Security Research Cluster
Email: arts-security-research-cluster-L@monash.edu
Waleed Aly
Greg Barton
Andy Butfoy
Remy Davison (Cluster Leader)
Luke Howie
Pete Lentini
Jude McCulloch
Cluster introduction:
The Security Cluster’s central foci are Social Cohesion and Sustainability; Democracy and Governance; and Security, Crime and Justice. Members of the Security Research Cluster examine the implications of these complex trends for security, understood both in its traditional sense, as protection against military threats, but also in its less conventional sense as human, economic, political or environmental security. Its members research issues including terrorism, piracy, large population movements, surveillance, local and transnational crime, and environment. The focus is upon the nature of these transnational challenges to security, democracy and governance, and upon the normative, legal and institutional responses to these challenges. The Security Research Cluster recognizes and conducts research into the broader notions of security, including ‘human security’, ‘common security’, ‘co-operative security’ and ‘comprehensive security’, and seeks to provide rigorous critical scrutiny to their potential policy implications and applications, both domestically and internationally.
The Security Research Cluster’s objectives are threefold:
- To publish scholarly work in leading national and international publications.
- To secure funding to support both pure and applied research.
- To engage in collaborative research projects, both within the cluster, and with international partners.
Members
Mr. Waleed Aly – Global Terrorism Research Centre
Mr. Aly is the author of People Like Us: How arrogance is dividing Islam and the West (2007). He has published opinion pieces in The Guardian, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is currently researching his postgraduate thesis, entitled ‘Ideological ancestors: Modern Muslim radicalism and the Islamic history of militant heterodoxy’.
Professor Greg Barton – Politics
Greg Barton is Herb Feith Professor and Director of the Centre for Islam and the Modern World. Professor Barton is the biographer of former Indonesian president, Abdurrahman Wahid. He also conducts research into Islam and politics in Turkey. Professor Barton is the author of Abdurrahman Wahid, Muslim Democrat, Indonesian President: a view from the inside (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002; Indonesian translation, 2003). Professor Barton’s other books include Indonesia's Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam (UNSW Press, 2004, and Singapore University Press in 2005).
He is currently working on two other book projects: Progressive Islamic thought and social movements in Indonesia and Turkey (which returns to some of the themes and material he first addressed in his published PhD thesis, Gagasan Islam Liberal); and Islam's Other Nation: a fresh look at Indonesia.
Dr. Andrew Butfoy – Politics
Dr Butfoy undertakes research into the evolving political, strategic and conceptual framework for arms control; the role of nuclear weapons in international relations; and the relationship between US power and world order. His books include Disarming proposals: controlling nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005) and Common Security and Strategic Reform: A Critical Analysis (London: Macmillan and New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997). He has published extensively in the fields of strategic studies and arms control, with articles in leading international journals, such as The Journal of Strategic Studies, Survival, Contemporary Security Policy and the Australian Journal of International Affairs.
Dr. Butfoy’s current research project examines how Washington views the link between its military power and world order.
Dr. Rémy Davison (Cluster Leader) – Politics
Dr. Davison specialises in International Relations and International Political Economy. His books include Foreign Policies of the Great and Emerging Powers (Prentice Hall: Frenchs Forrest NSW, 2008) and The New Global Politics of the Asia-Pacific (Routledge: New York & London, 2004). He has published extensively in the field of international relations, including recent publications on the European Security and Defence Policy and the EU arms industry (2009); EU/G8 strategies to counter terrorist financing and money laundering (2007); and Franco-American security relations (2004). His current research project focuses upon the influence of the US, NATO and the EU upon the transatlantic security architecture.
Dr. Davison’s international collaborations include a 2010 ARC Discovery grant project application on secondary markets in carbon capture storage with Professor C.B. Anderson (University of Leicester); a Monash Strategic Research grant (2008–09) in collaboration with Sichuan University, China (with Professor P. Winand and Professor M. Vicziany); and a co-authored volume with Professor Joern Dosch (University of Leeds) and Associate Professor Michael Connors (City University of Hong Kong). Dr. Davison is also Associate Director of the Monash European and EU Centre; Fellow of the National Europe Centre, Research School of Humanities, Australian National University; and a foundation Research Fellow (1997–current) of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Contemporary Europe Research Centre, University of Melbourne.
Dr. Luke Howie – Behavioural Studies
In his research, Dr Howie explores the meanings and consequences of terrorism for businesses and organisations, particularly those housed in major cities. He also researches post-9/11 screen culture with a particular focus on post-9/11 television. Dr Howie is the author of Terrorism, the Worker and the City: Simulations and Security in a Time of Terror (2009). He is currently working on his second book exploring post-9/11 screen culture. This book is due for release in mid 2010.Dr. Peter Lentini – Politics
Dr. Lentini is the Director of Monash’s Global Terrorism Research Centre (GTREC). His publications include Elections and Political Order in Russia: The Implications of the 1993 Elections to the Federal Assembly (Budapest, New York and London: Central European University Press, 1995) and Regional Security in the Asia Pacific: 9/11 and After (Chelthenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2004).
Dr. Lentini is a specialist on contemporary Russian and post-Soviet politics, the politics of extremism, terrorism and political violence, and identity and media politics. His work on Soviet and post-communist Russian politics appears in Europe-Asia Studies, The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, The Harriman Institute Forum, Coexistence, Russian and Euro-Asian Bulletin, the Lorton Papers series on communism in transition, and the East Europe Forum working papers series.
His research projects include: Islam and Islamism: New Mediations (Funded by Monash University Grant Schemes); Counter-Terrorism Policing for Culturally Diverse Communities (with Associate Professor Pickering) (funded by Australian Research Council Linkage Grant Scheme, in partnership with Victorian Police Counter-Terrorism Coordination Unit). He coordinates the project's media analysis section. In 2009, Dr. Lentini (with Dr. S. Moss and Dr. G. Ilardi) obtained a large ARC Linkage grant of $884,000 over five years (2009–13), in collaboration with Victoria Police, the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, the Australian Federal Police and the Victorian Department of Justice, entitled ‘Radicalisation, Counter Radicalisation, and De Radicalisation: Developing a New Understanding of Terrorism in the Australian Context’. This study will enhance counter terrorism stakeholders' understanding of domestic radicalization. This will assist in designing policies appropriate for Australian circumstances that can: (1) pre-empt, prevent and detect radicalisation without jeopardising social cohesion; and (2) reduce Australia's reliance on overseas counter radicalisation and de radicalisation models, where practitioners confront different community dynamics. Working towards understanding what causes radicalization in Australia, this project offers to enhance national security and by addressing local circumstances, carries the prospect of creating more cost-efficient counter-terrorism practices.
Professor Jude McCulloch – Criminology
Professor McCulloch is currently undertaking a large Australian Research Council- funded project with Professor Mark Peel on the history of community legal centres in Victoria. The project aims to establish the historical and continuing importance of Community Legal Centres in terms of access to justice, law reform and social policy. This includes understanding and documenting their role and impact as an influential training ground for members of the legal profession. This understanding will support centres to engage with and recruit future generations of potential volunteers and workers, and strengthen networks within and between the legal sector and the broader community. Professor McCulloch is continuing to undertake research and scholarship in relation to the ‘war on terror’ in the context of neo-liberal globalisation. In collaboration with Dr Wilson she is also conducting research on police and controlled operations. She co-convenes the Prato International Roundtable on Transnational Crime (with Associate Professor Pickering). Professor McCulloch is on the editorial boards of Current Issues in Criminal Justice and Critical Studies on Terrorism.
International collaborations include the Prato Roundtable on transnational crime in Italy, publications and editing of books and special edition of journals with leading scholars from the Europe, the United States and New Zealand. In 2010 Professor McCulloch will attend an expert roundtable on state crime and resistance in Spain and the International Studies Association conference in New Orleans to be part of a panel on state terror comprising leading scholars from Europe and Australasia.