scholarly journals Elite–mass agreement in British foreign policy

2022 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-262
Author(s):  
Srdjan Vucetic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
British Society ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Main Concept ◽  
Policy Ideas ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Analysis Of Dynamics ◽  
The One

Abstract Thirty years ago, William Wallace likened British foreign policy to a musical tug-of-war between the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ and ‘Europeans’, attributing ‘all the best tunes’ to the former. This article revisits Wallace's thesis and its main concept: national identity. It finds that Wallace was right to draw attention to the power of the ruling elite to shape Englishness and Britishness. However, the article also finds that ‘global’ foreign policy ideas were never the exclusive province of a segment of the British elite. Rather, they circulated in English and more broadly British society writ large, reflecting and reinforcing deep-seated, even unselfconscious, agreements between both ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and ‘European’ elites on the one hand, and much of the mass consumer public on the other. It follows that the constraints posed on possibilities of foreign policy change were always greater than Wallace had suggested; that a ‘lesser’ British foreign policy that was, and still is, so hard to imagine for the British is significant for analysis of dynamics of ‘western’ knowledge production that come under critique in this special issue. But rather than focusing exclusively on elites, critical analyses of knowledge exchange should be attuned to popular common sense, too.

scholarly journals Elite-Mass Agreement in British Foreign Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srdjan Vucetic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Identity ◽  
The Other ◽  
British Society ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Main Concept ◽  
Policy Ideas ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Policy Change

Thirty years ago, William Wallace likened British foreign policy to a musical tug-of-war between the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ and ‘Europeans’, attributing ‘all the best tunes’ to the former. This study revisits Wallace’s thesis and its main concept, national identity. It finds that Wallace was right to draw attention to the power of the ruling elite to shape Englishness and Britishness. However, the study also finds that ‘global’ foreign policy ideas were never the exclusive province of a segment of the British elite. Rather, they circulated in English and more broadly British society writ large, reflecting and reinforcing deep seated, even unselfconscious agreements between both ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and ‘European’ elites, on one hand, and much of the mass consumer public, on the other. It follows that the constraints posed on possibilities of foreign policy change were always greater than Wallace had suggested.

The British Admiralty Records as a Source for African History

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 161-175
Author(s):  
Melvin Hendrix
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Defense ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Naval Power ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Tropical Areas ◽  
The One

What is more characteristically English than the Navy?The relationship between naval power and British sovereignty is one of long standing in British foreign policy. This was especially evident in the nineteenth century, when Britain achieved almost unchallenged global naval pre-eminence following the Napoleonic Wars, keeping order in a world that British commercial interests were creating. As a consequence, the traditional role of the navy as a national defense force was changing dramatically to that of an international policeman on the one hand and surrogate statesman on the other. These two roles were generally most pronounced in the emerging tropical areas of trade in Asia, Africa, and South America.It is in relation to Africa that this essay is concerned, and over the course of the nineteenth century, the influence of the Royal Navy on African societies was an evolving, but considerable, force--as surveyor, policeman, employer, ally, adversary, diplomat, and enforcer. On the whole, Britain's Africa policy throughout much of the century was based on the suppression of the slave trade, while simultaneously providing protection for British citizens promoting “legitimate” commercial interests.Since the trade in slaves from Africa was chiefly a maritime enterprise, its navy became the chief instrument for implementing these foreign policy objectives, a role that shifted in the second half of the century to a more direct imperialist posture.

Simon and Eden at the Foreign Office, 1931–1935

1994 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-52
Author(s):  
David Dutton
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Government ◽  
General Election ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Public Mind ◽  
The Public ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Standing Up ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The One

This is according to Protocol. More briefly ‘Dear Anthony meet me at Geneva. Yrs. Cleopatra’Very few of the figures who held responsibility for the making and direction of British foreign policy in the 1930s did so with much benefit to their subsequent historical reputations. Three of the four men who occupied the post of Foreign Secretary after the General Election of 1931 appeared in the cast list of the ‘Guilty Men’, vilified by the triumvirate of left-wing journalists who wrote under the pseudonym of ‘Cato’ in the dramatic summer of 1940. That vilification has been only partially redeemed by the efforts of later revisionist biographers. Certainly, Sir John Simon, Sir Samuel Hoare and Lord Halifax all left the Foreign Office with their political reputations lower in the public mind than at the time of taking office. The exception to this experience was, of course, the case of Anthony Eden who, at the time of his resignation in February 1938 after more than six years as a member of the National Government, stood, in Churchill's famous words, as the ‘one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawling tides of drift and surrender’. The making of his reputation had begun in the early 1930s when Eden occupied only subordinate office within the administration. Yet an examination of the making of British foreign policy in the years 1931–5 will show that popular perceptions of Eden's position and of an apparently serious rift between him and his departmental superior were somewhat misleading.

scholarly journals France and the responsibility to protect: a tale of two norms

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-387
Author(s):  
Eglantine Staunton
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Norms ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norm Diffusion ◽  
Gareth Evans ◽  
Elite Interviews ◽  
The One ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Do So

Although France has been a key actor of human protection since the 1980s, the existing literature often adopts an Anglo-Saxon focus or concentrates on states which have been reluctant to see international norms of human protection develop. As a consequence, it overlooks France’s central role in the development of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which can be seen as the leading norm of human protection today. In turn, the growing influence R2P has had on France’s conception and practice of human protection – and on its foreign policy more generally – remains unexplored. This article is the first of its kind to correct these oversights by examining France’s relationship to R2P from its emergence till date. It argues that to do so, we need to analyse the evolving relationship of two interconnected – yet distinct – norms: France’s domestic norm of human protection on the one hand, and the international norm of R2P on the other. It builds on the constructivist literature to offer a theoretical framework that allows the study of this tale of two norms and draws upon elite interviews of key actors such as Gareth Evans and Bernard Kouchner to provide a unique understanding of France’s relationship to R2P. Through this tale of two norms, the article reshapes our understanding of both R2P and France’s past and current foreign policy. In addition, it contributes to the literature on norm diffusion, in particular by deepening our understanding of how domestic and international norms interplay.

Gendering Emotions: Ṭarab, Women and Musical Performance in Three Biographical Narratives from ‘The Book of Songs’

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-183
Author(s):  
Karen Moukheiber
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Slave Women ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
Literary Biographies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Book Of Songs

Musical performance was a distinctive feature of urban culture in the formative period of Islamic history. At the court of the Abbasid caliphs, and in the residences of the ruling elite, men and women singers performed to predominantly male audiences. The success of a performer was linked to his or her ability to elicit ṭarab, namely a spectrum of emotions and affects, in their audiences. Ṭarab was criticized by religious scholars due, in part, to the controversial performances at court of slave women singers depicted as using music to induce passion in men, diverting them from normative ethical social conduct. This critique, in turn, shaped the ethical boundaries of musical performances and affective responses to them. Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Aghānī (‘The Book of Songs’) compiles literary biographies of prominent male and female singers from the formative period of Islamic history. It offers rich descriptions of musical performances as well as ensuing manifestations of ṭarab in audiences, revealing at times the polemics with which they were associated. Investigating three biographical narratives from Kitāb al-Aghānī, this paper seeks to answer the following question: How did emotions, gender and status shape on the one hand the musical performances of women singers and on the other their audiences’ emotional responses, holistically referred to as ṭarab. Through this question, this paper seeks to nuance and complicate our understanding of the constraints and opportunities that shaped slave and free women's musical performances, as well as men's performances, at the Abbasid court.

British foreign policy towards the Palestinian cause since 2003

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Mustafa Ibrahim Salman Al - Shammari ◽  
Dhari Sarhan Hammadi Al-Hamdani
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Topic Area ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Settlement Policy ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Palestinian Question ◽  
Theresa May

The topic area of that’s paper dealing with role of Britain in established of Israel, so the paper argued the historical developments of Palestinian question and Role of Britain Government toward peace process since 1992, and then its insight toward plan of Palestinian State. That’s paper also argued the British Policy toward Israeli violations toward Palestinians people, and increased with settlement policy by many procedures like demolition of houses, or lands confiscation, the researcher argued the Britain position toward that’s violations beside the political developments which happens in Britain after Theresa May took over the power in Ten Downing Street

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