Dr. Ashton Robinson

Biography

Ashton Robinson is an academic born in Waratah, New South Wales, who earned a Master’s degree in African history from the Australian National University. He began his career in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra, followed by significant contributions to the Government Defence Intelligence Organisation and the Iraq Survey Group in Baghdad. His work involved long-term strategic issues pertaining to terrorism and transnational crime, with a particular focus on Africa. His experiences in Iraq were essential for his book, 'Meeting Saddam's Men'. In the 1980s, he worked as an Assistant Editor on volumes documenting Australian foreign policy from the 1940s. He has lectured intermittently at various universities, including the University of Wollongong, Sydney, La Trobe University, and at military establishments such as the Australian Defence Force Academy and the Australian Command Staff College. From 2016 to 2023, he served as an Honorary Fellow at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include sovereign risk in Africa, financial intelligence, and governance, with a focus on Seychelles, as reflected in his book titled 'Rene: Postcolonial Seychelles'. In 2023, he joined the Strategic Defence Studies Centre at ANU and contributes to the Lowy Institute's Interpreter blog.

Research Interests

Experience