Commerce and the Commonwealth: Business Associations, Political Culture, and Governance, 1886-1975

经济不是，也从来不是完全由民族国家管理的。事实上，塑造经济活动的决策和政策长期以来一直是在一系列层面上做出的：地方、超国家和国际。这个项目的重点是企业如何参与超国家层面的经济决策。特别是，它研究了大英帝国-英联邦内部商业和政策之间的关系的历史。在21世纪，人们很容易忘记，现代英联邦曾经是一个紧密得多的国家联盟。这个帝国-联邦不同于大英帝国。它由不列颠和帝国的自治殖民地组成，后来是澳大利亚、加拿大、新西兰、纽芬兰和南非的自治领，以及埃里尔。第二次世界大战后，随着前殖民地的加入，它扩大形成了英联邦。在20世纪60年代之前，它拥有广泛使用的货币(英镑)、明确的协商机制(帝国会议)、在从国防到监管等政策领域的一定程度的合作，包括从1932年开始的协调关税政策，尽管一些成员国选择不参与其中的一些内容。这项研究项目考察了整个帝国-联邦的企业如何走到一起，找到共同的利益并制定政策。它尤其关注一个以前被忽视的组织--英联邦商会联合会，该组织聚集了来自100个主要城市的代表，就经济政策的决议进行辩论并达成一致，然后游说各国政府，尤其是英国政府。它追溯了从19世纪80年代到70年代帝国-英联邦内部与政策制定者之间的商业互动的演变。它展示了这些关系如何起源于19世纪末20世纪初(通常被称为全球化的第一个时代)，企业和国家如何应对两次世界大战期间令人担忧的经济状况，以及英联邦内部的经济关系是如何在1945年后先是复苏，然后又被削弱的。这最后一个时期被两大主题所主导：英国与欧洲的关系，以及促进欠发达国家经济繁荣的新兴目标。然而，到了20世纪70年代，英联邦已演变为更为松散的英联邦，不再是一个有意义的商业活动单位。英联邦仍然存在，但作为一个国际联盟，而不是一个超国家治理单位。在追溯商业和帝国-联邦的历史时，该项目提供了对英联邦历史的新理解。在将英联邦重新确立为超国家治理单位(但不是超级国家)的过程中，它开启了与过去和现在其他政治体制的新对比。它为20世纪英国经济和国家的演变，特别是英国与欧洲经济共同体/欧盟的关系提供了新的线索。了解企业如何在超国家层面上与政策制定相互作用，不仅是历史学家和政治学家的固有兴趣，也是当今商业领袖和政策制定者的固有兴趣。这项研究中有三个主题特别及时：重新审视上世纪30年代大萧条期间帝国-英联邦的经济经历；重新考虑英国与英联邦的联系如何塑造了与欧洲的关系；以及对商业和超国家政治在国际发展中的作用产生新的理解。因此，重新审视帝国-联邦以及商业在帝国-联邦中所扮演的角色，不仅对我们理解现代英国具有重要意义，而且有望对全球的过去和现在有新的认识。

Economies are not, and have never been, governed solely by nation states. In fact decisions and policies shaping economic activity have long been taken at a range of levels: local, supranational, and international. This project focuses on how businesses participate in economic decision-making at a supranational level. In particular it studies the history of relations between businesses and policy within the British Empire-Commonwealth. In the twenty-first century, it is easy to forget that the modern Commonwealth was once a much more tightly integrated association of states. This Empire-Commonwealth was not the same as the British Empire. It was composed of Britain and the empire's self-governing colonies, later dominions, in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa as well as Éire. After the Second World War it expanded to form the Commonwealth of Nations with the admission of former colonies. Prior to the 1960s, it possessed a widely-used currency (sterling), clear consultative mechanisms (imperial conferences), a degree of cooperation on policy areas ranging from defence to regulation, including, from 1932, a co-ordinated tariff policy, although some member states opted out of some of these elements. This research project examines how businesses across the Empire-Commonwealth came together to find common interests and shape policy. It focuses in particular on a previously neglected organisation, the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce, which brought together delegates from 100 leading cities to debate and agree resolutions on economic policy, and then lobbied governments, especially the British government. It traces the evolution of business interactions with policy-makers within the Empire-Commonwealth from the 1880s down to the 1970s. It shows how these relations originated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (often called the first age of globalisation), how businesses and states responded to the fraught economic conditions of the interwar period, and finally how intra-Commonwealth economic relations first revived and then eroded after 1945. This final period was dominated by two major themes: Britain's relations with Europe, and the emerging goal of fostering economic prosperity in less developed countries. Yet by the 1970s the Empire-Commonwealth had evolved into the much looser Commonwealth of Nations and had ceased to be a meaningful unit within which businesses mobilised. The Commonwealth persisted, but as an international association rather than a unit of supranational governance.In retracing the history of business and the Empire-Commonwealth, the project offers new understanding of the history of the Commonwealth. In reclaiming the Commonwealth as a supranational unit of governance (but not a superstate), it opens fresh comparisons with other polities past and present. It sheds new light on the evolution of the British economy and state in the twentieth century and particularly on Britain's relations with the EEC/EU. Understanding how businesses interact with policy-making at a supranational level is of inherent interest both to historians and political scientists, but also to business leaders and policy-makers today. Three themes within the research are particularly timely: the re-examination of the economic experience of Empire-Commonwealth during the great depression of the 1930s; a reconsideration of how Britain's links with the Commonwealth shaped relations with Europe; and the generation of fresh understandings of the role of business and of supranational polities in international development. Thus, re-examining the Empire-Commonwealth, and the role played by business within the Empire-Commonwealth, is of significance not merely for our understanding of modern Britain but also promises to shed new light on the global past and present.