A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details The Island Race: geopolitics and identity in British foreign policy discourse since 1949 Nicholas Whittaker A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (International Relations) at the University of Sussex January 2016 Supervisors: Doctor Stefanie Ortmann and Doctor Fabio Petito I hereby declare that this thesis has not and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Nicholas Whittaker January 11 2016 abstract of thesis The Island Race: geopolitics and identity in British foreign policy discourse since 1949 This thesis examines Britain’s foreign policy identity by analysing the use of geopolitical tropes in discursive practices of ontological security-seeking in the British House of Commons since 1949, a period of great change for Britain as it lost its empire and joined NATO and the EC. The Empire was narrated according to a series of geopolitical tropes that I call Island Race identity: insularity from Europe and a universal aspect on world affairs, maintenance of Lines of Communication, antipathy towards Land Powers and the Greater Britain metacommunity. The aim of this thesis is to genealogically historicise and contextualise these tropes through interpretivist analysis of Commons debates concerning a series of events and issues from the establishment of NATO to the current parliament. By conceptualising parliamentary discourse as a social practice involving the fixing of ontologically secure subject positions, it presents a new reading of modern British foreign policy that addresses the traditional neglect of geopolitics and identity in approaches depicting a materially declining state engaging in the pragmatic pursuit of realist national interests. The analysis shows how Britain’s foreign policy identity continues to be reliant on the geopolitical constitutions of islandness that discursively defined the empire. This is not indicative of imperial nostalgia so much as it is evidence of how discursive practices of ontological security-seeking in a political environment with a shared debating culture tend to mobilise established identity tropes that have retained relevance even without their imperial underpinnings. Narrations of the Cold War and NATO, relations with the rest of Europe and globalisation are shown to be reliant on Island Race tropes that, through contextual interactions, fix Britain in subject positions of relevance according to how British values, forged by insular geography, are of universal relevance to a world in which Britain is in a pivotal geopolitical position. 1 table of contents acknowledgments 4 chapter 1. Introduction to the Island Race: geopolitics and identity in British foreign policy 1. Introduction: Rethinking British foreign policy 5-8 1.1. The island becomes her: a short pre-history of the imperial Island Race 8-9 1.2. The five tropes of Island Race identity 9-13 1.3. Conclusion: a project for all times and places 13-5 2. Trends in the study of British foreign policy 15 2.1. Pragmatism, rationalism and the national interest 15-8 2.2. Whither Britishness? The (geo)politics of modern British identity 18-22 3. The argument: when geopolitics meets an exceptional history 22-5 4. Chapter summaries 25-8 chapter 2. Theoretical framework and methodology: critical geopolitics, ontological security, discourse and genealogy 1. Introduction 29 2. Critical geopolitics: in search of space 30-3 3. Ontological security: locating foreign policy in collectively understood identity 33-7 4. Geopolitics as ontological security: the spatiality of identity (re)formation 37-8 5. Conceptualising discourse as social practice 39-40 6. Genealogy and interpretivism: the historic ordering of discourse as methodology 40-3 7. Locating the Island Race: discursive practice in the House of Commons 43-7 8. Conclusion 47 chapter 3. A North Atlantic heritage and a Middle Eastern crisis: the Island Race from the North Atlantic Treaty to the Suez Crisis 1. Introduction 48-50 1.1. Island Race identity tropes in the context of NATO and Suez 50-2 2. The signing of NATO, 1949 2.1. NATO as carrier of Island Race values 52-6 2.2. Beyond Cold War politics: the Soviet Union as threat to the Island Race 56-9 2.3. Conclusion 59-60 3. The Suez Crisis, 1956 3.1. The Suez Crisis and the Island Race: party (geo)politics and ontological security 61-2 2 3.2. Empire or universalism? Lines of Communication and the internationalization of the Suez Crisis 63-6 3.3. Constructing a threat to the Western metacommunity: the Island Race, NATO and the Suez Crisis 67-70 4. Conclusion: the enduring Island Race 70-2 chapter 4. The insularity/universality conundrum: the Island Race negotiates European integration, 1960-3. 1. Introduction 73 1.1. Britain and a uniting Europe: discursive encounters and Island Race identity 74-7 2. The 1960/1 debates on joining the EEC 77-8 2.1. Balancing Europe: retaining insularity and universality 78-80 2.2. Between Europe and the world: the Island Race as a bridge 80-2 2.3. Leading Europe: traditions of leadership and exceptional British geo-history 82-6 3. After the flood: de Gaulle’s veto and the eternal Island Race 86-8 3.1. Othering France: French geopolitics versus the Island Race 88-93 3.2. Exceptional history and a glorious future outside Europe 93-5 4. Conclusion 95-6 chapter 5. From the Heartlands of Eurasia to the South Atlantic: Thatcher and the reinvigoration of the Island Race 1. Introduction 97 1.1. Historical erasure and national identity: contextualising the Conservative government of 1979 97-100 2. The Island Race and the British parliamentary response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan 2.1. The last Cold Warrior: Thatcher and the Soviet Union 100-2 2.2. Beyond the Cold War: Land and Sea, the eternal struggle 102-4 2.3. The expertise of the Island Race: Western strategy and British identity 104-6 2.4. British history and national identity: imperial past, Island Race present 106-7 2.5. Labour opposition and dominant discourses 107-9 3. An Island Race like us: the Falklands and British identity 3.1. The Falklands Conflict, British history, identity and role-playing 109-10 3.2. Island Race history: the Empire Strikes Back? 110-2 3.3. Global freedoms, insularity, universality: Island Race values and the retaking of the Falklands 112-14 3.4. The emergent Soviet threat and the co-constitution of Cold War and Island Race narratives 114-6 3 3.5. Competing subject positions: opposition discourse and ontological security 116-7 4. Conclusion 117-8 chapter 6. International Communities and Island Stories: geopolitics, globalisation and ontological security 1997-2015 1. Introduction 119-20 1.1. Four ‘Debates on the Address’ 120-2 1.2. Underlying discourses: ‘strategic shrinkage’ and ‘outward-facing’ Britain 122-3 2. Globalisation and the British: spatializing the post-Cold War world 123-6 2.1. Fixing Island Race identity around globalisation narratives 126-8 2.2. An ideal environment: British geopolitical relevance in a globalised world 128-32 2.3. Ensuring reach in a globalised world: Greater Britain redux and the projection of values 132-6 3. Europe and the Island Race in the twenty-first century 3.1. Introduction: Britain and Europe from Thatcher to New Labour 136-7 3.2. Competing subject positions: the EU and NATO 138-40 3.3. Insularity and universality: the EU in a globalised world 140-3 4. Conclusion ‘plus’: Our Island Story 143-6 chapter 7. Conclusion 1. Introduction 147 2. The five tropes of Island Race identity: a genealogical overview 147-52 3. The future of Island Race identity 152-4 4. Theory and its implications 155-6 5. Concluding remarks 157 bibliography 158-83 4 acknowledgments First and foremost, I owe the deepest debt of gratitude to my supervisors, Doctor Stefanie Ortmann and Doctor Fabio Petito. Their patience, encouragement, enthusiasm and immense knowledge have been of inestimable value. They believed in me and my thesis when I doubted and I cannot imagine finer supervisors. I would also like to thank Doctor Shane Brighton for so thoroughly engaging with a draft chapter at a crucial stage. His enthusiasm for the project impelled its development just as much as his rigorous and probing problematizations. The same must be said of Professor Cynthia Weber, Doctor Louiza Odysseos, Doctor Rebecca Adler-Nissen and all at the Copenhagen- Sussex Network in International Relations workshop of 2013 who helped me overcome my ‘imposter syndrome’. Professor Lene Hansen gave my chapter expert attention and it was a privilege to have it scrutinised by one whose work has influenced my own so profoundly. I thank all my friends who have listened over the years and members of my family who have offered support, love and patience throughout. None of this would have been possible without Rachel and her limitless reserves of generosity, insight and affection. 5 chapter 1 Introduction to the Island Race: geopolitics and identity in British foreign policy Our story concerns an island Winston Churchill (1956), A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume I, p.