ABSTRACT
Not all member-states value Commonwealth membership for the same reasons or to the same extent. This was already a familiar observation by the time Bruce Miller published the last of the distinguished series of Commonwealth Surveys in 1974, but the trend has become more pronounced in the intervening thirty-five years.2 How the Commonwealth is viewed depends on what a particular country seeks to achieve by belonging, the competing demands on its loyalties and attention, and the angle of vision itself. There is also an unavoidable subjectivity in the way any human institution is perceived depending on the individual and collective experiences that shape it. It is for this reason that I have chosen to introduce this collection of essays with a personal overview of the modern Commonwealth, its evolution, problems and prospects, rather than aiming for an objectivity which will be immediately open to challenge from across the Commonwealth. My view is inevitably London-centric, although for twenty years I was fortunate enough to be an observer at the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), and to conduct a reality check of sorts on the alternative interpretations presented in the Commonwealth cities where these meetings were held.3
