An Oral History of the Modern Commonwealth, 1965-2010

该项目的目的是制作一个关于1965年以来英联邦口述历史的独特数字研究资源。它将对该组织近期历史上的主要人物进行60次重要采访，这些采访将以数字化形式在高级研究学院的“SAS空间”主办的专用网站上提供。该项目旨在制作一个英联邦版本，相当于剑桥丘吉尔学院的英国外交口述历史课程。它将为任何调查英联邦历史的人提供一个必不可少的研究工具，并将有助于促进对该组织的兴趣和了解。1965年是英联邦历史上的一个重大转折点。这个组织是从大英帝国的残余势力中产生的。最初将英国和自治的“多米尼克”聚集在一起，战后的非殖民化看到其成员的行列由来自亚洲，非洲和加勒比地区的新独立国家膨胀，决定性地改变了其性质。随着1965年英联邦秘书处的成立，英国不再扮演中央协调角色（尽管英国君主继续拥有英联邦元首的头衔）。该组织的重点在1960年代转向争取在罗得西亚和南非实现黑人多数统治的斗争。从1990年代起，随着种族隔离制度的结束，促进人权和善政成为新的重点。然而，尽管有这些变化，英联邦的一些基本特征仍然保持不变：它主要通过非正式讨论和说服运作;它没有宪法或创始条约;“官方”英联邦是包括各种民间社会组织在内的更广泛网络的一部分，其中许多组织比秘书处历史悠久得多。当代政策制定者的关键问题，也是该项目试图探索的问题，是英联邦作为一个组织的有效性。这就形成了关于成员国应该准备投入多少时间和精力的争论。就英国政府而言，自20世纪60年代以来，新政府上台后一直倾向于承诺更加重视这一“未充分利用的资源”，但却将英联邦边缘化，以追求更切实的外交政策目标。对英联邦秘书处档案的分析提供了一种试图衡量该组织重要性的手段。然而，这一汇编往往更多地说明秘书处的行政作用，而不是英联邦对国际外交的贡献。该项目力求通过与一些主要人物的详细访谈，调查英联邦活动中那些不容易在书面记录中记录的内容。其中包括通过秘书长斡旋进行的非正式且往往高度敏感的外交。它们还将包括对成员国代表如何看待英联邦的坦率评估。

The aim of this project is to produce a unique digital research resource on the oral history of the Commonwealth since 1965. It will conduct 60 major interviews with leading figures in the recent history of the organisation, which will be available in digitised form on a dedicated website hosted by the School of Advanced Study's 'SAS Space'. The project seeks to produce a Commonwealth equivalent of the British Diplomatic Oral History Programme based at Churchill College, Cambridge. It will provide an essential research tool for anyone investigating the history of the Commonwealth and will serve to promote interest in and understanding of the organisation. 1965 represented a major turning point in the history of the Commonwealth. The organisation had emerged from the remnants of the British Empire. Originally bringing together Britain and the self-governing 'Dominions', post-war decolonization saw the ranks of its members swelled by newly-independent states from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, decisively altering its character. With the creation of the Commonwealth Secretariat in 1965, Britain ceased to play the central coordinating role (although the British monarch continued to hold the title of Head of the Commonwealth). The focus of the organisation shifted in the 1960s towards the struggle to achieve black majority rule in Rhodesia and South Africa. From the 1990s, with the end of apartheid, there was a new emphasis on promoting human rights and good governance. Despite these changes, however, some essential characteristics of the Commonwealth remained constant: it operated essentially through informal discussion and persuasion; it lacked a constitution or founding treaty; and the 'official' Commonwealth was part of a broader network including a variety of civil society organisations, many of them considerably older than the Secretariat. The crucial question for contemporary policy makers, and one that the project seeks to explore, is how effective the Commonwealth has been as an organisation. This shapes debates about the amount of time and effort member states should be prepared to devote to it. In the case of British government, since the 1960s there has been a tendency for new administrations to come to power promising to place greater emphasis on this 'under-utilised resource', only to sideline the Commonwealth in the pursuit of more tangible foreign policy goals. Analysis of the archives of the Commonwealth Secretariat provides one means of seeking to gauge the significance of the organisation. Yet this collection tends to cast more light on the Secretariat's administrative role than on the Commonwealth's contribution to international diplomacy. This project seeks to investigate, through the use of detailed interviews with some of the leading protagonists, those elements of the Commonwealth's activities that are not easily captured in written records. These would include the informal and often highly sensitive diplomacy conducted via the Secretary-General's good offices. They would also include candid assessments of the way in which the Commonwealth was perceived by representatives from the member states.