Networks and Actors: British and French Foreign Ministry Responses to European Integration 1919 – 1973

Welcome to our project blog. This is where you will find all the latest updates about the Networks and Actors project including news about our events and publications.

ahrc-logo-anniversaryThe Project

This AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK) funded project concerns the intellectual framework applied by civil servants (permanent officials) who formulated British and French foreign policy between 1919 and 1957 and how they decided whether an integrated European approach to international security was preferable to a more traditional single state strategy. Research on the history of European integration has tended to focus on policy at government level; little attention has been given to how policy was formulated and executed within foreign ministries and certainly not in any comparative way. And yet, the core political and diplomatic assumptions of the permanent officials should be intrinsic to our understanding of how the British and French foreign ministries, or networks within them, saw Europe as a solution to maintaining their international influence. We will also demonstrate how civil servants, including diplomats, reflected the value systems of those who appointed them and those who trained them, although it is not always true that they reflected the priorities of the government ministers whom they served.

The Team

The Networks and Actors team consists of:

  • Professor John Keiger (Principal Investigator)
  • Professor Gaynor Johnson (Co-Investigator)
  • Adam Rolewicz (Co-Investigator)

More information about the project is available on our dedicated website hosted by the University of Kent’s School of History