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The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs is published six times a year.
Access the latest edition index.
Feature Article
Special Issues
Contributions on these themes, to the Editor are particularly welcome.How Commonwealth countries dealt with Covid-19.
Exploring key lessons from the 2019 general elections in Nigeria.
From the Archive
In 2022 the Commonwealth celebrates 70 years of Queen Elizabeth’s headship of the association. In this article from 1998 historian and royal biographer Ben Pimlott examines the Queen’s role in defining the headship, and in exercising an informal influence in its favour. He notes that her ‘political mistakes’ have almost entirely been in the domestic political arena, while her ‘constitutional-cum-political achievements’ have all been in the Commonwealth context.
The AUKUS pact (involving Australia but excluding New Zealand) has highlighted the differences between Australian and New Zealand approaches to the security concerns of the Pacific region. In this article, anthropologist Michael Goldsmith looks at the cultural underpinnings of New Zealand’s different approach to the Pacific, and subjects them to critical scrutiny.
Successive British governments have blown hot and cold over the Commonwealth, but some politicians have consistently recognised and argued for its potential. One of these, David Howell (Lord Howell), argues, in this article from ten years ago, that the Commonwealth is an association made for the twenty-first-century world of networks and soft power. Whether the current UK government shares his vision is, alas, doubtful.