Matt McDonald

Professor of International Relations

Matt McDonald joined the School of Political Science and International Studies in January 2010. After completing his PhD at UQ in 2003, Matt held lectureship posts in international relations at the University of New South Wales and the University of Birmingham (UK), and was Associate Professor in International Security at the University of Warwick (UK). His research focuses on the relationship between security and climate change, the international politics of climate change, and critical theoretical approaches to security. He has published on these themes in a wide range of journsls, and is the author of Ecological Security: Climate Change and the Construction of Security (Cambridge UP, 2021), Security, the Environment and Emancipation (Routledge 2012) and (with Anthony Burke and Katrina Lee-Koo) Ethics and Global Security (Routledge 2014). He was formerly co-editor of Australian Journal of Politics and History. He has recently completed an ARC-funded project on comparative national approaches to the climate change- security relationship, and established a cross-disciplinary University research network on Climate Politics and Policy.

Selected Publications

Books (Authored)

• Ecological Security: Climate Change and the Construction of Security (Cambridge UP, 2021)
• (with Anthony Burke and Katrina Lee-Koo), Ethics and Global Security: A Cosmopolitan Approach (Routledge, 2014)
• Security, the Environment and Emancipation: Contestation over Environmental Change (Routledge, 2012).

Edited Volumes

• Defence and Climate Change, Contemporary Security Policy, 2026 (online first).
• (with Paul Williams), Security Studies: An Introduction, 4th ed (Routledge, 2023)
• (with Paul Williams), Security Studies: An Introduction, 3rd ed (Routledge, 2018)
• Critical Security in the Asia-Pacific. Special Issue of Critical Studies on Security, 5:3 (2017).
• (with Mark Beeson), The Politics of Climate Change in Australia. Special Issue of Australian Journal of Politics and History, 59:3 (2013).
• (with Tim Dunne), The Politics of Liberal Internationalism, Special Issue of International Politics, 50:1 (2013).
• (with Anthony Burke), Critical Security in the Asia-Pacific (Manchester UP, 2007).

Refereed Journal Articles

• (with Brent Steele), 'On Fire: Western and Indigenous Approaches to Nature in Settler Colonial Societies', Global Environmental Politics (2026), online first.
• 'Emergency Measures? Terrorism and Climate Change on the Security Agenda', European Journal of International Security, 10:1 (2025), pp.115-32.
• 'Fit for Purpose? Climate Change, Security and IR', International Relations, 38:3 (2024), pp.313-30.
• 'Cimate change, security and the institutional prospects for ecological security', Geoforum, 155 (2024), 10496.
• 'Accepting Responsibility? Institutions and the Security Implications of Climate Change', Security Dialogue, 55:3 (2024), pp.293-310.
• (with Susan Park et al), 'Ecological Crises and Ecopolitics Research in Australia', Australian Journal of Politics and History, 71:1 (2024), pp.147-65.
• (with Jonathan Symons et al), 'Australia, we need to talk about Solar Geoengineering', Australian Journal of International Affairs, 78:3 (2024), pp.369-74.
• 'Immovable Objects? Impediments to a UN Security Council Resolution on Climate Change', International Affairs, 99:4 (2023), pp.1635-51.
• 'Geoengineering, Climate Change and Ecological Security', Environmental Politics, 32:4 (2023), 565-85.
• (with Jessica Kirk), ‘The Politics of Exceptionalism: Securitization and COVID-19’, Global Studies Quarterly, 1:3 (2021).
• 'After the Fires? Climate Change and Security in Australia', Australian Journal of Political Science, 56:1 (2021), 1-18.
• ‘Climate Change and Security: Towards an Ecological Security Discourse?’, International Theory, 10:2 (2018), 153-80.
• ‘Critical Security in the Asia-Pacific: An Introduction’, Critical Studies on Security, 5:3 (2017), 237-52.
• ‘Remembering Gallipoli: Anzac, the Great War and Australian Memory Politics’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 63:3 (2017), pp.405-17.
• (with Lee Wilson) ‘Trouble in Paradise? Citizen Militia Groups in Bali, Indonesia’, Security Dialogue, 48:3 (2017), pp.241-58.
• ‘Bourdieu, Environmental NGOs and Australian Climate Politics’, Environmental Politics, 25:6 (2016), pp.1058-78.
• (with Anthony Burke and Katrina Lee-Koo) 'Ethics and Global Security', Journal of Global Security Studies,1:1 (2016), pp. 64-79
• 'Australian Foreign Policy under the Abbott Government: Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics?' Australian Journal of International Affairs 69:6 (2015), pp 651-669.
• ‘Discourses of Climate Security’, Political Geography, 33 (2013), pp.43-51.
• (with Christopher S. Browning),‘The Future of Critical Security Studies: Ethics and the Politics of Security’, European Journal of International Relations 19:2 (2013), pp.235-55.
• 'The Failed Securitization of Climate Change in Australia’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 47:4 (2012), pp.579-92.
• ‘Lest we Forget: The Politics of Memory and Australian Military Intervention’, International Political Sociology, 4:3 (2010), pp.287-302.
• 'Securitization and the Construction of Security', European Journal of International Relations, 14:4 (2008), pp.563-87.
• (with Katharine Gelber) ‘Ethics and Exclusion: Representations of Sovereignty in Australia’s Approach to Asylum-Seekers’, Review of International Studies, 32:2 (2006), pp.269-89.
• ‘Fair Weather Friend? Australia’s Approach to Global Climate Change’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 51:2 (2005), pp. 216-34.
• ‘Human Security and the Construction of Security’, Global Society, 16:3 (2002), pp. 277-95.

Media

Matt has been interviewed on television and radio, and has contributed opinion editorials to ABC News, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Literary Review, Australian Outlook, ABC's The Drum, Insight, the Lowy Interpreter and is a regular contributor to The Conversation. For his recent articles in The Conversation, see here: https://www.theconversation.com/profiles/matt-mcdonald-12655/articles