Electing the Leader: The British Labour Party's Electoral College

This article uses a principal-agent model to explore how leadership selection rules affect the autonomy and security of tenure of the British Labour party's leader. It examines Labour's electoral college, which was intended to enable activists and trade unions to hold the leader to account. However, it had the reverse effect, increasing leaders' autonomy. Nomination rules frustrate activist attempts to instigate leadership contests, while a range of 'transaction costs' rule out anything but the most serious challenges to incumbents. The college was originally dominated by trade unions because block voting enabled union leaders to determine the trajectory of contests. The introduction of 'one member–one vote' curtailed the power of union leaders, shifting power mainly to MPs. The conceptual tools deployed can be used to analyse leadership selection mechanisms in other parties.     

The Exceptional Case of the British Military Bases on Cyprus

As is widely known, Cyprus was the place used as springboard for all the US–British air operations in the region surrounding it, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and so on. However, neither the Republic of Cyprus, nor the breakaway regime in the north of the island had anything to do with that. The logistical hub for those activities were the so-called Sovereign British Military Bases conceded to Britain in the 1960 Zurich Agreement in return for the independence Cyprus gained in the same year. Cyprus is the only place on the planet where the United Kingdom maintains as a legacy of British colonial rule sovereign military bases and a military presence secured as a result of a multilateral treaty of guarantee far surpassing those rights that the United Kingdom had managed to have recognized in the installation of military bases in Burma, Malta and Ceylon. Nevertheless, two things are very remarkable: why has the United States, despite its numerous other facilities in the Near East, preferred those bases for its activities? Why have the British clung on to their bases in Cyprus – in spite of the retreat of British forces from so many bases originally built by the United Kingdom in so many places around the world since 1960, although in comparison with other overseas garrisons still left of the British Empire, the one in Cyprus is the biggest and the most expensive to maintain? The article tries to illuminate the background of this paradox. It examines, based on primary and secondary sources from several countries, the historical evolution and regime of the UK Sovereign Military Bases on Cyprus, which constitute an exceptional case in both international relations and international law. It argues that the operation of the British bases in Cyprus has been exceeding the legal framework determined by the Treaty of Establishment and hardly complies with the British obligation to decolonize the entire territory of the island of Cyprus as well as the right of the Cypriot people to self-determination.     

The Impact of the Dardanelles Campaign on British Policy Towards the Arabs: How Gallipoli Shaped the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence

In 1915, Britain negotiated a deal to persuade the Arabs to join the Allies in the fight against the Ottomans. The Hussein-McMahon correspondence between the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Arthur Henry McMahon, and Sharif Hussein of Mecca was the vehicle for that negotiation. In exchange for opposing the Ottomans, Sharif Hussein demanded an Arab independent area that stretched from the Mediterranean to modern day Iraq and from the Indian Ocean to Syria. The British accepted. Elie Kedourie's argument that McMahon was influenced by the Ottoman army deserter, Muhammad al-Faruqi, has thus far provided historians with the primary detailed reasoning for the British acceptance of Hussein's demands. This article will suggest that insufficient emphasis has been given to the failure of the Allied campaign at Gallipoli, which was a significant reason behind the British desire to negotiate a deal with the Arabs.     

Brismes Lecture: The Future of British Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw draws on his experience and Britain's colonial legacy to argue that while the United Kingdom needs to recognise the effects of past policy and how it is perceived in the Middle East, the UK should not be a prisoner of its legacies from the past. In this annual address to the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) he argues that knowledge should be used to create in-depth understanding that in turn should be built on to create more enduring foreign policy goals. He puts forward a coherent case for a more positive and comprehensive relationship with Iran and Turkey as potential allies in building more stable and yet also more democratic and accountable governments throughout the Middle East. Jack Straw argues that the UK is better placed than many to learn from past mistakes and create more robust strategic goals for the future.     

Studying British government: reconstructing the research agenda

This article seeks to place the study of British government in a broader context by exploring the potential contribution of an anti-foundational epistemology. We seek to 'reinvent' a self-conscious, sceptical and tentative approach rooted in philosophy and history. The first section defines the Westminster model and the family of linked narratives: traditional sceptics, social science, radical theory, new public management. The second section outlines an anti-foundational epistemology, focusing on the notions of traditions, narratives, decentering and dilemmas. The third section applies this approach to one prominent school of thought about British government: policy networks. We argue that an anti-foundational approach will decenter networks, shifting the locus of analysis from the institutions to individuals, and focus on dilemmas to explain how networks change. Finally, we conclude there is no essentialist account of British government, only complex and diverse narratives, and no tool kit for solving problems, only lessons drawn from many stories.