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In the late 2000s, numerous prominent public commentators raised concerns that corruption scandals were harming Britain's ability to play a leadership role in anti-corruption initiatives abroad. With a view to contributing to critical criminological scholarship on international policy transfer and double standards in criminal justice policy and practice, this article explores the extent to which reputational damage curtailed Britain's appeal as an anti-corruption mentor in South-East Europe during the 2000s. Challenging the common presumption that stronger states tarnished by corruption scandals will face 'hypocricy costs' abroad, this article finds that a range of factors work to insulate stronger states from the potential ramifications of reputational decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper claims that crisis is a fruitful way to analyse the interrelationship of local and global, neoliberalism and the nation-state, which scholars have explored for the past few years. During the Icelandic financial crash of 2008, the failed Internet bank Icesave became a source of intense disputes between the British and Icelandic governments. My paper uses Icelandic discussions of the bankrupt bank to explore how individuals negotiate their imagination of the global and the national and how national identity can be reaffirmed in the context of crisis. The discussion shows that the Icesave debate is based on reification of national communities as well as critical reflection on increased power of transnational institutions and global elites. The paper, furthermore, emphasises how crisis itself can be seen as constituting a field within which to exercise power, as well as a prism to investigate and understand national identities in a globalised world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a new perspective on ‘buffer states’ — states that are geographically located between two rival powers — and their effect on international relations, with a particular focus on the imperial setting. The article argues that such geographic spaces have often been analysed through a structuralist-functionalist lens, which has, in some cases, encouraged ahistorical understandings on the role of buffer states in international affairs. In contrast, the article offers an approach borrowing from the literature on ontological security and critical geopolitics in order to access the meanings that such spaces have for their more powerful neighbours. The article draws upon the case study of Afghanistan and Anglo-Afghan relations during the 19th century and finds that, in this case, due to the ambiguity of Afghanistan’s status as a ‘state’, and the failure of British policymakers to establish routinized diplomatic engagement, Anglo-Afghan relations exhibited a sense of ontological insecurity for the British. These findings suggest previously unacknowledged international effects of ‘buffer states’, and may apply to such geographic spaces elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Denmark appears far more successful in managing its ‘special’ relationship with the USA than the UK since 9/11. By doing exactly the same as the UK, but on a much smaller scale and at much lower cost in terms of blood, treasure and domestic controversy, Denmark has succeeded in generating more American public gratitude than the UK. While London has been accused of losing Basra and Musa Qaleh, Copenhagen has been showered with praise and top-posts in NATO. This article explains why demonstrating how the differences in size and reputation gave rise to different expectations of the special relationship both in Washington and at home. Britain disappointed Washington by failing to make a difference in stabilising Afghanistan and Iraq, whereas Denmark by merely engaging in combat and taking casualties far exceeded Washington's expectations. Likewise, the failure to significantly influence decision-making in Washington was a source of great frustration in London but a non-issue in Copenhagen, which never expected it in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU(PF) government's violent seizure of white-owned commercial farms in 2000 heralded the nadir of diplomatic relations with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's New Labour government. Britain objected to the ZANU(PF) government's human rights violations and state-orchestrated violence, and, through the European Union, subsequently imposed sanctions. This article maintains that, from 2000, mutual demonisation discourses became a distinct feature of the Britain–Zimbabwe diplomatic conflict. Yet the nature and drivers of these demonisation discourses, and their influence, have not received systematic treatment in the literature on Britain–Zimbabwe relations. Drawing on constructivist interpretations of international relations, I argue that New Labour engaged in demonisation for normative reasons, while ZANU(PF) demonised New Labour for more instrumental purposes. Demonisation discourses promoted non-engagement between the British and Zimbabwean governments. This non-engagement partly circumscribed foreign policy options to aggressive measures, as evinced in Blair's covert canvassing for British military intervention in Zimbabwe. Lastly, it is demonstrated that demonisation discourses affected the third-party mediation efforts of South African President Thabo Mbeki. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN 1975 MULTI-STATELY DEALS ESTABLISHED THE REMAINING OF THE BORDERS IN THE FORM OF THE MOMENT IN EUROPE AND IN THE EURO-ASIAN SPACE. THE FEDERAL RUSSIA RESTRUCTURED AND SPLITTED INTO ITS COMPONENT STATES, RESPECTING THE HISTORICAL BORDERS; GERMANY REUNITED ACCORDING TO THE 1975 HELSINKI AGREEMENT AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA SPLITTED VIA AGREEMENT; IN THE CASE OF YUGOSLAVIA, THE MISUNDERSTANDINGS BETWEEN THE FEDERATION ON ONE HAND AND THE 1991 COUNCIL ON THE OTHER HAND, AS WELL AS THE ENORMOUS PRESSURE FROM THE UK AND FRANCE LED TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF CROA TIA AND SLOVENIA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconstructs the evolution of New Labour's foreign policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian question and the Middle East Peace Process. It argues that between 1997 and 1999 the approach became personalised when differences in substance and style emerged as Tony Blair (Prime Minister), and Robin Cook (Foreign Secretary), sought to define Britain's positions in a declining process. At the core of this divergence was Cook's preference for a greater Euro-centred multilateralist role in the trilateral negotiating template (bilateral Arab–Israeli talks overseen by the USA) and Blair's more pragmatic focus on Anglo-American relations. Yet the trigger for Blair's decision to control Middle East policy—Cook's Jerusalem visit during Britain's EU presidency—ran contrary to USA initiatives designed to augment peace efforts, and later formed a basis of contradiction between the criteria for humanitarian intervention in the Blair doctrine and his policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author discusses Russian political strategy and international relations as of March 2013, arguing that the Russian president Vladimir Putin and his government may be attempting to influence European Union countries and conduct espionage in Great Britain. Topics include a scandal involving the British lobby group Conservative Friends of Russia, the Military Intelligence, Section 5 (MI5) British security agency, the Russian émigré Sergei Cristo, and the first secretary of the Russian Embassy in Great Britain Sergei Nalobin.

One of the Society's Arabists analyses the course of the Arab Awakening, emphasising the difficulty of drawing general conclusions from events in a number of very different countries. He suggests that the newly-elected powers will now need to deliver on their promises in terms with which the West would be familiar-education, health, human rights and, above all, employment. These issues will play out in Arab terms and on the basis of Arab choices. The West needs to accept this, but remain engaged. The author concludes with a short description of UK efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the ideational underpinnings of the UK Coalition government's 'liberal conservative' foreign policy. It begins by suggesting that an Iraq-centric account of Blair's foreign policy suggests a grand vision on the prime minister's part that was lacking from his earlier foreign policy adventures, which relied on a more conventional form of British statecraft. The second section contends that the Gordon Brown years 2007-10 and, since the end of New Labour, Coalition foreign policy, can be seen as a response both to the substance and style of Blair's highly personalised stewardship of foreign policy post-9/11. The war on terror and the invasion of Iraq were accompanied by a seemingly open-ended democracy promotion around the globe which was quite out of character with past British practice. The article argues, therefore, that under Brown and Cameron cautious pragmatism has tended to win out over the proclamation of grand strategic ambition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The release of the only man convicted of the bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988 is the most significant diplomatic decision taken by the Scottish government. The decision constituted a two-level process: the British government's behaviour was characterised by commercial interests; and the Scottish governments by calculated compassion. Britain's policy was steered by its national interest in securing Libya's rehabilitation into international society and ensuring that British businesses could benefit. Scotland's paradiplomacy shifted from a strategy of avoidance to one using the release to further the idea of an independent Scotland. Presenting the release in such a way was to bolster the idea of Scotland as a distinct entity with its own set of values, laws, and customs and possessing an ability to operate autonomously on the international stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on the topic of international affairs which include British foreign policy strategy, British defense policy, and the 2012 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Chicago, Illinois.

Against the background of conflict in the Great Lakes Region, the UK and France promised, at their 1998 Saint-Malo summit, to set aside rivalries and cooperate on Africa. In subsequent Anglo-French gatherings, they singled out the DRC and pledged to work together there to promote peace and tackle poverty. This article asks whether this coordination took place and whether it involved a ‘deconflictualisation’ of approaches, ‘coincidental’ cooperation, or ‘sustained and reciprocal’ collaboration. It looks for evidence of institutionalisation of UK-French ties and policy cooperation in the fields of peacebuilding and poverty reduction. It then identifies the pressures for, and barriers to, collaboration, focusing particularly on the role of interests, foreign policy norms, institutional factors and resource constraints. It concludes by setting out the wider implications of UK-French cooperation and the limited prospects of closer future collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article questions the fashionable view that Northern Ireland is a counterinsurgency lesson to be learned for the global ‘war on terror’. It suggests that Britain’s involvement in the Northern Ireland conflict – one of the longest conflicts within Europe in which a government has been at war with a clandestine organization – can be regarded as a meaningful metaphoric utterance in efforts to analyse the practical failures and threat discourses of the global ‘war on terror’. Northern Ireland is more than a specific case study: it acts as an appealing metaphor in attempts to understand the logics and pitfalls of the ‘war against terrorism’, where the increasing primacy granted to terror control – present and future – means that Western governments are increasingly more willing to infringe otherwise inviolable rights in the pursuit of a supposed greater good – security. The article explores the political economy of unease, suspicion, exception and radicalization in the ‘war against terrorism’. It concludes that Northern Ireland is not a model that can be exported around the globe but an invitation to analyse contingency, daily operations of security, and their effects on social practices and routines. Northern Ireland also represents a remarkable inducement to assess how exception, suspicion and radicalization are correlated, as well as to recognize that efforts to contain the unpredictability of the future are self-defeating. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the relationship between the UK and Rwanda, using the lens of the UK Department for International Development's integrated approach to state building and peace building in fragile and conflict-affected states. It identifies a number of priorities for UK aid under such a framework, but shows that in the case of Rwanda these have not been foregrounded in the bilateral aid relationship. The article suggests a number of reasons for this, arguing that, by refusing to acknowledge or address Rwanda's deviations from what was considered a positive development trajectory, the UK is becoming internationally isolated in its support for the rpf regime. It concludes that, while this bilateral relationship may support achievement of stability and relative security in Rwanda, promoting such a narrow form of state building is detrimental to more holistic peace building, both nationally and regionally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the First World War, Britain aimed to create an autonomous Kurdish state - or states - in the northern Mesopotamia to be governed under its protection. It therefore experimented with various different methods between the years 1918 and 1920. All those attempts were proven futile. Using mainly the British and Ottoman archival material, it has been inquired how the British authorities had developed the plan for Kurdistan, how they tried to implement it in the northern Iraq (then the Mosul vilayet) and the southeastern Anatolia respectively, and how they failed. The reasons for Britain's failure had been discussed. After the failure, new policy options had been given consideration among which the debates on retreat came into prominence. The diplomatic negotiation process between the allies and the legal arrangements on Kurdistan that took pace in the Treaty of Sevres was of a nature of keeping up appearances. The Kurdistan plan, though failed in 1920s, gained ground in the following years as the international conditions became more convenient. As the Kurdish problem has once again become an issue of worldwide concern, it will be interesting to see how the British government dealt with this complicated problem when it first emerged, some ninety years ago [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of military force has long represented a key foreign policy schism on the left and the legacy of two unpopular wars has widened this schism. Whether it is Libya today, or Afghanistan, Iraq, Rwanda or the Balkans over the past two decades, military intervention on humanitarian grounds provokes fierce debate among progressives. How do international obligations and the moral imperative to protect the innocent relate to the rights and expectations of other states and their citizens and the demands of domestic politics and policymaking? Shadow defence secretary makes the case for intervention, applauding the principles behind the UN's Responsibility to Protect and arguing that popular anger at the war in Iraq should not be allowed to trump international shame at events in Rwanda. By contrast, of International Alert expresses deep reservations, highlighting the need for humility when using lethal force in another sovereign nation and arguing that the duty to intervene comes only with the capacity to do so. Finally, places the debate on progressive interventionism in the wider political context of traditional and new thinking on the British left and Labour's foreign policy for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the question of why states attempt to 'do good' or behave morally beyond their own borders. It draws on the conceptual model developed by the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein in her work on moral development. Klein suggested that children develop ways of dealing with moral ambiguity and guilt by projecting idealised forms of good and bad into the wider world beyond the family. There, they are separable from each other in ways that more complex, intense familial relationships do not allow, are safer to deal with because they are less bound up with personal identity and survival, enabling reparation of an internal sense of the good. The article explores how far Klein's approach might provide a basis for thinking about state behaviour. Situating Klein within a communitarian framework, it argues that her ideas provide insight into the ways in which states might project good beyond the morally more complex community in order to reinforce a stronger sense of a 'good state'. It explores the question of how far international normative behaviour is derived from a projection of domestic ideas of what is good; and how far the expression of good in the international context supports the development and safety of norms at home. These themes are discussed in relation to British policy in Africa between 1997 and 2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of International Affairs seeks to stimulate more debate and interest in Britain on North Africa. This relatively neglected area of British foreign policy has largely been funneled through the European Union (EU), where the focus of policy has been on preventive security, above all policing against illegal migration and the spread of radicalism and terrorism. The main driver for regional change and potential insecurity is now demographic, evident in the high levels of youth unemployment across North Africa. In facing the challenge of leadership successions over the next decade, it is in the interest of the EU, and in turn, Britain, to engage more closely with North Africa's younger generations to ensure the region's longer term security and stability. Britain has few strong bilateral links with North African societies, however, with the exception of private sector investments in the energy sector and security cooperation. New investment opportunities and a demand for English language and other forms of training for employment could put Britain at an advantage in responding to North African demands for diversified international relationships. A greater focus is also needed on local development opportunities to assist new actors to assume their own economic and political roles, as a better means of delivering security and jobs than relying on central states to deliver both. The articles in this special issue offer new insights into developments in the region, as well as analyses of European and American policy responses to the challenges identified. A common theme is that the region has been held back by a combined lack of institutional safeguards and political participation, with negative impacts on the spread of the economic benefits of higher growth rates and investment. Authoritarian leaderships have proved reliable partners for the EU and Britain in the past, but will they continue to do so in future? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the United Kingdom faces a defence review, most probably in 2010, it needs to clarify an agenda befuddled by human-security needs and the publicity given to international terrorism. The war in Afghanistan rests on the assumption that the 'special relationship' with the United States remains the central pillar of defence thinking. Another assumption is that major inter-state war is unlikely. Such an expectation suggests that deterrence continues to play an important if under-recognised role. Britain remains ready to use war to pursue its policy goals, but the wars in which it has engaged since 1982 have been limited. Defence reviews should be conducted regularly, as in the United States. Moreover, the creation of defence policy needs to be more central to party political debate, not least so that the electorate is more directly engaged in and informed about the issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the British government's commitment to Africa during Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister. Drawing on interviews with politicians from across the political spectrum and with officials involved in Africa policy, it shows how British work and relationships in Africa are described in thin and highly idealized ways, depicting a project seemingly able to transcend ordinary politics. The article suggests that this idealization of Africa has been valued by state actors for the ways in which it appeared to connect them to a 'good' and 'noble' cause, and in particular the way it enhanced their perceptions of the capacity and potency of the British state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operation Allied Force had a decisive impact on Tony Blair's leadership of UK foreign policy. This article begins with Blair's famous Chicago speech of April 1999; his clearest statement of an apparently underlying moral purpose in international relations. It then contrasts the conventional wisdom that over Kosovo Blair was acting out of a sense of moral obligation (sharpened by recent British failings to act to prevent humanitarian disasters in the Balkans) with a revisionist account centring on the domestic political considerations impelling Blair into this particular foreign policy adventure. Blair drew three lessons from his involvement in Operation Allied Force: that media presentation was a crucial aspect of implementing a successful foreign policy strategy; that he had been too cautious between 1997 and 1999, partly as a result of being chained to the vagaries of public opinion; and that he could generate robust and worthy foreign and defence policies sitting with his close advisers on the sofa of his ‘den’ in Downing Street rather than working through traditional channels. The key argument in conclusion is that there was a Tony Blair before Iraq, one who was genuinely set on building a consensus around humanitarian intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2006 the British government released a White Paper announcing its intention to begin the process of replacing its current Trident nuclear weapons system, thereby allowing it to retain nuclear weapons well into the 2050s. In March 2008 the government released its National Security Strategy that stressed the long-term complexity, diversity and interdependence of threats to British security with a clear focus on human rights, justice and freedom. This article asks how the threat to kill tens if not hundreds of thousands of people with British nuclear weapons fits into the National Security Strategy's world view and questions the relevance of an instrument of such devastating bluntness to threats defined by complexity and interdependence. It argues that the government's case for replacing the current Trident system based on the logic of nuclear deterrence is flawed. First, Britain faces no strategic nuclear threats and the long-term post-Cold War trend in relations with Russia and China—the two nuclear-armed major powers that could conceivably threaten the UK with nuclear attack—is positive, despite current tensions with Moscow over Georgia. Second, the credibility and legitimacy of threatening nuclear destruction in response to the use of WMD by ‘rogue’ states is highly questionable and British nuclear threats offer no ‘insurance’ or guarantee of protection against future ‘rogue’ nuclear threats. Third, nuclear weapons have no role to play in deterring acts of nuclear terrorism whether state-sponsored or not. Fourth, British nuclear threats will be useless in dealing with complex future conflicts characterized by ‘hybrid’ wars and diverse and interdependent sources of insecurity. The article concludes by arguing that the government's fall-back position that it must keep nuclear weapons ‘just in case’ because the future security environment appears so uncertain, makes no sense if British nuclear threats offer no solution to the causes and symptoms of that uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's well documented reluctance concerning a deepening engagement with Europe came under challenge from Tony Blair's New Labour Party once it had assumed governmental office in 1997.From the outset it appeared that a pro-European discourse might be successfully constructed, one that sought to correlate Britain's national interest with the interests of its continental neighbours. More specifically, the discourse created was intended not only to convert much of British public opinion but additionally to help force through an agenda promoting British leadership in the European Union. This article focuses on the origins, the course and subsequent failure of the discourse. In so doing, it provides a critique of Blair's leadership in matters of European policy initiatives and shows how any failure to Europeanise the national interest can be largely attributed to 10 Downing Street. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of securitization has produced a considerable amount of debate over the meaning of security. However, far less attention has been paid to the role of audiences and their relationship to actors in the securitization process. Informed by the work of Thierry Balzacq (2005), and through analysis of the decision of the UK government to join with the USA in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in this article I show that although the general public can indeed play a valuable role in providing an actor with 'moral' support concerning the 'securityness' of an issue, more crucial, however, is the 'formal' support provided by parliament concerning the 'extraordinaryness' of the means necessary to deal with it. My argument is thus that securitization can in this way be seen as a distinct two-stage process marked by a 'stage of identification' and a 'stage of mobilization'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During recent years, a number of western donor countries have recognized the utility of, and need for, more robust and well-articulated national security frameworks. Two interesting phenomena have contributed to the awareness of such a need. Firstly, the recognition by these countries when assisting in the design and expenditure of developmental assistance programmes that, in many states emerging from conflict, a national security 'system' of sorts becomes a priority. Such a 'security system' will not work if left to develop at municipal or provincial levels within a state, without some parallel efforts towards establishing top-level national ownership behind the security agenda. Whether such ideas become embodied within a peace agreement or within the mandate of a new or provisional government, it is essential that the core foundations for national security provide strategic guidance for the range of other national instruments responsible for implementing security policy. More recently, in a number of international assistance programmes, donor states have encouraged the development of national security frameworks as a way of guiding the evolution of other programme areas (for example in Sierra Leone, Uganda and Jamaica). Whilst such developments are encouraging, they have also served as subtle reminders to some donor governments that there is room to adopt a similar practice in reviewing the way in which their own governments develop national security policy. Secondly, in the wake of a broader human security agenda - and following the progress made towards adapting and expanding roles and responsibilities across governments in support of international security priorities - some analysts and senior policymakers are making more efforts to think 'strategically' about national security in order to link up these expanded areas under a more concise central policy remit. Whereas some states already in possession of a national security architecture have used existing ... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power in Britain has changed hands from a prime minister who sought to balance intense UK-US consultation on foreign policy with the ambition to be ‘at the heart of Europe’ to one whose approach towards both the United States and the European Union has yet to be tested. It is an appropriate moment, there fore, to assess how these two contextual poles of British foreign policy-making have changed over recent years and what this might mean for UK foreign policy choices. The premise of this article is that the days are now largely over when the UK can or should start out by trying to build an Anglo-US position on a foreign policy challenge before trying to tie in the European and transatlantic positions. The UK is now a central player in the development of increasingly activist European foreign policies, whether these can later be coordinated effectively with the United States or not. A strong, bilateral relationship continues to serve the interests of both sides on multiple levels, but this relationship does not sit upon the same foundations as during the Cold War. There are now significant underlying factors, especially since the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 in the US and July 7 2005 in the UK, that pull the US away from Europe and the UK, while pushing the UK towards Europe as the first port of call in developing foreign policy strategies. It is also notable that, today, UK positions on most global issues and foreign policy challenges tend to conform more closely to the dominant EU line than to the United States. On balance, the UK might think about European integration more from a US than from a European perspective, but it now thinks about global problems more from a European than from a US or transatlantic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2004, the U.K. government announced its intention to grant limited authorization for the growing of commercial genetically modified (GM) crops. This article reviews the potential liabilities that may arise from GM cropping, for environmental damage and for economic losses claimed by non-GM producers. It considers the application of the European Community (EC) Environmental Liability Directive of 2004 to genetically modified organisms (GMO) releases, and the proposed statutory scheme for the coexistence of GM and non-GM agriculture in England and Wales. It also examines the application of the common law of nuisance to the release of GMOs and considers the relevant case law of the English courts. Although there will be a residual role for liability at common law following the establishment of a statutory coexistence scheme, the article highlights a number of formidable problems facing attempts to establish claims for liability arising from GMO releases at common law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tony Blair's decision to provide an indication of his departure date from 10 Downing Street has generated interest in the policies and style of his most likely successor, the current UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Brown's ambitions for European policy are considered by a number of commentators to be less clear. This is because so far he has not produced a comprehensive vision of how he sees the UK's future relationship with the EU. However, as this article demonstrates, close examination reveals that his position on many aspects of European policy is actually already well documented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the factors that led to the establishment and evolution of the minilateral cooperation among France, Germany, the United Kingdom (and eventually the High Representative for CFSP) vis-à-vis Iran. The analysis brings together two theoretical approaches, institutional design and role theory. It posits that minilateral cooperation in the Iranian case and security affairs in general do not easily translate into multilateral cooperation. It finds that in contrast to the trade and economic realm, the course of security minilaterals is strongly shaped by rivalling formal institutions, specific characteristics in the non-proliferation regime (lack of specificity in central norms) and the role behaviour of the United States. European minilateral cooperation started (as in the case of the Middle East Quartet and Six-Party Talks) when the US rejected bilateral engagement. The initiative successfully mediated a temporary suspension of Iran's enrichment activities as long as Tehran believed that the EU-3 could bring the US to the table and commit the Bush Administration to a comprehensive negotiated settlement, including US security guarantees. Since the EU-3 and the subsequent P-5 (the permanent five members of the UNSC) plus Germany/EU High Representative for CFSP minilaterals have been incapable of forming a resilient transatlantic coalition of policy makers to negotiate a comprehensive settlement, another serious split could occur if Washington pursues a punitive course without having fully supported a cooperative solution to the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presence a response to Neil McLaughlin's writings, in which he has argued that there is a crisis in Canadian sociology. McLauhglin argues that Canadian sociology is too beholden to the rarified British tradition and tends towards reflexive anti Americanism. The article argues that McLaughlin's claims are insufficiently supported. The article attempts to combat McLaughlin's claim with a further empirical investigation of the British, American and Canadian influences on contemporary Canadian sociological practice.

The article reveals the views of the Great Britain government regarding their discussions with the United States government on the war in Iraq which began in 2003. Apparently, nine leaked British documents have revealed that British Law Officers consistently advised their government and their American counterparts of the illegality of the United States war plan in the Iraq. In response to their advice, the two governments hatched a plan to create a legal pretext for war, but the plan failed at the United Nations Security Council, leaving them with a choice between legitimacy and war.

Examines whether the U.S.-Great Britain Coalition were guided by fear of potential actions of re-armed Iraq. Influence of Operation Desert Fox on the Coalition's containment regime; Relationship between events in Iraq, Al Qaeda's attack on the U.S., and changes in American foreign policy; Citation of diplomatic and political machinations that occurred prior to the Coalition's launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Summary The already inadequate health systems of sub-Saharan Africa have been badly damaged by the emigration of their health professionals, a process in which the UK has played a prominent part. In 2005, there are special opportunities for the UK to take the lead in addressing that damage, and in focusing the attention of the G8 on the wider problems of health-professional migration from poor to rich countries. We suggest some practical measures to these ends. These include action the UK could take on its own, with the African countries most affected, and with other developed countries and WHO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decision-making surrounding the deployment of UK forces to southern Afghanistan in 2005–06 remains a matter of heated debate. In this personal recollection, Ed Butler, who led the British Task Force from mid-2005, highlights what he thinks were the shortcomings of policy-making and leadership within the political and military spheres during that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Cold War, the UK has generally made only modest military troop contributions to UN peacekeeping operations. As it prepares to review its defence and security strategy after the end of its long commitment to combat operations in Afghanistan, however, troop requirements for UN peacekeeping activities may appear again on the radars of policy-makers. Adrian L Johnson argues that there are broadly four options that the UK could take, the most likely being modest re-engagement with the military dimension of UN peacekeeping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Britain has had particular problems reconciling itself to the idea of being a ' European' actor and a wholehearted member of the EEC/ EU since 1973. Now, potentially, the 'awkward partner' is edging towards the exit door of the EU because a membership a referendum gauging the opinion of a sullenly Eurosceptical UK public is a likely prospect in the coming years. The aim of this special issue of JCMS is to consider how one can account for the present state of affairs by adopting an interpretivist perspective on British European policy over the past four decades. The article begins with a comprehensive review of the extant literature on Britain and Europe and an elaboration of the 'traditions and dilemmas' framework within which the contributors have studied the empirical material in their articles. It then explains the major themes that connect the articles and suggests how future research might build on the agenda proposed in this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how British European policy thinking has been informed by what it identifies as an 'outsider' tradition of thinking about ' Europe' in British foreign policy dating from imperial times to the present. The article begins by delineating five phases in the evolution of the outsider tradition back to 1815 through a survey of the relevant historiography. The article then examines how prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron have looked to various inflections of the outsider tradition to inform their European discourses. The focus in the speech data sections is on British identity, history and the realist appreciation of international politics that informed the leaders' suggestions for EEC/ EU reform. The central argument is that historically informed narratives such as those making up the outsider tradition do not determine opinion-formers' outlooks, but that they can be deeply impervious to rapid change. We can therefore understand why Britain has come to hover near the EU exit door because British leaders have consistently drawn upon 'outsider' narratives as the organizing frame for their European policy discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article approaches the interpretation of elite and popular attitudes towards the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union through analysis of some of the rival perspectives on the national identity of the English that have become increasingly salient during the last two decades. It highlights their role as sources of some of the most influential ideas about nationhood, governance and state now shaping public discourse on the UK's membership of the EU. These include radical-democratic, restorationist and Anglo- British forms of patriotic discourse, which have prompted and responded to the growing prevalence of England as 'an imagined community' - a trend which has rendered other circles of attachment to the UK and Europe more tenuous and distant. A central conclusion of the article is that these emerging perspectives have spawned webs of belief that connect new and old ideas of nationhood to the political judgements that different actors are making about the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Were the British fated to clash with the European Union? Powerful traditions in British political culture certainly inclined the UK to be an 'awkward partner' in Europe. Yet traditions are material from which politics is constructed, not fixed frameworks for destiny. This article argues that a careful historical reconstruction of the development and consolidation of today's British Euroscepticism - with its stronghold on the political right - passes substantially through the distinctive personal influence of Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady's individual action and legacy, magnified by a series of contingencies, generated the core dynamics that soured Britain's ties to Europe so bitterly. Had Thatcher not personally inspired this course, the traditions of British national identity and British Conservatism in particular could very plausibly have evolved in less anti-European directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prime Minister David Cameron's ambivalence about Britain's role in the European Union stems from dilemmas within his Conservative Party. Since the nineteenth century, British Conservatism had represented a comfortable synthesis of a soft Burkean traditionalism and class-based paternalism with an effort to expand the party's appeal to the working class. Thatcher's aggressive neoliberal challenge to this tradition never truly displaced the older paternalistic sense of noblesse oblige or the preference for societal consensus and incremental change. Instead, the two elements came into an uneasy coexistence that has informed Tory ambivalence about the EU. This article argues that Cameron's gradual distancing of Britain from the EU has paralleled his championing of economic austerity at home. It argues further that Cameron's policy-making response to the post-2007 economic downturn and European debt crisis can best be understood as a reflection of unresolved tensions within British Conservative thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents excerpts from a speech by Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr., U.S. assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, delivered at the Chatham House Conference on Matching Capabilities to Commitments in London, England on December 6, 2004. Military partnership between the U.S. and Great Britain; Changes in the structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Defense policy of the U.S.

Discusses Arab politics before and after the Iraq War of 2003. Observation that Arab rulers have had little to say about the failure of diplomacy of the U.S. and Great Britain; Inter-Arab diplomacy as more of a public relations exercise than a concerted effort at resolving the crisis; Main goal of Arab leaders to preserve the status quo and limit the impact of the crisis on their tribal fiefdoms.

Focuses on impact of Great Britain's membership in the European Union on its relationship with the United States. Concerns raised about Great Britain's commitment to European solidarity; Complaint of European Parliament member Jean-Claude Martinez; Aspects of friendship between Great Britain and the United States.