Innovations in teaching Australian foreign policy: trust, simulations, and study tours

Both Australia's Foreign Policy and Defence White Papers identify the government's key concerns to be Australia's and the region's peace, prosperity and stability, where the commitment to a rules-based order is central to its prospects. With these aims now contextualised by rapidly changing patterns of regional power, digitalisation and datafication, the development of trusting regional relations in conditions of uncertainty stands at a premium. In this paper, we argue that in the teaching and learning of Australian foreign policy, simulation and international mobility experiential learning can potently develop both discipline-specific knowledge and understanding, and the professional and personal skills integral to diplomatic practice.

Australia as a trusted partner

In a changing international environment, it is important for Australia to be regarded as a trusted international partner and for educators and students to acquire the knowledge and competencies commensurate in fostering this disposition. Rapid changes in the digital and strategic landscapes have resulted in increased uncertainty for Australia. In this environment thus far, strategic competition below the threshold of traditional war blurs the binary lines between war and peace, and explicitly targets the social trust within states, the trust which exists in relationships between states, and as it exists in intermural spaces. When trust is the target and casualty of such strategies, building trust within Australia and in Australia's relationships with international partners becomes a strategic resource (Bienvenue, Rogers, and Troath Citation2018). In Australia's international corporate sector too, a higher premium on engagement can be a means to navigate the disruptive effects of digital technology. Automation may replace a number of jobs, but opportunities for (and importance of) people-to-people engagement may similarly accelerate. With this, social and emotional skills grow rapidly in parallel (Bughin et al.. Citation2018). While sometimes trust is conceptualised in a rationalist or transactional sense, it is important to emphasise that effectively navigating this uncertain environment requires the development of relational trust. Relational forms of trust are built over time through repeated interpersonal interactions which allow for a process of social learning. Positive interpersonal interactions will encourage perceptions of goodwill and confidence, and in the process of social learning in which empathy is crucial, actors are permitted to define their expectations of trustworthiness in regard to one another. It is therefore important for educators to think about how best to develop students' personal and professional skills in a way which is responsive to these challenges. Both in-person simulations and short-term international mobility study tours can contribute to the development of skills and experiences in this space.

Simulation benefits and intent

Research has shown us that the multiplicity of curriculum-based simulation benefits can be observed in subject matter mastery, knowledge retention, and the development of empathy for others (Lave and Wenger Citation1991; Zappile, Beers, and Raymond Citation2017). Similarly, complex scenario simulations can assist students in their development of parallel skills, and critical and creative thinking in their endeavour to grapple with complexity and solve complicated problems (Meschoulam et al. Citation2019; Shellman and Turan Citation2006). Looking to the educator's ability to cater for a diversity of learning approaches, De Freitas (Citation2006) observes that simulations function to promote learning for a broader range of student learning styles beyond those who learn best in visual conditions, with particular application for those who prefer learning in kinetic and aural situations. Simulations can be motivating, assist students who are normally reticent to participate, build a sense of community, and also function as a personally enjoyable experience for the educator (Shaw and Switky Citation2018).

Broader benefits also resonate with the evolution of students' pre-professional identities in the simulation pedagogy. While tertiary institutions promote graduate attributes (Barrie Citation2012), the attention to a pre-professional identity extends beyond skill acquisition to the values and standards commensurate with the profession as well as a capacity to engage in personal practice reflection on their pre-professional identity (Jackson Citation2016; Schech et al. Citation2017). The development of a specific professional identity, however, is rendered more difficult within the generalist degree (Harvey and Shahjahan Citation2013) and in one where identifying work placements in national diplomacy or security is difficult to find. By structuring and integrating connections to industry partners in the simulations and in the wider net of the professional landscape, we can assist students' development of their pre-professional identity. In many ways the in-person, contextualised, and industry-supported simulation constitutes a valuable pathway to the work integrated learning (WIL) experience and work itself.

Aligned with this endeavour is our interest in fostering students' non-technical skills, particularly as they contribute to personal development, pre-professional identity, trust building, and international engagement. Over the past 20 years, collaborative activity in the workspace has increased by over 50 per cent (Cross, Rebele, and Grant Citation2016). Employers are also specifically recruiting for social capital skills, that is employees who have well-developed influencing skills (Sander Citation2017). Over the past decade, we have worked with our partners in Careers and Employability Services to creatively foster the development of the non-technical skills in and around the simulations. World Economic Forum reports identifying key workspace skills over this time have informed our work in this respect. For 2020, the following skills have been deemed relevant to work: analytical thinking and innovation, creativity, critical thinking and analysis, reasoning, complex problem-solving, leadership and social influence, emotional intelligence, and persuasion (World Economic Forum Citation2018). Throughout, we make these skills explicit rather than implied, and integrate the skill application and development into the activities, rather than as an addition. Recently we have understood that learning more about trust per se and the way it is fostered is increasingly important for both the future Australian foreign policy practitioner and for employees more generally.

Simulation practice

Since 2007, when former Defence Minister Kim Beazley joined us for our early work on simulations, we have been developing our practice. To date, our research and experience here and overseas tell us that the features of the more successful simulations include their incorporation within the foreign policy curriculum. The scenario design needs to provide an experience that resonates with the key subject matter components of the curriculum. Deliberative development of trust occurs first within the curriculum context. Initially, trust is explored theoretically before considerations of how it may be practically applied. Students then have the opportunity to apply their trust, knowledge and understanding to policy development in response to two different simulation scenarios where it was observed that students frequently included recommendations which grounded trust in their policy advice. Equally, students experienced the role of trust in their interpersonal relationships as they navigate interpersonal relationships within their groups; interact with simulated ambassadors; present their advice to a panel of experts; and respond to a series of questions relevant to their presentation. Students are thus actively encouraged to reflect upon the role of trust in interpersonal relationships in international relations and in the development of Australian foreign policy.

Design of the simulation incorporates the student's encounter with ill-defined problems where the onus lies with them to identify the problem(s). So too, the hypothetical scenario is ‘pseudo-real’ (Susskind and Corburn Citation1999), incorporating a dynamically arranged mix of historical incidents with events we judge possible together with pressures on and prospective changes in relationships in Australia's foreign policy space. Students, working in groups as foreign policy or defence bureaucrats, therefore are not directed by past policymaker decisions as specific case study teaching prescribes. For students, once the problem is defined, they work to negotiate policy advice that is aligned with their Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) or Defence role. Good decision-making is discussed in preparation sessions too, with attention to appropriate problem-framing based on a set of advice including the need for credible information, goals that align departmentally, and the aim to produce achievable, creative, and logical recommendations.Footnote¹ Work integrated learning considerations in the generalist degree are addressed by bringing industry partners to the students. Variously DFAT, Defence, military, and think tank experts have joined us in assisting to shape students' policy advice and review their presentations. Debriefing the students is an important part of the process too, especially as the experience (including an in-role question and answer panel session) is demanding for many. Reviewing the scenario in its problem framing, subject matter, course of events, and recommendations embeds the learning, responds to questions, and presents an opportunity to reinforce the Australian foreign policy course aims. Affording students the opportunity to reflect on, and revise their approach and performance in a further simulation scheduled the following week can have considerable personal benefit and one that is often more personally satisfying for them. In the second simulation they can take up the policy review of the first simulation and also the non-technical skill advice provided to them from the Careers staff to improve their analytical and policymaking processing and relationship with their new ‘colleagues’. Having observed how others respond, they also have the opportunity to learn from their peers. Elsewhere we have documented specific advice on the conduct of the Australian foreign policy simulations (Kelton and Kingsmill Citation2016), and in the international development and international relations space as mediated by information, communication, and technology (see Schech et al. Citation2017).

Study tours, public diplomacy, and diplomatic skill

Partnering the simulation practice are learning opportunities located in the region. Experiential learning in Australian foreign policy comes to the fore in the opportunities presented by short term in-country study tours. For us, DFAT's New Colombo Plan-sponsored programs to Indonesia over the previous four years have provided our students with multilayered opportunities to understand an essential relationship in Australian regional relations and public diplomacy. Through these programs not only do we work with students to understand more about Indonesia, but more from Indonesia. Over this period and in-country experience we learn from our Indonesian counterparts, on subject matters including Indonesia's socio-economic and political history, including Indonesia's diverse polity, the origins and effects of its status as an archipelagic state; the origins and assertions of Indonesian foreign policy and non-alignment policies; the historic links between peoples in northern Australia and the Bugis-Makassan traders of southern Sulawesi; the current Indonesian assessment of international challenges; and Indonesia's perspective on the bilateral relationship. Together, we have considered questions such as: how does Indonesia, as our regional partner, understand accelerated regional change? How does Indonesia conceive and respond to rising great power rivalry within the region? How are the variations in Australia‒Indonesia bilateral relations understood with a view to the amelioration of problems? Are there possibilities for sub-strategic maritime partnerships that may constitute an effective building block to better bilateral relations? And now, as we exist together and increasingly within the challenges of a machine-mediated digital age, where digitalisation cross-cuts the traditional analyses of national security, what are the possibilities for interpersonal trust to securitise the relationship more substantially?

Hence, through a range of multilevel diplomacy activities, students are actively engaged in the first-hand minutiae of trust-building in ‘people-to-people’ relationships. In intense short-term mobility programs students must collaborate effectively with their home university peers and staff, Indonesian student liaisons and staff, Australian and Indonesian diplomats, and people from the corporate sector in both formal public and casual situations. Often students are experiencing new cultural situations and forming relationships across cultures. Students are similarly able to experience the value of trust on an interpersonal level as they are actively engaged in building personal and professional relationships throughout the tour. Being able to not only learn about the role of trust in theory, but actively apply it and experience it on a personal level, is invaluable in ensuring students develop the knowledge and competencies required for the challenges facing Australian foreign policy. We work hard with students to navigate the demands of collaboration, resilience, and trust and for them to value and live out a positive experience in doing so, all of which contribute to the development of students' pre-professional competencies and identity; in some cases, for students who have had limited intercultural and travel opportunities, the experience can be transformative. For students who participate in both the Australian foreign policy subject together with the Indonesian study tour, the effect can be quite developmental.

What next?

Previously we have worked in the traditional areas of foreign policy research and teaching. The increasingly pervasive theme to which we are now working concerns an understanding of how Australian and regional democracies are affected by new digital age networks of power and trust. As a result, the pressures on relationships, institutions, and governments are rising and expanding fast. Our vulnerability to social fracture is coming at a time of increasing great power rivalry in a unified threat environment and in the blurred spaces of competition and conflict. Research in this area and in experiential learning have been important influences on the way we are updating our curriculum and simulation practice. We know we need to work together with our students in the educational experience tracing the path from digital literacy, through the comprehension of new foreign and domestic, state and corporate threats, to the way that trust can be valued, enacted, and supported in response. Our next step is to weave these themes through all aspects of our Australian foreign policy curriculum.