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The underlying causes of military outsourcing in the USA and UK: bridging the persistent gap between ends, ways and means since the beginning of the Cold War
This article reappraises the two most-studied country cases of military outsourcing: the USA and the UK. It argues that the contemporary wave of military contracting stretches back to the beginning of the cold war and not only to the demobilisation of armies in the 1990s or the neoliberal reforms introduced since the 1980s. It traces the political, technological and ideational developments that laid the groundwork for these reforms and practices since the early cold war and account for its endurance today. Importantly, it argues that a persistent gap between strategic objectives and resources, i.e. the challenge to reconcile ends and means, is an underlying driver of military contracting in both countries. Contemporary contracting is thus most closely tied to military support functions in support of wider foreign and defence political objectives. Security services in either state may not have been outsourced so swiftly, if at all, without decades of experience in outsourcing military logistics functions and the resultant vehicles, processes and familiarities with public-private partnerships. The article thus provides a wider and deeper understanding of the drivers of contractualisation, thereby improving our understanding of both its historical trajectory and the determinants of its present and potential futures
International Factors and the 1964 Election
International issues are not usually seen as having been significant to the 1964 general election result. Harold Wilson made only limited references to foreign policy and defence during the campaign, while opinion polls showed that voters saw domestic questions as being far more important. Traditionally, international issues have had only a limited impact upon British general elections. But the 1964 election was one of the most closely run in history and this article argues that, interpreted broadly, international questions did have a real effect on the contest. The sitting prime minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home focused on the future of the nuclear deterrent for much of the campaign, while considerations about the country's relative decline in the world, reflected in chronic balance of payment problems, helped Labour's case that it was ‘time for a change’ at the top. Besides, the mid-1960s was a significant point for the country's global position: the post-war policy of ‘three circles’—in which Britain played a major role in Europe, maintained a global empire and influenced US policy via the ‘special relationship’—was being called into question. The question deserves to be asked, therefore, why there was not a more intense debate between the political leaders about Britain's international role
The parting of the ways: Britain and South Africa's departure from the commonwealth, 1951–61
Divided sovereignty : empire and nation in the making of modern Britain
Original article is available at : http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ Copyright Palgrave MacmillanGreat Britain is regarded as a classic example of the Weberian state, and thus as a model of a developed state that might be contrasted with developing states. However, this view conceals the formative role of empire in the evolution of the British state. Rather than take the distinction between a ‘metropolis’ and a ‘periphery’ as given, this article explores the mutual constitution of state and empire. What it finds is that the political identity of the British state changed dramatically during the first half of the twentieth century as British intellectuals and policy-makers attempted to develop a new political community, primarily through the vehicle of the Commonwealth. The British state of the interwar years decentralised its decision making and embedded itself firmly in new multilateral networks. A rationalised, centralised British state emerged after the Second World War and only then within a context of multiple (principally Atlantic and European) political identities. The modern British state is as much a post-colonial invention as are states of the ‘developing’ world.Peer reviewe
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