ABSTRACT
This article seeks to analyse several essentially ‘transnational’ perspectives (Hale and Held, 2011) on the Commonwealths (pluralised to reflect their very heterogeneous character), inter-and non-state, formal and informal, official and otherwise. It therefore intends to go beyond multilateralisms to cultural, education, development, global governance networks, regional security, technology, transnational studies and genres. As I recently suggested: ‘The Commonwealth brings together four or five regions, comprises non-state as well as state actors, and reaches out to non-formal connections (such as Commonwealth literature or film, sports-not just Commonwealth Games but also cricket and rugby-and myriad diasporas, especially in the North)’ (Shaw, 2011, p. 311). The balance between inter-and non-governmental relations in the Commonwealths
means that they are quite amenable to ‘transnational’ perspectives (Khagram and Levitt, 2007), which treat all diverse cross-border relations, including the informal and the illegal. In turn, they have been innovative in advancing forms of ‘transnational governance’ (Hale and Held, 2011) in which a set of heterogeneous actors-non-state as well as state-identify, mobilise around and attempt to manage proliferating ‘global issues’ such as climate change, conflict diamonds and small arms, to cite but a few examples, as well as various forms of fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism. As the Commonwealths have a tradition of bridging the inter-and non-state gap, and as the ‘empires’ had economic dimensions as well as social and strategic ambitions, they have been able to advance features such as corporate social responsibility with relative ease through, for instance, the Commonwealth Business Council. Perhaps the most telling of such Commonwealth achievements is the Kimberley Process to control ‘blood diamonds’: corporations and governments, cities and industrial groups, labour groups and consumers in Australia, Botswana, Canada, India, Namibia, South Africa as well as Britain were central to the creation and implementation of the Kimberley Process-particularly in the shaping of evaluation and sanctions and in giving it publicity (Hale and Held, 2011). In turn, such resonance with transnational approaches can advance the notion of ‘global studies’, which transcends established disciplines and debates, as indicated in the citation from O’Bryne and Hensby (2011) above. The inter-state membership of the Commonwealth of Nations is concentrated in a
half-dozen regions-including Europe (with Cyprus, Malta and the United Kingdom)— and the Overseas Territories (OTs) are concentrated in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Commonwealth states constitute the majority of the member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the East African Community (EAC), the Indian Ocean Rim
Association (IORA), the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Southern African Custom Union (SACU). They are also a central force in the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states (ACP) (Shaw, 2011). In turn, their distinctive relations might be said to constitute a ‘Commonwealth school’ of international and/or transnational relations (Shaw and Ashworth, 2010). Such an approach privileges non-state rather than interstate relations, many of which are concentrated at the regional or sub-global level, such as informal trade, human mobility, mobile-phone connectivity, sports competitions or water governance. Even though the European Union (EU) recognises 34 Overseas Countries and
Territories of six of its (post-colonial) members, groupings such as small island developing states (SIDS) and the ACP in which the Commonwealth dimension is paramount are no longer central to an EU of 28 heterogeneous members which is preoccupied by the never-ending eurozone crisis, Russia’s interventions in Ukraine, the regional conflicts around Syria, the Kurds, ISIS and Turkey, and the apparent radicalisation of religious communities inside the EU compounded by anti-immigration forces. Further, the unexpected decline in the prices of commodities and energy as well as in
the value of some currencies suggests that the global dynamo of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and ‘emerging markets’ has weakened. The post-BRICS period is also marked by the post-Millennium Development Goals era in the United Nations (UN) and other development agencies (Shaw, 2015).
