The Eurafrique Initiative,Ernest Bevin and Anglo–French Relations in the Foreign Office, 1945–1950

This analysis examines the prevalence of Eurafrican thinking in the British Foreign Office throughout the late 1940s. Drawing on British and French diplomatic archives, it reveals the centricity of the Foreign Office, and British Embassy at Paris to a project largely confined to the mental map of the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin. The financial stains facing Britain, often misinterpreted as “decline”, seemed a temporary phenomenon that “multilateral European cooperation” could rectify. Although shelved in 1949–1950, the Eurafrique initiative has seen few historians analyse its strategies across the corridors of power. This analysis reappraises British desires for Western European “co-operation” and a renewed faith in the Entente Cordiale as a geo-political counterweight to growing East–West bipolarity. Discussions of strategies to pool African possessions to recover the European economy were short-lived. Yet they challenged prospects of long-term economic dependence upon the United States in favour of an Anglo–French led European bloc.     

Anglo–French Imperial Relations in the Arab World: Intelligence Liaison and Nationalist Disorder, 1920–1939

Faced with intractable problems of popular protest and nationalist insurgency, French and British imperial administrations across the Arab world frequently exchanged various forms of covert intelligence with one another. Much of this information was open source human intelligence relating to local political activity. Higher grade material, and particularly signals intelligence was less regularly shared, not least as the Entente partners continued to spy on each other throughout the inter-war years. Ironically, while the French and British colonial security services shared similar pre-occupations and objectives, their common threat perceptions were not enough to break down the abiding mutual suspicions between them. As a result, their networks of information exchange remained patchy. This only made the tasks of imperial government and the containment of disorder harder than might otherwise have been the case.     

Not the Third World War: The Heathrow Succession Rights Affair and Anglo–American Relations 1990–1991

Whilst the British and Americans expended blood and treasure together in the Kuwaiti desert in 1991, bureaucratic blood from both sides was also visible on carpets in London and Washington. The reason was attempts to replace the access to Heathrow airport of two failing airlines, Pan American World Airways and Trans World Airlines, with American and United Airlines. This succession rights affair was one of the most difficult diplomatic negotiations ever on civil aviation between the United States and Britain. How and why that controversy developed, its resolution, and what impact on, and feedback from, the broader Anglo–American relationship that it had are the main concerns of this analysis.     

Yvon Delbos and Anthony Eden: Anglo–French Cooperation, 1936–1938

The period of tenure of Anthony Eden and Yvon Delbos as the foreign ministers of their respective countries coincided with a remarkable improvement and convergence in Anglo–French relations. This was no accident. Both men had similar ideas in relation to the challenges confronting Britain and France in international affairs. Neither wanted really close relations with Soviet Russia and both supported non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War despite their growing concern over German and Italian intervention. Delbos was highly critical of Mussolini's Italy and was firmly opposed to a Franco–Italian rapprochement while Eden, having originally given the Duce the benefit of the doubt, came to distrust him and to oppose even conversations with Italy without prior concessions, such as the withdrawal of Italian volunteers from Spain. Finally, both supported the appeasement of Nazi Germany, including colonial concessions, although Delbos towards the end of his period as foreign minister became more sceptical as to the prospects for success.     

Gender and democratization: Or what does democracy mean for women in the Third World?

The article argues that the ongoing process of democratization in the Third World affects both men and women significantly, though differentially. It examines the two major strands of democratic theory, representative and participative, to emphasize that both of these take for granted the division between the public and the private spheres. This division inhibits the mass participation of women in politics and therefore in the democratic processes affecting them. It further analyses the arguments made in the name of cultural specificity of Third World societies and the dilemmas that these pose for women in their struggle for democracy. It draws upon various case studies to examine the contradictory and often painful options that women of the Third World are faced with in any process of political change, including that of democratization. Through the case studies the article underscores the complex relationship between the state and civil society in the Third World and how women negotiate the boundaries of both. It concludes that the process of political democratization, though not an unproblematic transition, creates new opportunities for women to mobilize in their own various interests.     

Responding to mental distress in the Third World: Cultural imperialism or the struggle for synthesis?

This paper questions the appropriateness of some of the 'help' that has already been given in mental health in 'developing' countries, particularly Africa, and examines some of the complex ideological issues underlying different cultural understandings of the aetiology and treatment of mental illness. Some personal experiences, illustrating examples of the imposition of culturally inappropriate ideology in the teaching of psychiatry, are described. In conclusion, some principles of good practice are suggested which could form the basis of a synthesis between cultures, and maximise the possibility of Western aid in the field of mental distress being more culturally appropriate.     

Oleaginous Diplomacy: Oil,Anglo–American Relations and the Lausanne Conference, 1922–23

There has been considerable controversy as to the significance of oil in the Lausanne Conference of 1922–1923, in particular British attempts to retain Mosul as part of Iraq. However, as this article explores, the conference also had important implications for the composition of the British-registered Turkish Petroleum Company, which was expected to win the Iraqi oil concession. In the first phase of the conference, the United States observer delegation's stance persuaded the British Government to put pressure upon the British companies involved in the TPC to admit American companies upon the latter's terms. Despite this, in the second phase, the Americans supported the Turkish delegation in its opposition to clauses in the proposed Treaty, which would have guaranteed the rights of the TPC, and forced a British compromise on the issue. The Lausanne Conference played a significant role in the Anglo–American “oil war” of the inter-war period.     

From “War-in-Sight” to Nearly War: Anglo–French Relations in the Age of High Imperialism, 1875–1898

The 1904 entente has cast a long shadow across the twentieth century. As a political “myth,” the notion of an entente cordiale between the two longstanding European enemies and overseas rivals France and Britain has overtaken the event itself, in so far as its historical importance is concerned. In this way, the notion of the entente has tended to obscure important aspects of a more complex and ambiguous history of cross-Channel relations. Using a range of British and French diplomatic, naval and private papers, this chapter examines the tensions in Anglo-French relations, caused by balance-of-power considerations in Europe and overseas imperial competition, between the “War-in-Sight” crisis of 1875 and the 1898 Fashoda stand-off.     

Hanging the Kaiser: Anglo‐Dutch relations and the fate of Wilhelm II, 1918–20

The flight of the German Kaiser to the Netherlands at the end of the First World War led to a crisis in Anglo‐Dutch relations. Prime Minister David Lloyd George made the trial of the Kaiser a key issue in the British general election campaign of December 1918. Article 227 of the Treaty of Versailles called for the Kaiser's surrender by the Netherlands government for trial before an international tribunal, a request the Dutch repeatedly refused during the period January to March 1920. Using both British and Dutch sources, this article highlights the internal Dutch debate over the fate of the Kaiser, and the confusion and hypocrisy with which the problem was handled by the British government.     

Sovereignty and Human Rights: Re-examining Carter’s Foreign Policy Towards the Third World

This analysis examines the evolution of Jimmy Carter’s human rights policy towards the Third World during the course of his Administration. By exploring the impact of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Soviet-backed Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, it analyses how Carter responded to international outcry by pairing sovereignty as a human right, which specifically appealed to the concerns of newly independent nations in the late 1970s. Carter’s shift is explained first by a brief outline of his initial human rights policy and stumbling blocks; second, by examining Third World responses to the dual invasions; and, finally, exploring how this affected Carter’s human rights policy. It moves beyond claims that Carter abandoned his human rights agenda as he encountered an increasingly volatile international environment, instead examining the very real ways that he re-imagined this policy in the face of a changing global landscape.     

Interstate Relations,Perceptions, and Power Balance: Explaining China’s Policies Toward Ethnic Groups, 1949–1965

Why do multi-ethnic states treat various ethnic groups differently? How do ethnic groups respond to these state policies? We argue that interstate relations and ethnic group perceptions about the relative strength of competing states are important—but neglected—factors in accounting for the variation in state-ethnic group relations. In particular, whether an ethnic group is perceived as having an external patron matters a great deal for the host state's treatment of the group. If the external patron of the ethnic group is an enemy of the host state, then repression is likely. If it is an ally, then accommodation ensues. Given the existence of an external patron, an ethnic group's response to a host state's policies depends on the perceptions about the relative strength of the external patron vis-à-vis the host state and whether the support is originating from an enemy or an ally of the host state. We present five configurations and illustrate our theoretical framework on the eighteen largest ethnic groups in China from 1949 to 1965, tracing the Chinese government's policies toward these groups, and examine how each group responded to these various nation-building policies.     

Negotiating Verification: International Diplomacy and the Evolution of Nuclear Safeguards, 1945–1972

Nuclear safeguards have been an essential part of the global order since the beginnings of the nuclear age. The International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], an international bureaucracy that is supposed to be a non-political, technical institution administers this global nuclear safeguards regime. Even though safeguards have always been controversial, they have turned out to be the most enduring item in the international community’s toolbox to prevent or slow down the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states. This analysis shows that nuclear safeguards, whilst they survived the fall of the Iron Curtain, were a genuine invention of the Cold War. At the beginning of the nuclear age, there was an overall understanding that safeguards were not strong enough to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons. It was only over the course of the late 1950s and 1960s that safeguards moved from the margins to the centre of diplomatic negotiations about global nuclear order. Newly declassified records from the IAEA Archives in Vienna offer insights into the evolution of early nuclear safeguards and suggest that negotiation patterns, proceedings, and settings affected the outcome of this nuclear diplomacy.     

Violence and the breakdown of the political settlement: an uncertain future for Bangladesh?

Abstract

We explore the dynamics of the elite political settlement in Bangladesh after the democratic transition in 1991 and its impact on the elite interactions in the arena of competitive electoral democracy. We trace the history of how a political settlement around regime succession developed in the mid-1990s, and then experienced difficulties in multiple stages, and finally broke down in 2011. Violence was instrumentally used, by the ruling elites and the main opposition party, to influence the processes of negotiations around the succession of power. We argue that ‘partyarchy’—where political parties exert informal control of the party through formal processes and institutions—and dynastic rule prevent the political elites from reaching a stable settlement around regime succession. We also show how the changes to the rules of the game around regime succession have led to a qualitative shift in the extent and nature of violence in the political domain, and explore why democratic consolidation remains elusive.     

“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.     

The WikiLeaks Cables: How the United States Exploits the World,in Detail,from an Internal Perspective, 2001–2010

The disclosure of more than 250,000 American diplomatic cables by the dissident media organisation WikiLeaks in 2010–2011 gained much attention in the American mass media but generated little interest for diplomatic historians. A small number of scholars explored small parts of the archive, but diplomatic historians and political scientists largely dismissed the cables as insignificant source material. These scholars overlooked important primary sources. The cables provide important revelations about American actions in every region of the world, especially between 2001 and 2010. Although United States officials and their supporters in the American mass media insisted that the cables showed American diplomats performing admirable work, the cables reveal how the United States exploits the world.