DATE: Tuesday 28 June 2011

TIME: 6.30-8.00pm

VENUE: Committee Room 3A, House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW (Use Cromwell Green Visitors' entrance)

Speakers:

• Rt Hon Lord David Howell, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• Kim Sengupta, Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent, The Independent
• Dr Graeme Davies, Lecturer, International Security, University of Leeds
• Dr Rob Johns, Senior Lecturer, Dept of Politics, University of Essex
• Prof Jason Ralph, Professor in International Relations & Director of Research, University of Leeds

Chair: Sir Robert Worcester DL KBE, Chair & Founder, MORI

This Foreign Policy Centre event in partnership with the Universities of Essex and Leeds is the second in a series examining the relationship between UK foreign policy and public opinion. This event will provide a timely opportunity to debate public support for past, current and future UK military interventions overseas and the "special relationship" with the United States.

It is almost universally acknowledged that a hallmark of British foreign policy under Tony Blair's Labour government was liberal interventionism: a willingness to use force abroad for various purposes - humanitarian intervention, peacekeeping and regime change - even if British national interests were seemingly involved only indirectly. As Blair argued at the time: "…a political philosophy that does care about other nations - Kosovo, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone - and is prepared to change regimes on their merits, should be gung-ho on Saddam."

A parallel argument could be said to underlie the present coalition government's decision to join military action in Libya. This suggests a cross-party consensus in favour of liberal interventionism. Yet, this raises questions: first, is elite political consensus on foreign policy in the UK as clear as it appears? What role should a UN mandate play in UK policymaking, especially when it clashes with US policy? In particular, will Labour in opposition maintain the same foreign policy approach? Second, where does the UK public stand? Is there general support for the principles underlying Labour's and now the coalition's seeming interventionism? What effect have the Afghanistan and Iraq wars had on British public opinion concerning military action, especially in light of the recent Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the related defence cuts and the current unprecedented levels of public support for the armed forces?

If you would like to attend, please RSVP to: events@fpc.org.uk

Download Dr Rob Johns & Dr Graeme Davies' presentation (440 kilobyte PDF)

Date: Wednesday 15 June 2011

Time: 6.00-7.45pm

Venue: Wilson Room, Portcullis House, Victoria Embankment, Westminster, London SW1A 2LW

Speakers:

• Stephen Twigg MP, Shadow Foreign Office Minister
• Sir Robert Worcester DL KBE, Chair and Founder, MORI
• Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor, The Times
• Dr Graeme Davies, University of Leeds
• Dr Rob Johns, University of Essex

Chair: Hetan Shah, Chief Executive, Think Global - The Development Education Association

This Foreign Policy Centre event being held in partnership with the Universities of Essex and Leeds will provide a timely opportunity to have a discussion, in broad terms, about the relationship between UK foreign policy and public opinion, including debating questions such as:

• What factors act to influence public opinion on UK foreign policy and foreign policy issues?
• Does public opinion influence foreign policy or respond to it (or both)?
• How do the UK government and other political parties measure public opinion or 'take the temperature' of foreign policy issues? How do they respond?
• Is public opinion on foreign policy generally more or less strongly felt than on domestic policy?
• Do the UK government and other political parties pay as much attention to public opinion about foreign policy issues as they do to domestic issues? If not, why not?
• Should governments pursue foreign policies that people want or those which are in their and the country's best interests? If these two are at odds, how can and do governments and political parties respond and how successful are they in doing so?

Download Dr Rob Johns & Dr Graeme Davies' presentation (450 kilobyte PDF)

Please click below to download a copy of Sir Robert Worcester's presentation for 'UK foreign policy and public opinion: What do we think, why and does it matter?' which took place on Wed 15 June 2011.

Download Sir Robert Worcester's presentation - 15 June 2011 (290 kilobyte PDF)

By Alfie Stroud.

Half revered institution, half travelling circus, the Olympic Games is currently in transit between Beijing and London. The governments and societies hosting its consecutive incarnations could scarcely be more different, yet their finished products will be endlessly compared – and in more than the grandeur of their opening ceremonies.

Full text 

By Richard Gowan, Richard Gowan. Source: The Globalist

As the United Nations prepares to replace its leader of the past ten years, Ghana's Kofi Annan, with Ban Ki Moon of South Korea, the organisation may be experiencing an eastward shift in more than just the Secretary General's office. As Richard Gowan notes, the UN's peacekeeping focus is already shifting from Africa to the Middle East.

Full text 

By Richard Gowan, Richard Gowan. Source: E-Sharp September-October 2006

Links between the EU and the UN have flourished under Kofi Annan. With his tenure about to expire, Richard Gowan looks at the implications for Europe of the search for his successor

Download A Special Relationship? (90 kilobyte PDF)

2007

Download The Democratiya Interviews (1.36 megabyte PDF)

Price: £9.95 + £2 p&p (UK orders) / US$45 (overseas orders)

This book brings together a series of conversations about the dilemmas of progressive foreign policy after 9/11. Democratiya editor Alan Johnson talks to Jean Bethke Elshtain, Martin Shaw, Kanan Makiya, Paul Berman, David Held, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Ladan Boroumand, Anne-Marie Slaughter (now Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department), Joshua Muravchik and Mary Kaldor.

To order:

Send a cheque for £11.95 (for UK orders) made payable to The Foreign Policy Centre or an international money order for US$45 (for overseas orders) to: The Foreign Policy Centre (Book Orders), Suite 14, 2nd Floor, 23-28 Penn Street, London N1 5DL, UK. Make clear you are ordering 'Global Politics After 9/11' and include your full postal address.

• Order Online using Paypal (via Democratiya)
• Global Politics after 9/11 launch event

Alex Bigham (Ed.)

July 2007 Hard copy: £2.95, plus £1 p+p.

Download the report (440 kilobyte PDF)

The Foreign Policy Centre, in conjunction with Channel 4, set up an independent, cross-party Commission tasked with producing a blueprint for Britain's future involvement in Iraq.

Alex Bigham (Ed.)

2007 Hard copy: £2.95, plus £1 p+p.

The Foreign Policy Centre is delighted to launch of the new report, 'Having Faith in Foreign Policy'. This collection of essays brings together faith leaders and intellectuals to discuss, debate and attempt to answer some of the most vexed questions of our age: what is the relationship between religion and the state in a post-modern society; what is the interaction between faith, conflict and development and how can governments and leaders reach out to citizens who may feel disengaged from foreign policy?

This report and event are supported by HE Anthony Bailey, KCSS, Eligo International (www.eligo.net) and the Grand Magistral Delegation for Inter-Religious Relations of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George (www.constantinian.com).

DATE: Tuesday 28 June 2011

TIME: 6.30-8.00pm

VENUE: Committee Room 3A, House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW (Use Cromwell Green Visitors' entrance)

Speakers:

• Rt Hon Lord David Howell, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• Kim Sengupta, Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent, The Independent
• Dr Graeme Davies, Lecturer, International Security, University of Leeds
• Dr Rob Johns, Senior Lecturer, Dept of Politics, University of Essex
• Prof Jason Ralph, Professor in International Relations & Director of Research, University of Leeds

Chair: Sir Robert Worcester DL KBE, Chair & Founder, MORI

This Foreign Policy Centre event in partnership with the Universities of Essex and Leeds is the second in a series examining the relationship between UK foreign policy and public opinion. This event will provide a timely opportunity to debate public support for past, current and future UK military interventions overseas and the "special relationship" with the United States.

It is almost universally acknowledged that a hallmark of British foreign policy under Tony Blair's Labour government was liberal interventionism: a willingness to use force abroad for various purposes - humanitarian intervention, peacekeeping and regime change - even if British national interests were seemingly involved only indirectly. As Blair argued at the time: "…a political philosophy that does care about other nations - Kosovo, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone - and is prepared to change regimes on their merits, should be gung-ho on Saddam."

A parallel argument could be said to underlie the present coalition government's decision to join military action in Libya. This suggests a cross-party consensus in favour of liberal interventionism. Yet, this raises questions: first, is elite political consensus on foreign policy in the UK as clear as it appears? What role should a UN mandate play in UK policymaking, especially when it clashes with US policy? In particular, will Labour in opposition maintain the same foreign policy approach? Second, where does the UK public stand? Is there general support for the principles underlying Labour's and now the coalition's seeming interventionism? What effect have the Afghanistan and Iraq wars had on British public opinion concerning military action, especially in light of the recent Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the related defence cuts and the current unprecedented levels of public support for the armed forces?

If you would like to attend, please RSVP to: events@fpc.org.uk

Download Dr Rob Johns & Dr Graeme Davies' presentation (440 kilobyte PDF)

Date: Wednesday 15 June 2011

Time: 6.00-7.45pm

Venue: Wilson Room, Portcullis House, Victoria Embankment, Westminster, London SW1A 2LW

Speakers:

• Stephen Twigg MP, Shadow Foreign Office Minister
• Sir Robert Worcester DL KBE, Chair and Founder, MORI
• Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor, The Times
• Dr Graeme Davies, University of Leeds
• Dr Rob Johns, University of Essex

Chair: Hetan Shah, Chief Executive, Think Global - The Development Education Association

This Foreign Policy Centre event being held in partnership with the Universities of Essex and Leeds will provide a timely opportunity to have a discussion, in broad terms, about the relationship between UK foreign policy and public opinion, including debating questions such as:

• What factors act to influence public opinion on UK foreign policy and foreign policy issues?
• Does public opinion influence foreign policy or respond to it (or both)?
• How do the UK government and other political parties measure public opinion or 'take the temperature' of foreign policy issues? How do they respond?
• Is public opinion on foreign policy generally more or less strongly felt than on domestic policy?
• Do the UK government and other political parties pay as much attention to public opinion about foreign policy issues as they do to domestic issues? If not, why not?
• Should governments pursue foreign policies that people want or those which are in their and the country's best interests? If these two are at odds, how can and do governments and political parties respond and how successful are they in doing so?

Download Dr Rob Johns & Dr Graeme Davies' presentation (450 kilobyte PDF)

Please click below to download a copy of Sir Robert Worcester's presentation for 'UK foreign policy and public opinion: What do we think, why and does it matter?' which took place on Wed 15 June 2011.

Download Sir Robert Worcester's presentation - 15 June 2011 (290 kilobyte PDF)