Neoclassical realism and Australian foreign policy: understanding how security elites frame domestic discourses

This article uses neoclassical realism to explore how foreign policy elites in Australia frame domestic debates so as to prevent certain ideas interfering with security responses. It does this by presenting a typology that seeks to understand elite dynamics in Australia by capturing three different elite responses – dilution, deflection and inflation. Taken together, these explain how elites mitigate potentially problematic domestic policy contests by pulling ideas towards the centre of debates, and marginalizing others, depending on the issue involved.