Read more about our Contributors

Benjamin Fullarton is a PhD student in International Relations at the Australian National University. His research examines the politics of climate change, the environment, and resource extraction, as well as the wider politics and foreign policy of Australia, the United States, and the Pacific Islands Region. Previously, he worked as a policy advisor within the Australian Government, and prior to that, was a campaign strategist and political advisor within the Australian Labor Party and the wider labour movement.

Dr Seohee Kwak is a lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Her academic interests include contentious politics, intra-and interstate conflict, state repression, and democratic and authoritarian governance, with a geographic focus on East Asia.

Cleo Anne A. Calimbahin is a Senior Research Fellow at the ANU Philippines Institute and a Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science and Development Studies at De La Salle University-Manila (DLSU-Manila). Among her publications are 'Mapping the Philippines' Defective Democracy' with Julio Teehankee and ‘Democratic backsliding in the Philippines: Are voters becoming illiberal?’ with Yuko Kasuya. She co-edited the book, Patronage Democracy in the Philippines: Clans, Clients and Competition in Local Elections. The book received the 2024 Outstanding Book Award in the Social Sciences from the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST).

Meg Randolph is a current doctoral candidate at Monash University in Melbourne. Her research investigates the influence of Australia's offshore detention policies in the United Kingdom and Denmark from 2001.

Dr Henrietta McNeill is a Research Fellow (Pacific Security, Geopolitics, Regionalism) in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the ANU. Her research focus is Pacific regional security and the security-migration nexus, particularly transnational crime, criminal deportations, border security, citizenship, and security cooperation. Henrietta holds a PhD from the ANU examining the securitisation of criminal deportation to the Pacific Islands, particularly Tonga, Samoa and Cook Islands.

Dr Lorena Rivas is a Research Fellow in the Griffith Criminology Institute at Griffith University. Her research interests are primarily around vulnerable populations, in particular women, in the areas of immigration detention, human rights, incarceration, and atrocity crimes.

Tatiana Gélvez-Rubio is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics, Universidad Externado de Colombia. PhD in Government from the University of Essex (UK); MSc in International Comparative Studies from the University of Southampton (UK); Economist from Universidad Externado de Colombia. Her research focuses on International Political Economy, Gender and Economics, and the use of statistical and econometric analysis to support public decision-making.

Dr Joshua Shifrinson is an Associate Professor of International Policy with the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, and a Non-Resident Senior Foreign Policy Fellow with the Cato Institute. A graduate of Brandeis University (BA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD), Shifrinson’s research focuses on great power politics, international security, and US foreign policy. The author of Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts and co-editor of Evaluating NATO Enlargement, his research has also appeared with Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, International Security, and other venues. Shifrinson is currently working on a book investigating when and why grand strategy goes awry, with heavy emphasis on post-Cold War US policy toward NATO.

Usman Haider has an MPhil degree in Strategic Studies from the National Defense University, Islamabad, Pakistan. The author is published on various platforms like The Diplomat, South Asian voices, South China Morning Post, Real Clear Defense, and many others.

Dr Shay Keinan gained a PhD from the College of Law at the Australian National University (ANU) and is a sessional academic at the University of Canberra (UC) and ANU.