Occasional Papers
Occasional Papers (OP) are short publications usually based on a lecture or presentation given at the CIS. Our annual John Bonython and Acton Lectures are part of the OP series.
Categories
The Kingdom of God is Forcefully Advancing and Forceful Men Lay Hold of It
In the CIS’s annual Acton Lecture on Religion and Freedom, Senator David Coltart discusses the application of biblical standards to foreign policy in terms of moral values: forsaking violence as means... Read More
Empires on the Edge of Chaos: The Nasty Fiscal Arithmetic of Imperial Decline
In the 26th John Bonython lecture, Niall Ferguson, one of the world’s leading geo-economic thinkers and best-selling author of The Ascent of Money and The War of the World, discussed the complexity behind... Read More
After the Wall – Reflections on the Legacy of 1989
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it marked the end of the Cold War and of Eastern European communism. Two decades on, The Centre for Independent Studies commemorated the historic events in a discussion... Read More
Anglo Primacy and the End of History: The Deep Roots of Power
The 24th Annual John Bonython Lecture Whether the United States should lead the world is much debated, but American primacy in some form is unavoidable. Lawrence Mead examines that at the end of history,... Read More
Between Two Worlds. Australian Foreign Policy Responses to New and Old Security Dilemmas
Globalisation has connected these two worlds through ease of travel, communications and financial flows, but it has not integrated them. The split is particularly pronounced in the Asia Pacific region,... Read More
Alliance: The View from America
The Occasional Paper aims to 'de-parochialise' the debate in Australia by asking how Americans think about the alliance. Read More
America and the World: The Crisis of Legitimacy
America is suffering a crisis of international legitimacy. So where will it find it? Read More
Morality and Foreign Policy
Owen Harries explores the intellectual heritage of two opposing positions on morality in foreign policy; the hands-off realist school and idealist liberal internationalists. Harries argues that a morality... Read More
Gulliver Unbound - Can America Rule the World?
America's combination of political, military, economic and cultural predominance is without precedent, and there is nothing on the horizon that suggests the speedy demise of its hegemony. However, history... Read More
Has History Restarted Since September 11?
Francis Fukuyama argues that the fracture line over globalisation could turn out to be a division, not between West and the Rest, but between the United States and the Rest. He examines the differing reactions... Read More
Understanding America
Our most urgent need is to understand America - both in terms of what it is and its impact on the world - for current US actions cannot be properly understood unless placed in the wider historical context... Read More
Nationality
Is the nation state the best form of political organisation? Should a country’s borders be based on racial or linguistic lines? Does the presence of ethnic diversity strengthen a community, or weaken... Read More
Economic Control or Economic Development
P.T. Bauer argues that wide-ranging state controls hinder the development of Third World economies. Read More
UNCTAD and the North-South Dialogue
It is common for governments of wester industrialised nations (the ‘North; in the title) to allocate healthy portions of their budgets as aid for under-developed countries (the ‘South’). Dr Minogue... Read More
