Abstract
Over the past three decades the proliferation of international institutions and the increasing range and complexity of the issues with which they grapple have stimulated considerable scholarly interest in the character and role of international secretariats.1 There have been excellent case studies of particular institutions and of individual Secretaries-General and valuable analytical work of a comparative nature.2 But until very recently the Commonwealth, which has been well served by historians, was generally overlooked by international relations scholars; its significance was derided; its survival doubted; many texts on international organisation failed to mention it at all.3 Over the last fifteen years this neglect has become progressively less justifiable, and the book of which this chapter forms a part indicates a growing awareness of the importance of the new Commonwealth as an institution worthy of study. While the association still has distinctive qualities, the establishment of a Commonwealth Secretariat in 1965 moved it structurally more into line with other international institutions, as well as giving greater cohesion to the multiplicity of Commonwealth links and impetus to the development of new areas of co-operation.
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Notes and References
See particularly S. M. Schwebel, The Secretary-General of the United Nations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952);
Robert W. Cox, ‘The Executive Head: an essay on leadership in international organization’, International Organization, vol. 23, 2, Spring 1969, pp. 205–30;
Mark W. Zacher, ‘The Secretary-General: some comments on recent research’, International Organization, vol. 23, 4, Autumn 1969, pp. 932–50;
Robert W. Cox, Harold K. Jacobson, et al., The Anatomy of Influence: decision making in international organization (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973);
B. David Meyers, ‘The OAU’s Administrative Secretary-General’, International Organization, vol. 30, 3, Summer 1976, pp. 509–20;
Roger A. Rieber, ‘Public Information and Political Leadership in International Organizations’, The Year Book of World Affairs, vol. 30, 1976, pp. 42–68.
A notable exception was M. Margaret Ball, The ‘Open’ Commonwealth (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press, 1971).
See, too, Hedley Bull, ‘What is the Commonwealth?’ World Politics, vol. 22, 4, July 1959, pp. 577–87
Martin Wight, ‘Is the Commonwealth a Non-Hobbesian Institution?’, a paper given in 1959, published in the Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, vol. 16, 2, July 1978, pp. 119–35. Both authors noted the tendency to emphasise ’emotional commitment’ rather than analysis in writing on the Commonwealth.
For the earlier history of Whitehall organisation see J. A. Cross, Whitehall and the Commonwealth: British Departmental Organization for Commonwealth Relations, 1900–1966 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967).
Joe Garner, The Commonwealth Office, 1925–1968 (London: Heinemann, 1978).
Lord Normanbrook, ‘Meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers’, Journal of the Parliaments of the Commonwealth, 1964, p. 248.
See, too, H. Harvey, Consultation and Co-operation in the Commonwealth (London: Oxford University Press, for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1952);
J. D. B. Miller, ‘Commonwealth Conferences 1945–1955’ in the Year Book of World Affairs, vol. 10, 1956, pp. 144–69.
See Arnold Smith with Clyde Sanger, Stitches in Time: the Commonwealth in World Politics (Don Mills, Ont.: General Publishing Co., 1981) pp. 4–5. See too Garner, The Commonwealth Office, p. 351.
Arnold Smith’s comments in ‘Commonwealth of Nations after Twenty-Five Years of Change’, International Perspectives, Nov/Dec 1975, p. 45, support this assessment.
Pierre E. Trudeau, ‘The Commonwealth After Ottawa’, Round Table, No. 253, January 1974, pp. 38–41.
T. H. Bingham and S. M. Gray, Report on the Supply of Petroleum and Petroleum Products to Rhodesia (London: HMSO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office), 1978).
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© 1984 A. J. R. Groom and Paul Taylor
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Doxey, M. (1984). The Commonwealth Secretariat. In: Groom, A.J.R., Taylor, P. (eds) The Commonwealth in the 1980s. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05691-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05691-0_2
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