An Oral History of the Modern Commonwealth, 1965-2010

该项目的目的是制作一个独特的关于1965年以来英联邦口述历史的数字研究资源。它将对该组织近代史上的主要人物进行60次重要采访，采访内容将以数字化形式在高级研究学院‘SAS Space’托管的专用网站上提供。该项目旨在制作一个英联邦版的英国外交口述历史课程，总部设在剑桥的丘吉尔学院。它将为任何研究英联邦历史的人提供一个必要的研究工具，并将有助于促进人们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。该组织是从大英帝国的残余中脱颖而出的。战后非殖民化最初将英国和自治的“自治领”团结在一起，来自亚洲、非洲和加勒比海地区的新独立国家使其成员队伍壮大，决定性地改变了它的特征。随着1965年英联邦秘书处的成立，英国不再发挥中央协调作用(尽管英国君主继续持有英联邦元首的头衔)。20世纪60年代，该组织的重点转向在罗得西亚和南非实现黑人多数统治的斗争。从1990年代开始，随着种族隔离制度的结束，对促进人权和善政有了新的重视。然而，尽管有这些变化，英联邦的一些基本特征仍然不变：它基本上通过非正式讨论和劝说运作；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，其中许多组织的历史比秘书处大得多。对于当代政策制定者来说，关键的问题是英联邦作为一个组织的有效性如何，这也是该项目试图探索的一个问题。这就形成了关于成员国应该准备投入多少时间和精力的辩论。就英国政府而言，自20世纪60年代以来，有一种趋势是，新一届政府上台时承诺更多地强调这种“未得到充分利用的资源”，只是为了追求更切实的外交政策目标而将英联邦排挤在外。对英联邦秘书处档案的分析为寻求衡量该组织的重要性提供了一种手段。然而，这些收集往往更多地揭示秘书处的行政作用，而不是英联邦对国际外交的贡献。该项目试图通过对一些主要主角的详细访谈，调查英联邦活动中那些不易以书面记录记录下来的因素。其中包括通过秘书长斡旋进行的非正式外交，而且往往是高度敏感的外交。它们还将包括坦率地评估成员国代表对英联邦的看法。

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.