Associate Professor Andrea Benvenuti

My Expertise

International History, Cold War History, International Relations of Europe, European integration, European Union, West European Politics, 20th Century international history; contemporary European history and politics; Modern Italy, European integration history, British foreign policy, Australian foreign policy, US foreign policy, Indian foreign policy and Italian foreign policy.

Keywords

international affairs

diplomacy

foreign policy

defence

Fields of Research (FoR)

International history, International relations, European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman), Asian history, Australian history, Defence studies, Comparative government and politics, Government and politics of Asia and the Pacific

SEO tags

Expanding Knowledge in History and Archaeology

Government and Politics not elsewhere classified

Defence and Security Policy

Biography

Andrea Benvenuti is an Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Educated at Florence University, Monash University and Oxford University, Andrea Benvenuti teaches twentieth-century international history and diplomacy at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His research interests lie in post-1945 international history, with a strong focus on the Cold War in Asia and Europe. He recently published a multi-authored book (with CP Chung, Nicholas Khoo and Andrew Tan), titled China's Foreign Policy: The Emergence of a Great Power (Routledge, 2022) and a sole-authored book titted, Nehru's Bandung: Non-Alignment and Regional Order in Indian Cold War Strategy (Hurst, 2024) https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/nehrus-bandung/ (For the Indian edition, see https://speakingtigerbooks.com/product/nehrus-bandung/). He is working on a new book project titled Nehru and Sukarno and the Struggle for the Leadership of Postcolonial Asia, 1949-1965. He is also completing a collaborative book project that examines the role and impact/influence of Western military power and strategic foreign policy in the ordering and re-ordering of Asia between 1919 and 1989.

My Grants

National University of Singapore/Singapore Ministry of Education Research Grant (2015-2020)

My Qualifications

Laurea in Political Science and International Studies (University of Florence, Italy)

MA by research (Monash University, Australia),

D.Phil in International Relations (Oxford University, UK)

My Research Activities

Current Research Projects

Nehru and Sukarno and the Struggle for the Leadership of Postcolonial Asia, 1949-1965

The book examines the role and influence of India and Indonesia in shaping the future of postcolonial Asia after WWII. In doing so, it focuses on Indian and Indonesian efforts to give a voice to the concerns and aspirations of newly independent Afro-Asian states and create a non-aligned “third force” capable of bridging the East-West divide. In this context, it considers the increasingly diverging visions of regional order advanced by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Indonesian President Sukarno, as the latter prioritised North-South confrontation over non-alignment and peaceful coexistence between Cold War blocs. It also examines their differing understandings of the role and purpose of Afro-Asian internationalism in post-1945 international politics, with Sukarno embracing a revolutionary form of Afro-Asianism, motivated by his antagonism to Western colonialism and neo-colonialism.

Western Military Power and the Shaping of Asia (1919-89)

This collaborative project sponsored by the National University of Singapore and involving a small international team of 7 international and military historians examines the role and impact/influence of Western military power and strategic foreign policy in the ordering and re-ordering of Asia from the Conference of Versailles in 1919 to the end of the Cold War in 1989. Its novel contribution lies in conceptualising the interplay between Western politico-military presence and activity in Asia, Western aspirations for the shaping of Asia, and the emergence of an Asian states system often unresponsive to Western interests and aims.