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Patricia O’Brien

Patricia O’Brien

Dr. Patricia O’Brien is a historian, author, analyst and commentator on Australia and Oceania. She is a faculty member in Asian Studies at Georgetown University and in the Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University.

Patricia O’Brien is a wide-ranging historian and analyst of Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. She is the author of “Tautai: Sāmoa, World History and the Life and Ta’isi O. F. Nelson” (2017), “The Pacific Muse: Exotic Femininity and the Colonial Pacific” (2006), and is co-editor of “League of Nations: Histories, Legacies and Impact” (2018) and numerous other works. She was the resident Australian and Pacific historian at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., from 2000-2013, the Jay I. Kislak Fellow in American Studies at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress in 2011, and the J. D. Stout Fellow in New Zealand Studies at Victoria University Wellington in 2012. From 2014-2019 she was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the School of History, Australian National University, Canberra.

In 2020, she returned to Georgetown University’s Asian Studies Program to teach on Pacific pasts, presents, and futures. As well as ongoing historical writing and research, she has done analysis, podcasts, and media commentary on Pacific-related topics, including Samoa’s constitutional crisis, regional relations with Papua New Guinea, U.S. atomic testing in the Marshall Islands, the current Compact of Free Association negotiations, the AUKUS agreement, and COVID-19 in the Pacific and U.S.-based Pasifika communities. In 2021, she also joined the Australian National University’s Department of Pacific Affairs as a visiting fellow and she was a fellow with the Pacific Partners Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC from 2021-2023.

 

Posts by Patricia O’Brien
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January 18, 2024

Nauru’s Geopolitical Clout  

By Patricia O’Brien
The diplomatic battle between Taipei and Beijing is but one arena where Nauru is flexing muscle that greatly exceeds its demographic and geographic size.
January 09, 2024

Australia’s Start to 2024 Sets the Stage for a Challenging Year

By Patricia O’Brien
At 2023 came to a close, Australia found itself facing a bevy of difficult issues both at home and abroad.

November 14, 2023

Bougainville’s President Toroama Goes to Washington

By Patricia O’Brien
The people of Bougainville, President Ishmael Toroama, says, “do want their freedom and do want justice.” Will the U.S. support that quest or leave an opening for China?

October 30, 2023

Can the Australia-US Alliance Overcome Fraught Politics in Washington?

By Patricia O’Brien
Biden and Albanese might be in lockstep, but actualizing AUKUS requires U.S. congressional support that cannot be guaranteed, even at this high point of Australia-U.S. relations.

October 16, 2023

Australia Says ‘No’ to Indigenous Voice

By Patricia O’Brien
The Indigenous Voice to Parliament has been strangled by hands seeking short-term political gains.
October 10, 2023

‘Oppenheimer,’ Nuclear Amnesia, and the US Pacific Legacy

By Patricia O’Brien
At the very time the Marshall Islands COFA negotiations began to falter over the U.S. atomic legacy, “Oppenheimer” appeared in cinemas.

September 28, 2023

US Pacific Policy Forges Ahead With Successful 2nd Summit

By Patricia O’Brien
Despite domestic political headwinds, Biden’s engagement at the second U.S.-Pacific Islands summit was welcomed, as were newly announced funds, initiatives and an expanding diplomatic footprint.
September 22, 2023

What to Expect From the 2nd US-Pacific Islands Summit

By Patricia O’Brien
The upcoming summit represents the crowning event of Washington’s explosive re-engagement with the Pacific Islands.

September 15, 2023

2 Years On, AUKUS Continues to Raise Questions

By Patricia O’Brien
China obviously has concerns about the security pact, but so do some of Australia's friends and partners – and Australians themselves.

August 23, 2023

The Politics and Geopolitics of Women’s Sport in the Pacific

By Patricia O’Brien
The lack of Pacific women in Australian and New Zealand stadiums speaks to something amiss with Australia’s sports diplomacy.

May 01, 2023

China in the Pacific: The Fiji Case

By Patricia O’Brien
The specter of geostrategic competition being mapped onto Fiji’s political fault lines remains a distinct possibility that would be deeply damaging for the nation, and region, as a whole.
February 28, 2023

In Fiji, Bainimarama Suspended From Parliament Until 2026

By Patricia O’Brien
Despite Rabuka’s thin majority, his government has wasted no time in systematically dismantling Bainimarama’s extensive power base.

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