| Current PHD Candidates: | ||
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| Peter Furst | ||
 “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King |
Born
and raised in Sydney, Peter Furst has worked as a television sports
reporter for Network Ten and Foxsports for the best part of the last
decade while completing his Bachelor of Media, Master of International
Relations, and now his PhD. His research interests include international
law, and exposing the gap between what governments say and what they
do. Away from his studies, Peter enjoys travelling, sport and reading. Thesis Title: 'Restricting the International Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons' Supervisor: Mr Tony Palfreeman Research Project: Small arms and light weapons (SALW) are the principle tools of conflict around the world, involved in hundreds of thousands of deaths per year. They facilitate, prolong and intensify conflicts and suffering. Despite
this, many governments not only condone the SALW trade but actively
promote it, viewing these weapons much like any other commodity. The
key governmental justifications for their export are security and
stability, influence and leverage, and economic benefits. This thesis will demonstrate that restricting the trade in SALW will both enhance peace and security and limit death and suffering. Furthermore, using Australia as an example, it will show that the export of SALW can be restricted without undermining a state’s security and stability, influence and leverage, or economy. |
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| Kyoko Hatakeyama | ||
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After
graduating from Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, Kyoko moved to Australia
and enrolled in MIR. She then continued her academic career with a Master
of Arts Honors and is now researching her PhD. Her research interests
are Japan's power and position in the region, which include all policy
areas, not just economy. She hopes to submit her thesis this year. Thesis Title: 'Japan's leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region' Supervisor: Dr Geoffrey Hawker Research Project: Japan has been labelled by many scholars as exceptional, pursuing only economic interests without showing any interests in obtaining political power. My thesis demonstrates, however, that Japan’s ultimate goal is not economic interests. Japan in the post-war period has consistently attempted to be the dominant power in the region. In other words, Japan has attempted to influence the actions of other countries in a way that would be beneficial to Japan’s interests. |
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"Believe
in yourself" |
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| Kutay Kesim | ||
 "To live! Like a tree alone and free; like a forest in brotherhood. This dream is ours!" (Nazim Hikmet) |
Bsc
(Ankara), Msc (ADU), MA (Kent). Kutay commenced his PhD in Politics at Macquarie in 2005 after receiving his MA in European Integration from the University of Kent in the UK, having been awarded the Jean Monnet Scholarship of the European Commission. His PhD study is funded by International Macquarie University Research Scholarship (iMURS). His research interests include European Union politics, agricultural biotechnology regulation, deliberative democracy & public participation in risk regulation and EU-Turkey relations. He also has a keen interest in student politics and holds an executive position at the Macquarie University Postgraduate Representative Association (MUPRA). Thesis Title: 'Quest for Legitimacy in Multi-Level Regulatory Governance: A Comparative Study of the European and Australian Regulations of Genetically Modified Foods' Supervisor: A/Prof Aleksandar (Sasha) Pavkovic, the Department of Politics and International Relations Prof. Robert Fagan, the Department of Human Geography Research Project: The primary focus of his study is the question of how to conceptualise legitimacy of genetically modified foods regulations within a multi-level regulatory governance system. To answer this question, the European Union and Australia have been selected as case studies. Both cases have multi-tiered regulatory systems that have been confronted with legitimacy problems of different kinds. In tackling with these problems, his thesis devotes particular attention to deliberative model of democracy, with a special emphasis on participation in enhancing democratic legitimacy. He uses qualitative methods of research collecting primary data through stakeholder interviews in Europe and Australia (regulatory bodies, environmental and consumer NGOs, interest groups, and life sciences industry). |
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| Kathryn Sturman | ||
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Kathryn
is a Phd candidate under the supervision of Dr Geoffrey Hawker, with
research interests in Africa, Southeast Asia, democracy, humanitarian
intervention and comparative international relations. She has worked
as senior researcher for the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria,
South Africa, from 2002-2004. Prior to this, she worked as a speechwriter
in the Parliament of South Africa from 1997-2001. Kathryn has a BA (Hons)
and MA cum laude in African Politics from the University of Cape Town
(1996). Thesis Title: 'Changing norms of non-intervention in Africa and Southeast Asia, with case studies of the African Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)' Supervisor: Dr Geoffrey Hawker Research Project: Will be posted soon. |
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| Jovo Suscevic (Šušcevic) | ||
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Residing in the sunny seaside community of Wollongong , New South Wales , Jovo has a fascination with Yugoslavia during the Second World War. His particular interest is the Chetnik Movement, the predominantly Serbian, non-communist organisation that operated in Yugoslavia between 1941 and 1945. More generally, he is interested in Serbian history, as well as that of the Balkans and Russia , and in the study of genocide, nationalism, and guerrilla and revolutionary warfare. He is a member of the Australian Republican Movement and the Greens, and his interests include reading (especially nineteenth century Russian literature) and swimming. Academics are generally in agreement that the Chetniks had a hostile disposition towards the non-Serbian population of Yugoslavia and that they sought to create a Great Serbia within Yugoslavia , thereby ensuring the dominance of the Serbs. It is also generally accepted that the Chetniks desired to exterminate and expel large numbers of non-Serbs, both during the war and in the immediate postwar period. The research aims to examine how the Chetnik Movement approached the national question by examining: (1) proposed solutions to the national question produced for private and public viewing by leading personalities in the movement; (2) factors that shaped the production of these proposals; (3) how proposals changed over time; (4) how the national policy was put into practice during the war; and (5) policies towards the non-Serbian population. The aims of the research are to: (1) challenge the idea that the Chetnik Movement developed a unified, coherent policy to address the national question; (2) demonstrate that it made numerous efforts to cooperate with the non-Serbs, and to explain why these efforts were a dismal failure; (3) examine the behaviour of the Chetniks towards the non-Serbian population during the war; and (4) explain why the Chetniks behaved and thought in the manner that they did. Throughout, the emphasis will be on the role played by the leader of the movement, Draža Mihailovic. |
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| What right to hope has any one of us Except in God and in our own two hands? Petar Petrovic-Njegoš, The Mountain Wreath, (1847). |
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| Steve Townsend | ||
 "‘The journey - not the destination" |
Steve
started his working life wanting to be a scientist and was a technical
officer for CSIRO for some years. His father and both brothers were
journalists and, at age 26, the genes took over and Steve also became
a journalist, a speechwriter and a scriptwriter. He wrote mostly on
technical subjects and then started a public relations company specialising
in the computer industry. He opened offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Hong
Kong and Singapore. After 20 years of that he began to feel he wanted
something more intellectually challenging. He retired from day-to-day
involvement in his company to study Middle East Politics at Macquarie.
He graduated with first class honours in 2005. He had researched the
use of the Internet in Middle East political movements for his Reading
Unit and honours thesis. This led him to start his PhD thesis on how
the Internet is influencing political reform in Syria. Within a few
months he realised this wasn't a feasible topic without being able to
read Arabic fluently. He delivered a paper at the WOCMES 2 conference
in Amman in June 2006 on this difficulty and the extent to which it
is possible to use software translation. He changed his topic to one
dealing with another interest of his, oil politics. As a Board member
of the Centre for Middle East & North African Studies, Steve was
an organiser of The Journalist and Islam conference at NSW Parliament
House in December 2006. He was also the convenor of the Macquarie-Newcastle
Humanities Postgraduate Symposium in February 2007. Thesis Title: 'The effects of energy prices on political reform movements in the Middle East' Supervisor: Dr Andrew Vincent Research Project: Conventional wisdom has it that as oil prices rise, political reform declines. As oil prices fall, reform increases. The reasoning behind this is threefold: 1. The rentier effect - oil-rich regimes don't need to tax their subjects so there is little opposition as long as the nation is awash with money and foreign exchange. 2. The repression effect - oil revenues can pay for security forces to repress any opposition. 3. Civil society effect - when most of a nation's wealth is provided by oil rents, there is little development in civil society and other structures necessary to drive reform. However, study of how this applies to individual states in the Middle East reveals interesting deviations and the need for additional explanations. |
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| Sandey Fitzgerald | ||
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BDA
(NIDA), BA (Hons) majoring in Politics and Sociology (Macquarie). Has
lectured and tutored in Sociology for Macquarie University, and currently
convenes two of Macquarie’s on-line Sociology courses, Power,
Difference and Recognition and The Sociology of the Public Sphere, for
Open Universities Australia (OUA). Research interests include theatre
theory, the connections between theatre and politics, the public sphere,
spectatorship and political participation, the regulation of the franchise,
and the theory and practice of design. Thesis Title: ‘The Relationship between Theatre and Politics’ Supervisor: Professor Murray Goot Research Project: An attempt to locate a more nuanced theory of spectatorship for politics through a study of theatre theory and the use of the theatre metaphor for politics, in particular as it applies to spectators and audiences |
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‘"To
despair is base": family motto which the PhD process brings continually
to mind. |
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