[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies.]

Conclusion

The conduct of foreign policy has long ceased to involve exclusively state-to-state relations, in part because complex trans-national issues involve more economic and social actors. As a former Foreign Office Minister of State Sir Kenneth Younger argued at Wilton Park in 1973: ‘modern problems can(not) be solved within the framework of the traditional nation state’ (Hopkinson, Citation2025, p. 462). With its excellent links to the FCDO and an array of global stakeholders such as NGOs, academia and the media, Wilton Park is well suited to addressing today’s global challenges (Hopkinson, Citation2025, p. 460).

Wilton Park and the Commonwealth are analogous organisations as forums for higher level international policy discussion. They share the same purpose to promote international understanding and world peace. Like the Commonwealth, Wilton Park’s programmes provide education, information and ideas; helps broaden international understanding; facilitates contacts and building global and bilateral networks; influences policy development; disseminates ideas through articles and reports; helps meet objectives of participating governments and organisations, and enhances bilateral and multilateral relations (Hopkinson, Citation2025, pp. 463–4).

As such, both Wilton Park and the Commonwealth enjoy soft power (see Twigg, Citation2021, Foreign Policy Centre). A senior adviser to the British Prime Minister, Robert Cooper, affirmed this: ‘The Foreign Office has a function to persuade, but no-one changes anyone’s mind by going into a meeting and making a demarche. A far more effective way to change … mind(s) and persuade them is to make them think and discuss informally. Wilton Park is an instrument for this’ (Hopkinson, Citation2025, p. 465).

Wilton Park is accountable to a narrower set of key stakeholders, namely the FCDO, its advisory council and to an extent its other sponsors. Its initial remit was also more specific, namely the re-education of German officers, but like the Commonwealth, its work plan has evolved. Today the subjects which Wilton Park addresses are more similar to those of the Commonwealth given the preponderance of developing world themes programmed.

Although a policy forum running programmes independent of government, albeit in close consultation, Wilton Park has neither the executive powers nor resources to progress discussions which to a greater extent the Commonwealth enjoys. It is up to Wilton Park participants and their sponsoring organisations to note their own observations and to progress any conclusions as they believe appropriate.

Many impressions can be gleaned from Wilton Park’s discussions. At the global level, perhaps most striking is that its discussions since 1946 reflect the rise, consolidation and more recently relative decline of the post-war liberal ‘Western’ international order. This ‘order’ is only secure if democracy continues to prevail in mature Western democracies. Unfortunately, the resurgence of nationalism and populism, exacerbated by isolationism, protectionism, misinformation, and the weak regulation of social media and the internet, threaten the integrity of democratic institutions, especially in mature democracies (Hopkinson, Citation2025, p. 463).

“Bold but humble” – Resetting Britain’s soft power
Family Values – Commonwealth Update 2014

In the new millennium, these trends have been accompanied by the rise of non-state actors and developing world powers (Hopkinson, Citation2025, p. 463). The brief global hegemony of the US has given way to the emergence of a multipolar world order in which notably China and India have become leading economic, political and military powers with Russia remaining a nuclear superpower. Furthermore, if the US in particular is no longer able to and/or willing to champion the post-war order it created, the perception that that order is less relevant today will take hold (Hopkinson, Citation2025, p. 463). Indeed, today the liberal international order looks less liberal, less ordered and less international.

In light of the fraying global order, one senior Pakistani diplomat, Malik Azhar Ellahi, argued the work of soft power organisations such as Wilton Park and the Commonwealth remain vital:

when existing treaties (are) being junked and ongoing initiatives trashed … the one tempting conclusion is that it makes no difference what goes on in Track 2 exchanges. This in my view will not only be unfair but also unfortunate. I would think that there is a greater need at this time for policy to take into account views and concerns expressed in informal settings so that the divide which has emerged in official fora is not made permanent (Hopkinson, Citation2025, p. 465).

In the context of fragmentation of the post-war global order, democratic backsliding in mature democracies and the growth of misinformation, spaces such as Wilton Park and the Commonwealth are therefore needed more than ever as forums to exchange and influence informed opinion through constructive higher-level dialogue. Sir Heinz Koeppler’s image of a bridge of international understanding for Wilton Park’s logo remains as apt as ever.

Nick Hopkinson is a former Director, Wilton Park, Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, UK.