Who is going to write the urgent histories of tomorrow?

By Lyndon Megarrity In the midst of commemorating 90 years of broadcasting this year, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation announced that it was abolishing 58 specialist librarian and archivist roles, with journalists expected to play an increasing role in sourcing, collecting and cataloguing material.[1] It’s just the latest example of myopic managerialism that has become […]

The Ongoing Crisis in Sri Lanka

By Dr Niro Kandasamy Sri Lankans have taken to the streets to protest the Rajapaksa government. As food supplies dwindle and tensions increase, the president refuses to step down. Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis since independence. The country’s population of 22 million have endured months of severe shortages in food, fuel, […]

The Sri Lankan state is using violence to unleash fury on its citizens, as its political and economic crisis deepens

Niro Kandasamy, University of Sydney The Sri Lankan state is descending into a full blown political and economic crisis, as more people contend with starvation, death and severe disruptions. Now they are also facing the brutal violence of the state. The BBC reports at least nine people died and more than 200 were injured as […]

Sri Lanka scrambles for aid – but Australia still seems preoccupied by boats

Niro Kandasamy, University of Sydney When Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe conceded ten days ago that the Sri Lankan economy has “completely collapsed”, his words would have come as no surprise to the island’s 22 million people. With the country enduring its worst economic crisis since independence, authorities continue to scramble for aid from […]

Are we learning the wrong lessons from history?

Cover Image: ‘Peace for our time’: British prime minister Neville Chamberlain displaying the Anglo-German declaration, known as the Munich Agreement, in September 1938. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA Frank Bongiorno, Australian National University Can historians influence government policy? Should they? And, if so, what kinds of historical knowledge should they produce? I suspect policy-makers only rarely think […]

Friday essay: why soldiers commit war crimes – and what we can do about it

Mia Martin Hobbs, Deakin University The following essay contains disturbing images and language. In 2020, the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force released the Afghanistan Inquiry into Australian Defence Force Special Forces atrocities in Afghanistan. The report – commonly known as the Brereton Report – resulted in a flurry of analysis debating how and why […]

Recording – History and Policy Webinar with Better Governance and Policy

How can lessons from the past effectively inform policy design? Featuring Director of Better Governance and Policy, Professor Michael Mintrom, in conversation with historians, Associate Professor Paula Michaels, Associate Professor Michael Hau, and Dr Carolyn Holbrook. Watch the recording here.

Friday essay: if growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war ever’, what should Australia do?

Hugh White, Australian National University Should Australia join the United States in a war against China to prevent China taking the US’s place as the dominant power in East Asia? Until a few years ago the question would have seemed merely hypothetical, but not anymore. Senior figures in the Morrison government quite explicitly acknowledged that […]

Leadership now: what can history tell us?

James Walter Australians are ‘good at elections’ as Judith Brett has persuasively argued. Our practices of mandatory and preferential voting have saved us from the institutional entrenchment of extremes of opinion that have surfaced in the public domain, and that have pushed parties and politics in, say, the United States, to brinkmanship over positions […]

Can ‘wicked’ policy problems be successfully tackled over time?

By Brian Head There has been a growing literature on ‘wicked problems’, which are generally seen as complex, controversial, intractable and evolving. Both the nature of the ‘problems’ and the best ‘solutions’ are strongly contested by political parties and various stakeholders. The problems are ‘wicked’ in the sense that they are not easily tamed […]

APH Essays