The Fear of Losing National and Institutional Face: Exploring Australia’s Resistance to World Heritage in Danger Listing

The World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger are prominent examples of listing mechanisms, which have been described as apparatuses in which the reputation of States can rise or fall. As an historically-significant player within the World Heritage regime, Australia has both embraced World Heritage as a tool for global conservation, whilst, at the same time, engaged in protracted political and diplomatic campaigning against In Danger listings for its own sites. In this paper we critically explore and theorise Australia’s resistance to the List of World Heritage in Danger through the concept of ‘face’, addressing how one State Party’s fear of losing face became deeply intertwined with regime’s need to save its institutional face, and foreshadowing broader phenomena of such resistance in the World Heritage regime.