretary General, the alliance’s chief civil servant, responsible for coordinating the work of the organisation. H...

On August 5, the Lowy Institute held the Melbourne launch of the latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House Australia, Xi Jinping: The Backlash by Richard McGregor. China’s president Xi Jinping has transformed China at home and abroad with a speed and assertiveness that few foresaw when he came to power in 2012. Finally, he is meeting resistance, both at home among disgruntled o...

With a Brexit-obsessed new Prime Minister in the UK and an unpredictable President in the White House, are Australia's "great and powerful friends", in Menzies' famous phrase, looking quite as close or reliable as they once did? Lowy Institute Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove analyses the state of play in Canberra, Washington and London. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On 30 May 2019, James Marape was sworn in as the eighth Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea. Securing the votes of almost 90 per cent of PNG’s Parliament, Mr Marape has a broad mandate for change following eight years of a Peter O’Neill-led government. The challenges facing the Marape government remain the same. The economy is struggling, and expectations are high for curbing corruption and improvi...

Global wealth and power are shifting eastwards, changing the way the region – and indeed the world – works politically and strategically. Lowy Institute Program Director Hervé Lemahieu, the principal researcher behind the Asia Power Index, and Bonnie Bley, Research Fellow, gave a visual and analytical presentation of the changing distribution of power in Asia. The event marked the Australian launc...

The Lowy Institute hosted one of Australia’s most provocative public commentators, Professor Hugh White. Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Richard McGregor chaired a discussion on Professor White’s new book, How to Defend Australia. Over the past decade, Professor White has set the agenda of Australia’s China debate. This book will do the same for defence policy. Hugh White AO is Professor of Strategic...

Lowy Senior Fellow Richard McGregor discusses the domestic and international reaction to Xi’s centralisation of political control and assertion of Chinese power on the world stage. Xi has removed his own term limits, cracked down on dissidents and purged the party with a popular, ruthless and politically convenient anti-corruption campaign. But with a slowing economy, demographic pressures, and in...

We're talking power in the Asia Pacific. Who's got it, who's losing it, and who's using what they've got in the smartest way? Kelsey Munro talks to the lead researchers on the Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index, Herve Lemahieu and Bonnie Bley, about the implications of their findings about power in Asia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One year after the corruption-tainted government of Najib Razak was ousted in a stunning electoral upset, sentiment in Malaysia has turned from elation to frustration. The motley coalition led by Mahathir Mohamad, the 93-year-old former and now new prime minister, has been weighed down by in-fighting. There are growing fears that he is backsliding on promises to roll back draconian laws and reinvi...