Elizabeth Thurbon

Elizabeth is Deputy Head of School (Research), Scientia Fellow and Associate Professor of International Relations / International Political Economy at the School of Social Sciences, UNSW Sydney. She has also held Visiting Fellowships at Seoul National University (Korea Foundation Fellow) and China Foreign Affairs University. Her research specialism is the political economy of techno-industrial development and change, with a particular focus on East Asia and Australia. Her most significant contributions to the field examine the rise and transformation of Northeast Asia’s developmental states, and the relationship between international trade and financial integration and the pursuit of transformative economic and social goals in Australia and the region. She has written widely on these topics for academic and popular audiences. Her most recent book Developmental Mindset: Revival of Financial Activism in South Korea (2016, Cornell University Press) examines the ways in which developmental ways of thinking have informed a strategic approach to financial policy in South Korea from the 1960s to the present. She is also the co-author (with Linda Weiss and John Mathews) of two popular books on Australian political economy: National Insecurity (2007, Allen & Unwin) and How to Kill a Country (2004, Allen & Unwin), the latter short-listed for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Advancing Public Debate. She has been a regular contributor to public debates on Australian trade and industry policy and was Guest Editor of a 2015 Special Issue of the Australian Journal of International Affairs dedicated to this topic. 

Elizabeth is a Founding Member and Chair of the FASS Globalisation & Governance Research Network. She is also a Board Member of the Jubilee Australia Research Centre, a NGO dedicated to research-based advocacy on questions of social, economic and environmental justice in the Asia-Pacific, with a particular focus on Australian government and corporate accountability: http://www.jubileeaustralia.org/. 

She holds a Ph.D. in Government (International Political Economy) from the University of Sydney. She also completed her Economics (Social Sciences) Degree at Sydney University, where she was awarded first class Honours and the University Medal for Academic Excellence.

Research Areas

Globalisation, development, trade, developmental states and the developmental mindset, government-business relations, industrial transformation, financial activism, institutional/ideational change, state capacity.