Diplomacy with a Difference: The Commonwealth Office of High Commissioner, 1880-2006

Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-90-04-15497-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 1, 356 Seiten, Format (B × H): 166 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 821 g

Reihe: Diplomatic Studies

This book illuminates two familiar phenomena – diplomacy and the Commonwealth – from a new and unfamiliar angle: the atypical way in which the Commonwealth’s members came to, and continue to, engage in official relations with each other. This innovative and wide-ranging study is based on archival material from four states, interviews and correspondence with diplomats, and a wide range of secondary sources. It shows how members of an empire found it necessary to engage in diplomacy and, in so doing, created a singular, and often remarkably intimate, diplomatic system. The result is a fascinating, multidisciplinary exploration of the evolving Commonwealth and the way in which its 53 members and Ireland conduct diplomacy with one another, and in so doing have contributed a distinctive terminology to the diplomatic lexicon.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lloyd, Lorna

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Diplomatie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

The office of high commissioner
High commissioners and diplomacy

Chapter 1 - Beginnings, 1880-1914
§ Colonial representation in London
§ The emergence of the office of high commissioner
§ Early high commissioners and the establishment of the office

Chapter 2 - Consolidation: 1914 – late 1930s
§ The growing stature of the dominions: their entry into international relations and the question of constitutional change
§ The enhanced standing of high commissioners in London
§ The importance of the office
§ An expanding work load
§ The growing diplomatic character of the office
§ Winning enhanced status
§ Consultation, information gathering, and high commissioners’ meetings
§ Limitations on high commissioners as diplomats
§ Problems with prime ministers
§ Other channels of communication
§ Prime minister to prime minister
§ Government-to-government
§ Liaison officers
§ The decline of the office of governor-general and the emergence of British high commissioners
§ South African and Irish overtures to Canada, and the despatch of a South African ‘Accredited Representative’

Chapter 3 - Discontent, late 1930s – mid-1940s
§ High commissioners and high commissioners’ meetings during the Second World War
§ The expansion of high commissions
§ Anglo-Irish complications
§ High commissioner woes: Canada and South Africa
§ The standing of high commissioners elsewhere
§ Post-War developments
§ Ireland and Australia: ‘an Ambassador, or a Minister or a What’?
§ Moving forwards: Ireland and Canada
§ Deputy high commissioners

Chapter 4 - Equal Status, 1946-1948
§ Discussions in Ottawa
§ Dominion views of the office
§ Britain’s deliberations
§ The Prime Ministers’ Meeting, 11-22 October 1948
§ Implementing the Prime Ministers’ decisions

Chapter 5 - Substantive equality, late 1940s – early 1950s
§ Keeping India in the Commonwealth
§ High commissioners to and from India, Pakistan, and Ceylon
§ India and the question of translating high commissioners into ambassadors
§ Accreditation and agréation
§ The diplomatic consequences of Ireland’s departure from the Commonwealth
§ Later problems
§ Diplomatic immunity
§ High commissioners and the décanat
§ Further equality
§ South Africa and the décanat, 1956

Chapter 6 - ‘Ambassadors plus’, early 1950s – mid-1960s
§ Pageantry and protocol
§ Royal occasions
§ Presentation of Credentials
§ The activity of high commissioners
§ Relations with the receiving state
§ The influence of British high commissions
§ Collegial relations
§ The Commonwealth Relations Office
§ CRO diplomacy
§ Information sharing
§ Ireland and the CRO
§ Safeguarding the office: the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
§ Preparation
§ The Conference, 2 March-18 April 1961
§ Impact

Chapter 7 - Normalisation, early 1960s – mid-1970s
§ Consular relations
§ The Commonwealth’s consular arrangements
§ The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR)
§ Preparation
§ The Conference
§ From the Vienna Conference to consular relations
§ Comings – and goings
§ South Africa
§ Pakistan
§ The Commonwealth Secretariat
§ Meetings of high commissioners and of Commonwealth heads of mission
§ The position of high commissioners
§ Titular flexibility – and orthodoxy
§ CRO diplomacy and the demise of the CRO
§ Britain and the décanat
§ British high commissioners and the décanat in newly-independent states
§ The doyen in London
§ Australian sniping

Chapter 8 - Survival: mid-1970s – 2006
§ The position of high commissioners
§ Information sharing and collective meetings
§ Relations between individual high commissioners
§ High commissioners and the receiving state
§ The office and the Commonwealth
§ Unexpected applicants – and lost sheep
§ Return of the prodigal
§ The question of Ireland
§ A Commonwealth constituency
§ The Queen as Head of the Commonwealth

Über Autor(innen)

Lorna Lloyd was educated at the London School of Economics and teaches International Relations at Keele University. She has written Peace through Law. Britain and the International Court in the 1920s (The Boydell Press for the Royal Historical Society, 1997), and is a co-author of International Organisation in World Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 3rd edition, 2004).