SIGNUP FOR eNEWS
UPCOMING EVENTS
LATEST NEWS
Home > Research > Governing for Security Research Program > Historical Threats and Capabilities
Historical Threats and Capabilities
Using historical methodologies, this project examines the problems faced by democratic societies in developing policing and security strategies dealing with terrorism and threats to security. Key questions for this research include:
- What kinds of legal and policing frameworks have characterised the responses of democratic societies to political violence and terrorism?
- To what degree and with what impacts on other values and institutions have agencies responsible for dealing with political violence developed their capacity for intelligence and response to political violence?
- How far are historical state responses to political violence generic or particular, and with what consequences for political and social values and cultures?
The focus is on the Australian experience, within a comparative context that examines other institutional and legal responses to terrorism and social disaffection.
Professor Mark Finnane continued his ARC Fellowship research on “responses to violence in Australian history”, with a focus this year on writing a book (with Dr Heather Douglas, University of Queensland) on Australian criminal law’s response to historical patterns of Indigenous violence and the valence of customary law. His continuing research with John Myrtle on the history of Australian policing and security resulted in a further journal publication (for 2011).
A significant objective in 2010 was the advancement of collaboration with international scholars Professor Emsley, Dr Sinclair and Professor Hill on research on colonial and post-colonial policing models, and the transmission across national and international borders of British models of policing. In October, the project team hosted a workshop in Canberra on the history of security policing as a means of advancing this work and connecting with other research being conducted on the history of intelligence agencies such as ASIO and MI5.
During the year, Dr Bruce Buchan commenced his tenure of an ARC Future Fellowship on the history of asymmetric warfare. As part of his continuing research on the history of Enlightenment conceptualisations of warfare, he also accepted a three month Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh.
Late in the year, we were joined by Dr Yorick Smaal, appointed as a Griffith Post-doctoral Fellow to continue his research on a range of projects to do with the policing and prosecution of sexual offences.
The developing international partnerships in this project included the organisation of an international workshop on contemporary criminal justice reform in China. Organised by CEPS Associate Investigator and ARC QEII Fellow Dr Sue Trevaskes and Professor Mark Finnane, the workshop was supported by a Griffith University International Workshop Award, as well as CEPS resources. The workshop hosted three leading Chinese criminal justice researchers and practitioners, Professor Lu Jianping (Beijing Normal University), Professor Liang Genlin (Peking University) and Professor Tian Wenchang (a leading legal practitioner and also visiting professor at Peking University). Discussion of criminal justice policy and practice in China by these researchers in dialogue with CEPS researchers provided a unique opportunity to improve understanding of diverse criminal justice system responses to serious crime and other threats. The workshop is a further step in building a strong future research partnership between leading Chinese researchers and CEPS scholars working in criminal justice policy and practice. A complementary workshop was also conducted in Canberra with the support of the ANU College of Law and the Centre for China in the World.
Professor Mark Finnane (Chief Investigator)
Dr Bruce Buchan (Associate Investigator and ARC Future Fellow)
Professor Clive Emsley (Associate Investigator)
Mr John Myrtle (Associate Investigator)
Professor Richard Hill (Associate Investigator)
Dr Georgina Sinclair
Dr Yorick Smaal (Research Fellow)
