Abstract
This article reviews the history of the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ to assess the relative importance of shared cultures and values, common enemies and political self-interest in maintaining the connection over the long term and, most important, in making it closer and more salient in the short term. The paper briefly reviews the literature and argues that culture and values are seldom decisive but serve as a precondition, a facilitating factor in the alliance. It then argues that what seems most important in explaining those moments when the relationship was closest is self-interest—for the two countries, as during the Second World War, or for particular political leaders whose visions and projects are furthered by having allies who largely share such views and plans. Examples of this more particular and limited kind of self-interest are Thatcher and Reagan and Blair and Clinton—and, to a lesser extent, Blair and Bush.
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Notes
Nisbet [14]. The work was begun in 1940 and still not complete by the time of the author’s death in 1994. It was completed by her research assistant, Elliot Kanter.
Cited in Benn Steil, The Battle of Bretton Woods (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 306.
Unless otherwise noted, this and other polls cited here come from Gallup [12].
Online report in The Hill, June 3, 2019. The data were from YouGov.
The survey was commissioned by the Legatum Institute and the Royal United Services Institute and conducted by YouGov. See the report of May 19, 2010 at https://rusi.org/rusi-news/74-british-public-believe-relations-us-have-stayed-same-or-deteriorated-obama-took-office.
See Putnam [17], for the original argument. Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt and Patrick A. Mello consider subsequent applications and iterations and make the case for the particular relevance of the perspective to account for recent shifts in the support for a liberal international order. See da Conceição-Heldt and Mello [9].
The most sustained argument about Reagan’s primary role in ending the Cold War can be found in Schweizer [21]. Schweizer is a long-time right-wing operative and is currently affiliated with Breitbart News. Others, with more respectable backgrounds, have made similar but less extreme arguments to this effect.
Prasad [16].
Schulz and Schwartz [20].
Cronin, Global Rules, chap. 2.
Brands [5].
Blair [3].
Blair and Gerhard Schroeder [4].
Kampfner [13].
.
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Cronin, J.E. The roots of the ‘special relationship’: Shared values or interests?. J Transatl Stud 18, 283–295 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42738-020-00049-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s42738-020-00049-8