ABSTRACT
When I began this research I suspected that one of the major stories that would emerge would be one of relatively stark contrasts between policy-makers at the top, pursuing primarily the national interest, and the implementing staff below them. I suspected I would find the latter would function in the manner of a classic agent, with pressure from NGOs and the interested public sometimes compelling the injection of human rights concerns into the conversation. What I have found is that the norms and realities of rights, especially of social and economic rights, have penetrated the foreign policy-making process in some very real ways, and through some unique avenues. They have done so through international NGOs and their real two-way dialog with major donor states through the G8, UN, OECD and more informal processes of global civil society. The impact of these norms can be seen to a greater extent in states like Britain than it can in either the US or Australia. Policy-makers in the US are too constrained by the US’s global position (and by recent foreign policy choices, including the global ‘war’ on terror). And those in Australia are too constrained by the opposite set of circumstances: so much sense of their own budgetary and military limitations that they must maintain focus on economic security and regional peace. Among other domestic factors that lead to different foreign policy foci, donors’ attitudes to global citizenship, which itself stems from their relative positions in global society, is paramount.
