Lowy Institute

To mark International Women’s Day in 2019, the Lowy Institute in partnership with Telstra hosted a special event on the impact of authoritarian regimes on women. Today is the era of the “strongman”, as a new wave of authoritarianism spreads across the globe. In countries as diverse as Russia, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Poland, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines, macho leadership rei...

The latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House, America vs the West: Can the liberal world order be preserved? by Dr Kori Schake, was launched in Canberra on 5 March. Schake, one of America’s most respected foreign policy practitioners, argues that the success of the liberal order is not preordained. It will have to be fought for, compromised for, and rejuvenated. Whether it can...

The United Kingdom faces a fast-approaching but possibly flexible deadline to leave the European Union on 29 March. What are the underlying reasons for the UK’s ambivalence about Europe? Why are both the main political parties split on this subject? Can Prime Minister Theresa May secure a deal acceptable to both Brussels and Westminster? Could there be a second referendum? What will other countrie...

The recent decision by United States President Trump to withdraw US forces from Syria has again focused attention on the ongoing Syrian civil war. The move has been heavily criticised by many in and outside the US, although others have questioned what purpose the forces were serving inside Syria on an ill-defined mission. Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow Anthony Bubalo moderated a panel discussio...

The Lowy Institute hosted this popular annual panel discussion with Institute experts on the key issues likely to dominate the international agenda in 2019. Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove chaired the discussion in Sydney. Also on the panel were Director of Research Alex Oliver, Senior Fellow Richard McGregor, Director of the Southeast Asia Project Ben Bland, and Director of the Internatio...

Lowy Institute’s Executive Director Michael Fullilove and The New York Times editor and columnist Bari Weiss had a conversation about journalism, American politics and society, and the role of the United States in the world under President Donald Trump. Bari Weiss is an op-ed staff editor and columnist for The New York Times on culture and politics. Ms Weiss was previously an op-ed and book review...

China is holding hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in detention camps in Xinjiang, western China, in what appears to be a systematic targeting of an entire ethnic and religious group in the name of national security. After first denying their existence, China now claims the camps are vocational centres designed to combat extremism. The Uighur community, however, tell a different story – of detainee...

The Lowy Institute hosted the President of the Brookings Institution for a conversation about the world. John R. Allen and Michael Fullilove discussed US foreign policy, trends in international politics, and the transformative effects of technology on international affairs. John R. Allen was appointed President of the Brookings Institution in November 2017. He is a retired US Marine Corps four-sta...

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Marise Payne, delivered an address to the Lowy Institute. Senator Payne has served as a Senator for New South Wales since 1997. She served 12 years on the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, including a period as Chair of its Human Rights subcommittee. She was Minister for Human Services from 2013 to 2015 when she assume...

How is China trying to unseat the United States as the dominant power in Asia? What tactics are Beijing using and how is the US responding? The Lowy Institute hosted a panel discussion about China’s challenge to America’s military dominance in Asia, a phenomenon which is upending Australia’s longstanding assumptions about its strategic position in the region. The panel examined the entrepreneurial...

The decision by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union is more than two years old. What will happen on Brexit day on 29 March next year? What kind of deal, if any, will Britain negotiate? What will be the impact on the infighting in British politics and within Prime Minister Theresa May’s government? As the country nears the date set for the conclusion of negotiations with Brussels...

We are now halfway through Donald Trump’s first term as president of the United States. With a polarised US public and a fraying international order, the president faces his first electoral report card since 2016 in the mid-term elections. The results will influence the trajectory of US politics and foreign policy for the next two, and possibly six, years. Lowy Institute Executive Director Dr Mich...

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the global financial crisis and the elevation of the G20 to a leader-level forum. Ten years on, has the G20 fulfilled its promise of improving global economic cooperation, particularly in the current environment of rising geopolitical tension and trade frictions? With only a few weeks until the Buenos Aires Summit, Dr David Gruen, Australia’s G20 Sherpa, dis...

On Monday 29 October the Lowy Institute hosted the Hon Bill Shorten MP, Leader of the Opposition, for a major foreign policy address. Mr Shorten has served as the Leader of the Opposition since 2013. He was first elected as the Member for Maribyrnong at the 2007 Federal election. He served as a Cabinet Minister in the Rudd and Gillard Governments. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio...

In an age of ubiquitous data, the “scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it”. Google’s Chief Economist, Hal R Varian, and Lowy Institute’s International Economy Director Roland Rajah had a discussion on the economics of data, how data can drive innovation and improve our wellbeing, and the debate over its effects on competition and the appropriate role of gove...

On the eve of the visit to Australia by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the Lowy Institute held an event on the issue of the republic and Australia’s place in the world. Constitutional monarchist Julian Leeser MP, Federal Member for Berowra, and Michael Cooney, National Director of the Australian Republic Movement, joined Alex Oliver, Lowy Institute Director of Research, for a panel discussion on...

Professor Robert Cribb of the Australia National University (ANU) delivered a keynote address (30 minutes) on the place of minorities in Indonesia, as part of the 2018 Indonesia Update, presented in cooperation with the ANU. This was followed by a panel discussion (35 minutes) featuring Professor Cribb; Dr Sandra Hamid, the Asia Foundation’s country representative in Indonesia; and Associate Profe...

Tom Power of the Australia National University (ANU) Indonesia Project delivered the 2018 political update (approximately 35 minutes), followed by a panel discussion on Indonesia’s upcoming April 2019 elections (approximately 40 minutes) featuring Power, ANU; Sidney Jones, the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis in Jakarta; and Aaron Connelly, the director of the Southeast Asia Project a...

The international order is under strain. Rising powers want to rewrite the rules, Western leaders are turning inwards, and technology is breaking down barriers. What can middle powers do in response? Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove moderated a discussion with Ralf Beste, Head of Policy Planning at the German Federal Foreign Office, Volker Perthes, Director of the German Institu...

In November, New Caledonia will face an independence referendum. This will bring to an end the Matignon and Noumea Accords, which delivered 30 years of peace after a bloody civil war. France is overseeing preparations. Australia's position continues to be simple support for the full implementation of the 1998 Noumea Accord, including a genuine referendum process. The Accord planned a scheduled han...

The Lowy Institute hosted an address by the Hon Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Samoa. The Pacific is back in international headlines. New partners in the region are contributing to a fast-changing geostrategic landscape, and old partners are ‘stepping up’ in response. But how new are these current dynamics? How do Pacific Islanders view the movements and...

Whether in terms of denuclearisation talks with North Korea, an escalating trade war with China, or the promotion of a concept and strategy for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’, the pace of US statecraft in Asia has been frenetic in recent months. Has the United States reclaimed the initiative in great power competition in the region? Are bold but often contradictory US initiatives unpicking or stre...

Australia now has its fifth prime minister in five years. What does this mean for Australia’s place in the world? Does our reputation as the ‘coup capital of the democratic world’ damage Australia’s international standing? How does it affect our ability to run a coherent foreign policy? And what might we expect from the Morrison government? Four Lowy Institute experts discussed the global implicat...

The future of the Middle East peace process under US President Donald Trump, the use of chemical weapons in Syrian conflict, the implications for the United Nations’ role and its duties – these topics are politically, culturally, and ethically complex and are not easily navigated. The Lowy Institute hosted Mr Nick Kaldas APM, former Director of Internal Oversight Services in the United Nations Rel...

China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea have emerged as the testing ground for great power competition between the US and China, and as a lightning rod for rival claimants in the region, as well as Australia and Japan, to assert their own maritime rights. Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Richard McGregor moderated a panel with other pre-eminent experts on the South China Sea – Wu Shicun, of th...