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The 1997 New Labour government set about modernising British foreign policy by devising new ways of conceptualising, making and talking about Britain’s role in the world. First, in May 1997 Foreign Secretary Robin Cook famously announced that he wanted to give British foreign policy an ‘ethical dimension’. Second, in April 1999 the Prime Minister set out his ‘doctrine of the international community’ in which he spelt out the multifarious security challenges posed to individual nation states by global interdependence and the ‘circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people’s conflicts’. Finally, Chancellor Gordon Brown has returned time and again to the potential gains to be had from exploiting what he calls the ‘British genius’ on the world stage.New ways of representing foreign policy, together with a sophisticated communications strategy on the part of the government since 1997 demands new ways of researching British foreign policy. In this paper I consider two questions arising from this challenge: first of all, what can discourse analysis contribute to political research in general? Second, how can we design a workable research programme into New Labour’s European policy that has discourse analysis at its very centre? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how a hegemon can affect its environment through the foreign policies that it chooses to adopt. In this strategic setting, challengers will take into account likely responses before deciding on which strategy to adopt. Both historical and contemporary cases of hegemony will be examined (Britain in the 19th century, the US in the 20th and 21st centuries), in particular the domestic politics of both hegemons and challengers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers whether could write a history of British international thought. It begins by asking whether the idea of a history of British international thought is an intelligible one, and with the related question of whether there is a distinctively British tradition of thinking about international relations and if so how that tradition might be defined and explained. It examines debates over national traditions of political thought, the apparent anomaly of a national tradition of inter-national thought, and Churchill’s suggestion that there is a distinctive Anglo-American political tradition supporting a distinctive Anglo-American tradition in foreign affairs. It suggests that although limited themes or periodsâ€"such as Atlantic republicanism, Victorian international law, Edwardian liberalism, or a mid-twentieth century “English School”â€"might be suitable objects of historical inquiry, one must be skeptical of the idea of a national tradition extending from Bacon or Hobbes to Namier or Bull. In the course of this inquiry, the key terms in these debatesâ€"tradition, history, thought, and internationalâ€"are considered. The advantage of studying British international thought is to focus attention on neglected thinkers and themes, and on their context, but there may also be value in looking back at the international thought of a nation in (what might be) its moment of European or global dusk, which isâ€"as Hegel remarkedâ€"when the historian properly enters the scene. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Could a growing transatlantic rift between France, the United States and the United Kingdom regarding the use of military force outside Europe propel the political break-up of Canada? Scholars have posited a direct link between Canada’s binational (French and English) composition and its Atlanticist grand strategy. Two cultural hypotheses account for this link. First, Canada’s socio-demographic composition, mainly populated by immigrants from France and the United Kingdom during the 18th and 19th centuries, has fostered a sense of collective identity between Francophone and Anglophone Canadians and their respective countries of ethnic origin. Combined with its inevitable North American geographical location next to the United States, these socio-historical backgrounds help explain Canada’s attachment to a quadrilateral Atlanticism. Second, France’s strong influence over Québécois’ attitudes regarding the use of force, and a similar Anglo-American sway over English Canadians, further explain the prevalence of this Atlanticist grand strategy since the second half of the 20th century. The institutionalization of these relationships within NATO and the UN Security Council, moreover, have entrenched a multilateralist strategic culture in Canada, which sought, with the establishment of these international institutions, to reduce to a minimum the potential for division within Canada’s three “natural” allies. A significant transatlantic split could spark divisive debates between Canada’s two “founding nations,” and worst, lead to the political break-up of the country. National unity imperatives, in other words, motivated the Canadian federal government to adopt a moderate, consensus-seeking multilateral strategy.This paper empirically tests these two cultural hypotheses from a reverse angle. It examines whether the varying threat perceptions between France, the United States, and the United Kingdom surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could generate a national unity crisis in Canada along ethno-cultural lines. Evidence reveals the existence of diverging strategic subcultures within Canada -- in Québec, Alberta, and to some extent in Atlantic Canada -- which could be politically mobilized to further advance separatists political movements, but have yet failed to do so, even in Québec. These regional divides within Canada nevertheless illustrate the potentially disruptive nature of the allegedly growing transatlantic gap between France and the United States’ regarding the use of force. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International relations theorists posit the importance of "state identity," but lack consensus on what it is. The result is in an insufficient understanding of its sources and significance. Two views predominate. One sees identity as role, the other stresses cultural discourses. Levels of analysis also vary within these perspectives, with some studies concentrating on state interactions, others on the domestic realm. Based on these two dimensions of difference, we delineate four distinct manifestations of corporate identity. The evolution of British foreign relations illustrates the utility of disaggregating identity as a variable. Interactions across international, domestic, and transnational dimensions of collective identities lead us to differentiate between "state" and "imperial" identities. The 1950s, in particular, mark a critical transition from imperial to state identity in Britain, offering an opportunity to delineate more clearly the key features of identity as a variable. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]