Sport,Empire, and Diplomacy: “Ireland” at the 1930 British Empire Games

ABSTRACT

International sport, as Geoffrey Pigman has correctly observed, emerged “as a quintessential case study demonstrating the part that public diplomacy plays in contemporary diplomacy.” The British Empire Games/Commonwealth Games [BEG/CG] are one such example, being the second largest multi-national multi-sport event today. Their origins lie in the interwar era when members of sporting organisations, many of whom were active in other formal aspects of public life, considered the organisation of specific Imperial events through international networking. Described as lacking a “thoroughly analytical and interpretive account of their history,” questions of identity politics, public diplomacy and statecraft are at their core because the BEG, inaugurated in 1930, represented qualities and values that appealed to governments, civil society, and sportspeople alike. In the waning of the British Empire, the BEG was one attempt to maintain Imperial prestige and cement cultural bonds. Yet, not only is there an absence of analytical accounts of their history, but the inter-relationships between the BEG and diplomacy, and among global sport and diplomacy more broadly, have been similarly under-investigated. This absence is striking, representing a missed opportunity in understanding the development of global sport and international relations more generally.     

Tweaking the Lion's Tail: Edgar J. Tarr,the Canadian Institute of International Affairs,and the British Empire, 1931–1950

In its first 2 decades the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), Canada's premier foreign policy think tank, never functioned merely as a neutral and apolitical research organization. Under the leadership of Edgar Tarr, president of the Monarch Life Assurance Company, and in its capacity as the Canadian Council of the transnational Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), in the 1930s and 1940s the CIIA became an instrument that championed Canadian national autonomy and sought to expand Canada's international role, while challenging British imperialism, racism, and Anglo–Saxon dominance. Prominent Canadian diplomats and other officials were complicit in this enterprise, which reached its apogee at the IPR conference held at Mont Tremblant, Quebec, in December 1942. The CIIA's activities during this period revealed the porosity and imprecision of the boundaries in Canada between the state and non-state realms. Throughout World War II, DEA and other Canadian government representatives attended CIIA and IPR conferences as “official non-officials,” effectively cooperating with private individuals in a network of purportedly non-governmental organizations that enabled Canada to exert leverage on the British government, reject British leadership, align itself with the United States, and secure a greater world role. CIIA leaders and Canadian officials also consciously encouraged nationalist forces in India, China, and Southeast Asia that sought to reject colonial rule and Western dominance. CIIA activities thus became part of a web of diplomatic interactions across a transnational network of think tanks within and outside the British Empire that had their own impact upon international affairs.     

“Brighter Futures,Better Times”: Britain,the Empire,and Anglo–American Economic Competition in Cuba, 1898–1920

This article examines Anglo–American economic competition in Cuba in the crucial twenty years after 1898. Anglo–American economic competition on the new island nation suggest a number of things about the nature of British and American imperialism, the difficult position of smaller countries—and economies—like Cuba, and the “inevitability” of American economic pre-eminence in the evolving twentieth century. And as an important corollary to the British dimension of this question is the role that Canada and Canadian overseas investment played in the extension of Britain's economic power and influence in the wider world.     

Decolonizing an informal empire: Argentina,Great Britain,and the United States, 1930–1943

The key to understanding how the relationship between Argentina and Great Britain changed during the decade after 1930 lies in the evolution of the British economy and the shifting configuration of political forces within the British Commonwealth of nations after World War I that made it impossible for Great Britain to maintain the old imperial relationship with Argentina. The purpose of Argentine foreign policy during the 1930s was to buy time to alter the internal structure of dependence and allow Argentina greater flexibility in world affairs. Until the structure of the economy could be Changed, primary product exports were vital to the national interest. First the Argentines tried to salvage some portion of their relationship with Great Britain and the market stability they needed in the Roca‐Runciman Pact (1933). Next, they turned to the U.S. for help, but with no success. By 1943, the British and Argentine economies were no longer structurally compatible and the U.S. had declined to accommodate Argentine economic needs. These frustrations provoked a strong nationalist reaction in Argentina against dependence. Argentine governments‐civilian and military‐retreated to a policy of neutrality as the best means of securing the most favourable terms for the sale of the nation's exportable agricultural surplus.     

L. Louër,Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf

If one analyzes Austrian integration policy, a range of repeating elements becomes visible. Starting with the 1950s, continued efforts to intensify economic and trade relations with the Common Market can be witnessed. This occurred in the form of step by step cooperation with European institutions. Since 1955 Austria's integration policy had been accompanied by the maintenance of and focus on 'permanent neutrality'. Among the EFTA states, Austria was the country the EEC sympathized with most, for it was important with regard to foreign and trade policy in the context of the East-West conflict. Austria was of central geostrategic significance. With regard to Russia's attitude, Austria succeeded in underlining its 'special case'. Austria's policy of going it alone failed in 1967 for several reasons, not only because of Italy's veto. There were also French reservations and Russian objections. Bridging the gap to Brussels revealed wishful thinking that was only to become true in 1972. An arrangement of bilateral tariff and trade treaties with different EFTA states and the EEC and ECSC came into force.     

Faris,H. (2013). The Failure of the Two-State Solution: The Prospects of One State in the Israel–Palestine Conflict.

M.B. Hayne, The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War 1898–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) £35. ISBN 019–820270–9.

Keith Hamilton, Bertie of Thame: Edwardian Ambassador (Woodbridge/Suffolk: Boydell Press 1990 (= Royal Historical Society Studies in History, No. 60)), ix + 436 pp. ISBN 0–86193–217X. £35.

Anita Inder Singh, The Limits of British Influence: South Asia and the Anglo‐American Relationship, 1947–56 (Pinter, 1993) pp. 309. £45.

Robert H. Ferrell (ed.), Truman in the White House: The Diary of Eben A. Ayers (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991) $37.50. ISBN 0–8262–0790–1.

Robert Pearce (ed.), Patrick Gordon Walker: Political Diaries 1932–1971 (London: The Historians Press, 1991) £20. ISBN 1–872273–05 X.

Richard J. Aldrich (ed.), British Strategy and the Cold War, 1945–51 (London: Routledge, 1992) £40. ISBN 0–415–07851–2.

Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe's Name. Germany and the Divided Continent (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993) £25. ISBN 0–224–02054–4.     

Imagining the modern city: Miyamoto [Chūjō] Yuriko in Moscow and London, 1927–1930

After her life-changing sojourn in the Soviet Union and Europe in the late 1920s, Miyamoto [Chūjō] Yuriko (1899–1951) devoted herself to the cause of communism. Her ideological conversion was rooted in the context of the modern city – in particular, Moscow and London – and the close interrelation between literary and filmic modernism and the modern city is evident in two key articles she wrote during her time abroad. In this article I will analyse how Yuriko represented her profoundly political experience and interpretation of two cities embodying alternative, opposed modernities – communism and capitalism – through modernist literary techniques and the new artistic technology of film.     

State–defence industry relations in the European context: French and UK interactions with the European Defence Agency

While many have noted that EU member states have different preferences over the prospect of an integrated EU defence, analyses that specifically explore state–industry relations in the definition of EU defence-industrial issues, and in the evolution of the Common Security and Defence Policy in general, are lacking. This is surprising, given that different configurations of government–industry relations have represented a persistent impediment to European defence-industrial cross-border collaboration. This article investigates how state–defence industry relations impact on member states’ preferences towards the EU defence-industrial framework. Based on the case studies of the interaction of France and the UK with the European Defence Agency, this analysis focuses on the difference between public and private defence firms’ governance settings as the crucial explanatory variable accounting for diverging member states’ preferences in this domain.     

Accredited to Africa: British diplomatic representation and African experience,c. 1960–95

This article examines the 1960 soviet attack on Dag Hammarskjold and its proposal to reform the office of the UN Secretary-General into a troika and the Soviet lines, the article seeks to show that the British had sufficiant concerns about the direction Hammarskjold was taking the office of Secretary-General to be more in line with Soviet attitudes than they would have been willing to admit publicly. British support for Hammarskjold in the Congo crisis was not unqualified and the article notes that following Hammarskjold's death, it was not Britain's interest to see Hammarskjold's successor being given the political freedom he had enjoyed.