Realism in Whitlam’s Foreign Policy

ABSTRACT Internationalism and nationalism are the two of the most dominant approaches scholars use to analyse Whitlam’s foreign policy. Whitlam has been depicted as a leader pursuing a more independent Australian stance in international affairs in the era of “new nationalism” and an internationalist who led Australia’s close engagement with the United Nations, its agencies and multilateralism. Both internationalism and nationalism are characteristically seen as special forms of the doctrine of idealism. However, Whitlam’s foreign policy can be better understood as adhering closely to traditional realist theory. His handling of international affairs was not free of pragmatic political calculations: he promoted certain liberal ideals either when they did not matter or when Australia was irrelevant to the outcome. In this way, his foreign policy was liberalism in the abstract and realism in the hard reality.