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Britain's place in the world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

James Barber
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Extract

There is no better known judgement of Britain's post-war international position than Dean Acheson's view that: “Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role”. Acheson's words have echoed and reechoed through the corridors of Whitehall because they seem so true, capturing not only the uncertainty about Britain's role but the decline in her international status. The judgement has attracted the attention of scholars as well as officials and politicians, as was demonstrated in a recent number of this journal when Christopher Hill wrote about “Britain's Elusive Role in World Politics”. Hill warned against the dangers of seeing foreign policy making in terms of “role”, arguing that it suppressed contradictions in the interests of a predominant image, and encouraged the illusion that a state could plough a lone furrow in pursuit of its particular interests. “Unfortunately”, he argued, “the quest for a unique role, like the pursuit of the Holy Grail, is a fatal distraction to politicians with responsibility”, and later he warned of “role” degenerating into “the medium of limp metaphor and rhetoric”.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , July 1980 , pp. 93 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1980

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References

page 93 note 1 Hill, Christopher‘Britain's Elusive Role in World Polities’, British Journal of International Studies, v (1979), pp. 248–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 93 note 2 Ibid. p. 250.

page 93 note 3 Ibid. p. 259.

page 93 note 4 Ibid. p. 250

page 94 note 1 Central Policy Review Staff, Review of Overseas Representation (HMSO, 1977).Google Scholar

page 94 note 2 Fourth Report from the Expenditure Committee — Defence and External Affairs Sub Commottee (House of Commons Paper 286–1). Session 1977–78.

page 94 note 3 The United Kingdom's Overseas Representation, Cmd. 7308, Miscellaneous, No. 22 (1978).

page 95 note 1 Review of Overseas Representation, op. cit. p. 8.

page 95 note 2 Expenditure Committee Report, op, cit. xxiv.

page 95 note 3 Ibid, xxv

page 95 note 4 Ibid. xxv.

page 96 note 1 Ibid. xxvi.

page 96 note 2 Cmd. 7308, op. cit. p. 3.

page 96 note 3 Ibid. p. 4.

page 96 note 4 See Puchala, Donald James, International Politics Today (New York, 1971)Google Scholar, Ch. 8.

page 96 note 5 See Holsti, J., International Politics (New York, 1977), p. 165.Google Scholar

page 98 note 1 Quoted in Foot, Michael, Aneurin Bevan, ii (London, 1975), p. 332.Google Scholar

page 98 note 2 Puchala, op. cit. p. 176.

page 99 note 1 There were differences in each of the three publications on the broad aims of British policy. The four identified in the GPRS Review were:

(i) the country's external security;

(ii) its economic and social wellbeing;

(iii) the honouring of obligations;

and (iv) working for a peaceful, just world.

The Commons' Committee added to these the promotion of the English language and British culture, while the Government's White Paper spoke of upholding and extending the values and freedoms of democracy.

page 101 note 1 Frankelj, JosephBritish Foreign Policy 1945–73 (London, 1975), p. 76.Google Scholar

page 102 note 1 Ibid. p. 72.

page 103 note 1 Crossman, Richard, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, i, (London, 1965), p. 377.Google Scholar

page 103 note 2 Rose, Richard, Politics in England Today (London, 1974), p. 215.Google Scholar

page 105 note 1 Wolfers, A., Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore, 1962).Google Scholar

page 108 note 1 Keohane, Robert and Nye, Joseph, Power and Interdependence (Boston, 1977), pp. 19–21.Google Scholar

page 109 note 1 Op. cit. pp. 258–9.