From 4th March 2011 to 22nd
November 2019, I was a part-time PhD candidate at Australia’s Monash University
in political science. My doctoral thesis ‘The Development of Strategic Culture
in Terrorist Organisations’ (currently under examination) drew on strategic
studies and terrorism studies to advance a new understanding of how terrorist
organisations can grow, evolve, and fail. My qualitative case study was Japan’s
new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo. Here are some of the lessons I learned
from some of the PhD Supervisors and academic scholars who I encountered along
my doctoral journey:
Professor
Arthur D. Shulman
I worked with Professor Shulman in 2008-13 at
Australia’s Victoria University in a three-person Faculty-based Research
Facilitation Unit. At the time, I was working on building a publication track
record as a solo and collaborative researcher whilst also working full-time in
research administration. Professor Shulman convinced me that I needed to do a
PhD and he wrote a recommendation letter to Monash University. He also taught
me about research programs, publications, ethics, and the Lazear-Rosen theory
of “Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts” (Journal of Political Economy, vol. 89, no. 2 (1981): 861-864).
Dr
Andrew (Andy) Butfoy
I had previously done a Masters mini-thesis with Dr
Butfoy on the nuclear strategist Herman Kahn and North Korea’s covert nuclear
weapons development program. Dr Butfoy was familiar with the strategic culture
literature, particularly Professor Alastair Iain Johnston’s seminal contributions
at the University of Michigan (in its doctoral program) and at Harvard
University. Dr Butfoy oversaw my first chapter on the history of strategic
culture in a United States think tank context (the RAND Corporation and the
Hudson Institute), and an unused draft chapter on the history of terrorism
studies. His novel Rogue Republic
(London: Austin Macauley Publishers, 2018) captures Dr Butfoy’s wit and wisdom
about strategic studies and Washington DC’s Beltway politics. After several
years, Dr Butfoy left university teaching to pursue personal interests.
Associate
Professor Benjamin MacQueen
Associate Professor Benjamin MacQueen contributed a
strong grounding in Middle East area studies and research methodology to the
preparations for my PhD’s confirmation of candidature milestone. My original
PhD proposal had an overcomplicated approach that used six different research
methodologies: in discussion with Associate Professor MacQueen, I eventually
refined this down to a single qualitative case study that used process tracing.
He provided critical feedback on my early chapters to strengthen their
scholarship and their original contribution to knowledge. Associate Professor
MacQueen left my PhD candidature to take up a senior administrative post, and contributed
valuable feedback to my Pre-Submission Seminar/Final Review milestone.
Dr
Luke Howie
Dr Howie began as an associate PhD Supervisor due to
his interests in terrorism studies and critical sociology. He became my main
PhD Supervisor throughout most of my PhD candidature. He challenged me to
integrate my earlier period of New Journalism and Disinformation subculture
search engine work into my thesis: I told him I wasn’t in that headspace now
and wanted to write a more conventional United States-style thesis, with
testable hypotheses, methodology, and case study analysis. One of our most
important conversations concerned the timing of when to apply for academic
roles in universities (being ‘on the job market’ after PhD submission), and how
academic book publishing really worked. Dr Howie also taught me to integrate
more data analysis into my thesis and its process tracing methodology.
Dr
Zareh Ghazarian
Dr Ghazarian was an associate PhD Supervisor
throughout much of my PhD candidature with expertise on political parties and
the unique dynamics of micro political parties. This proved invaluable when
considering Aum Shinrikyo’s failed political campaign for the Japanese Diet. Dr
Ghazarian provided editorial feedback on my chapters, guidance on how to
navigate candidature milestones, advice on journal article writing and
publishing, and he is regularly cited by my Swinburne Online students in
undergraduate Australian Politics. Dr Ghazarian’s regular appearances on the
business and finance network Bloomberg highlight how to have an effective media
presence when talking about your discipline or field of expertise.
Associate
Professor Pete Lentini
I took Masters classes in 2005-06 with Associate
Professor Pete Lentini. During my Mid-Candidature Review milestone feedback he
advised me to look at Professor Ian Reader’s scholarship on Aum Shinrikyo: this
was probably the most initiatory-aware analysis of founder Shoko Asahara, and
the Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana-influenced “initiatory, religious
sub-system” in the new religious movement. Associate Professor Lentini joined
my PhD Supervisor team in 2019 to provide two rounds of solid edits on my
thesis manuscript, guidance on two new chapters, advice on new religious
movement and terrorism studies literature, and to oversee the administrative
requirements for my final submission on 22nd November 2019. He also
brought deep expertise about Russian and post-Soviet politics which was useful
to several written but unused chapters that I may develop into future journal
articles.
Professor
Ranjeny Thomas and Helen Roberts
In 2017-18, I worked in Professor Ranjeny Thomas’s
immunology lab team at the University of Queensland, and in the highly secure Translational
Research Institute facility. I would occasionally see Professor Ian Frazer who
developed the Gardasil vaccine. I shared an office with Helen Roberts who along
with Professor Thomas spearheaded the research commercialisation company
Dendright. This was in the context of a medical research environment that was
different to my social sciences background. Amongst the lessons I learned from
Professor Thomas was the importance of mentoring new researchers, and the
definable legacy that this leaves over your academic teaching and research career.
Professor Thomas’s immunology lab was collegial and high performance oriented.
Whilst I had previously been trained in intellectual property, working with
Helen Roberts provided many practical insights about how an IP strategy is
implemented. She also taught me to use PubMed to search for the latest medical
research.
Andrew Calder
In 2017, I worked in a contract consulting role for
Australia’s private university Bond University. Andrew Calder is the Director
of the Office of Research Services, which was a professional, team-oriented,
and supportive environment. One of the insights I gained from colleagues in ORS
was about the common psychological ups and downs of the PhD journey, and why
resilience is really important to long-term success. At Bond, I learned how to
use a Bloomberg finance terminal, read the latest literature on behavioural
economics, and discovered MIT Associate Professor Vipin Narang’s scholarship in
strategic culture in the context of contemporary nuclear strategy. This
influenced my subsequent PhD write-up.
Dr
Michael Cohen
In 2018 whilst at The Australian National University,
I had the opportunity to provide research administration services to Dr Michael
Cohen. Dr Cohen is an expert on nuclear strategy and we were able to discuss
his use of cognitive biases and decision heuristics to study how leadership
dealt with nuclear weapons. I learned more about academic publishing and how to
structure a research program, how to develop projects to interest academic
publishers, and how to use process tracing in the context of archival-based,
historical research. This discovery was a confirmation experience that I could
definitely use process tracing in my doctoral thesis, and could also expand the
potential number of case studies for my post PhD research agenda.
Dr
Andrew (Andy) Kennedy
In 2018 whilst at The Australian National University,
I had the opportunity to provide research services to Dr Andrew Kennedy. Dr
Kennedy was a doctoral student of Harvard University’s Professor Alastair Iain
Johnston, and is an expert in the science and technology strategies of China
and India. Johnston left strategic culture scholarship after what is called the
‘Gray-Johnston’ debate about competing methodological and paradigmatic
approaches. In contrast, Dr Kennedy’s research agenda offered an illustration
of what post-2002, ‘fourth generation’ scholarship on strategic culture in an
emerging multipolar world might resemble. It also highlighted the importance of
field research and languages, when gathering primary data and whilst studying
other countries.
Associate
Professor Wesley Widmaier
In 2018 whilst at The Australian National University,
I had the opportunity to provide research services to Associate Professor
Wesley (Wes) Widmaier. I had first encountered his political economy research
whilst Associate Professor Widmaier was previously at Griffith University. At
the time of my research services work I was writing up a new chapter for my
PhD’s Pre-Submission Seminar/Final Review milestone, and was beginning to
consider the new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo as both a terrorist
organisation and a political economy phenomenon. Associate Professor Widmaier
guided me to some of the relevant literature by John Maynard Keynes and Hyman
Minsky; his own research on cycles of stability, crisis, and change; and the
International Political Economy section of the International Studies
Association. In his research seminars Associate Professor Widmaier also
stressed how theory-building and methodology could support each-other.
Associate Professor Widmaier’s editorship of the Review of International Political Economy journal highlighted the
importance of editorial peer review, and of a research publications strategy.
Dr
Sara Bice
In 2018 whilst at The Australian National University,
I had the opportunity to provide research services to Dr Sara Bice. Together
with my colleague Simon Stack, I worked with Dr Bice to help scope her Next
Generation Engagement Program of research into Australian infrastructure
investment. Whilst I had previously worked with Alexander Osterwalder’s
business model canvas tools, the opportunity to work with Dr Bice meant
considering the impact and engagement of her research agenda for government
policymakers and industry.