Great Britain and International Administration

Abstract

This dissertation argues that British officials attempted to use the legacies of British administrative and imperial structures embedded in twentieth century international institutions to define a new world role for Britain after the Second World War. This role, they determined, would be based in international, administrative, and technical experience and expertise. The concept of an international civil service, loyal to the aims of the international organization they served, was first proposed by British diplomats at the League of Nations and based in the British concept of a politically neutral civil service. After the Second World War, British officials hoped that the legacies of their earlier influence - including administrative structures, ideologies, and a large cadre of officials trained through the British civil service in international administrative and technical affairs - would allow them to remain influential in the administration of the new international organizations despite Britain’s diminished postwar status. They were initially successful in this endeavor, with high rates of representation across the ranks of the United Nations, particularly in social and economic fields. Over time, facing political opposition in the General Assembly over their remaining colonial holdings, British officials hoped that their support for the United Nations – particularly as embodied in their representation in the international civil service – might redeem their international image. However, British interests saw increased competition with those of the United States, Soviet Union, and the global South as the United Nations grew over the course of the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, principles of equitable geographic representation in the international civil service meant that as membership in the United Nations grew, British representation declined. By the early 1970s, British officials abandoned their earlier hopes of maintaining an outsized role at the United Nations. Examined in this way, the international civil service served as a microcosm for Britain’s own standing in the world as well as one way that British officials actively attempted to manipulate that standing.