Explaining Sender–Receiver Gaps in Signalling: Australia’s ‘Pacific Step-up’ and Solomon Islands’ Multi-Alignment

Amidst growing strategic competition, regional powers have intensified their
engagement with Pacific Island Countries (PICs). This article examines Australia’s
‘Pacific Step-up’, a signature foreign policy initiative of the Scott Morrison government
(2018‒2022), from a signalling perspective. Through the Step-up, Australia sought to
affirm its resolve to be partner of choice for PICs. This was not cheap talk but led
Canberra to invest substantially in its ties with the region. Despite this and significant
prior Australian engagement leading to a bilateral security pact, Solomon Islands’
government signed an additional security agreement with China in 2022. How can we
explain this sender–receiver gap? I argue that close attention to the agency of
domestic actors on the receiver side and the context in which such agency occurs –
in this case an extended history of insecurity in the Pacific country – provides us with
analytical leverage when examining concrete instances of signalling.