Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

In 1951, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States forged the ANZUS Treaty, a tripartite security treaty meant to provide mutual defense between the three parties. By 1985, New Zealand had overhauled its foreign policy and subsequently left the mutual security agreement, thereby downgrading its relationship with the US from an ally to a friend. Meanwhile, Australia stayed party to the agreement, despite the countries sharing similar levels of threat perception, participation in international institutions and economic linkages, and cultural traditions and historical legacies from British colonial rule. Due to the unique similarities between the two countries, this comparative case study utilizes domestic political actor theory to analyze each government’s management of their respective intrastate anti-nuclear movements and their success/failure’s impact on shaping one of the most radical departures from a country’s status quo foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region. Through a retrospective analysis of historical data gathered through British Foreign and Commonwealth archival documents on both Australia and New Zealand, this research compiles a history of anti-nuclear movements in both countries and applies relevant IR theoretical constructs to identify an applicable theoretical causal mechanism for differing alliance trajectories. This work highlights the incoherence within realist approaches to providing a causal mechanism for New Zealand’s departure in light of Australia’s continued persistent relationship. Consequently, this inquiry assists in validating the application of domestic political actor theory, and its corresponding sub-state level of analysis, in contributing to the formation and decomposition of security alliances.