“Strictly Non-Committal”: Commonwealth Economic Cooperation and the Great Depression

This thesis explores the effects of the Great Depression on the nascent British Commonwealth, with particular emphasis on whether economic crisis fostered cooperation or division among member states. In doing so, this project resituates our conceptions of the early Commonwealth from a purely imperial understanding, to one which considers the Commonwealth as a predecessor to modern supranational organisations. Ultimately, the Depression exacerbated divisive trends within the Commonwealth, but lingering imperial economic and political structures resulted in somewhat begrudging cooperation and coordination in response to the crisis. The self-interest of individual states in response to economic crisis, and the role of structures in fostering cooperation within supranational organisations are promising areas for further research regarding both the early Commonwealth, and the operation of more contemporary supranational organisations

“To Tidy Minds it May Appear Illogical”: How the Commonwealth Evolved from an ‘Imperial Club’ to an International Organisation

The history of the Commonwealth is vast and multifaceted. It touches on myriad fields, actors, and eras, and reaches from the local to the global. Amidst the Gordian knot of Commonwealth history this thesis is about understanding the organisational history of the Commonwealth on its own terms, rather than as a derivative topic of other fields. Building on the premise that the Commonwealth today is an international organisation (IO), this thesis argues that the Commonwealth transitioned from an imperial club to an international organisation in the 1960s, hinging on the creation of the Commonwealth Secretariat in 1965. The creation and subsequent growth of the Secretariat was negotiated between the “expansionist” members who viewed the Commonwealth as an international organisation and argued for a strong, expanded Secretariat, and the “restrictionist” members who opposed Secretariat growth. The Secretary-General and his staff were a third group of actors that mediated between the expansionists and restrictionists and pursued a vision for the organisation that would appeal to all members. The weight of this project rests on case studies in logistics, membership applications, the Rhodesian crisis, and Commonwealth technical cooperation. These topics help foreground how the transition from club to IO took place. Through these case studies I argue that the management of Commonwealth meetings decisively influenced the future of the organisation and was instrumental in the expansionists’ vision of the Commonwealth as an IO prevailing by 1970. The debates and decisions of Commonwealth meetings are well known, but the process of planning and managing those meetings has shaped the evolution of the Commonwealth as much, if not more than the content of the meetings themselves

Protocol for Nearly Full-Length Sequencing of HIV-1 RNA from Plasma

Nearly full-length genome sequencing of HIV-1 using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) DNA as a template for PCR is now a relatively routine laboratory procedure. However, this has not been the case when using virion RNA as the template and this has made full genome analysis of circulating viruses difficult. Therefore, a well-developed procedure for sequencing of full-length HIV-1 RNA directly from plasma was needed. Plasma from U.S. donors representing a range of viral loads (VL) was used to develop the assay. RNA was extracted from plasma and reverse-transcribed. Two or three overlapping regions were PCR amplified to cover the entire viral genome and sequenced for verification. The success of the procedure was sensitive to VL but was routinely successful for VL greater than 105 and the rate declined in proportion to the VL. While the two-amplicon strategy had an advantage of increasing the possibility of amplifying a single species of HIV-1, the three-amplicon strategy was more successful in amplifying samples with low viral loads. This protocol provides a useful tool for molecular analysis to understand the HIV epidemic and pathogenesis, as well as diagnosis, therapy and future vaccine strategies