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This thesis makes clear British women’s experiences of the international between 1945 and 1975. It analyses how international development came to feature at the centre of British women’s organisations’ international programme by the late 1950s. The origins of this process date back to the immediate post-war years. Inspired by a new sense of duty and internationalism, British women embraced the new international institutions that formed after the War with a newfound sense of purpose. In the late 1940s, world peace was taken up by a broad spectrum of British women’s organisations as a potentially powerful means of bringing women together from diverse political, social and cultural backgrounds to co-operate on both national and international levels. The failure of peace to unite women across social and political lines in the face of the ‘red scare’ in the early 1950s forced British women to look for an ‘apolitical’ means of promoting human relations. The UN technocratic approach positioned international development as the convenient space for British women to act out these new post-war international commitments. However, the results of this new international priority were informed directly by histories of imperial power, leaving assumptions about priorities and Western superiority uncontested until the 1980s.

This thesis examines Britain’s role in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Based on multi-archival research and interviews with key diplomats, it presents the first in-depth study of Britain’s involvement in the negotiations leading up to the Helsinki Final Act of 1 August 1975. It draws on Marc Trachtenberg’s notion of the ‘constructed peace’, and Alexander Wendt’s concept of ‘cultures of anarchy’ to elucidate how the rapprochement process at once stabilised and transformed the East-West conflict. This forms the theoretical framework of the thesis. The thesis revises the interpretation of détente as a status quo project driven by the imperatives of ‘Realpolitik’. Rather, different conceptions of stability and change challenged each other during the Helsinki talks. British diplomacy and the Final Act to which it contributed in fact linked the consolidation of the status quo to an ultimately transformative agenda that was infused with liberal ideas such as human rights. Realpolitik blended with Moralpolitik. To develop this argument, the thesis’ narrative first assesses Britain’s role in the early days of détente politics in the 1950s and 1960s. It then traces Britain’s role in the three main phases of the Helsinki process: the transition from bilateral to multilateral détente (1970-1972); preliminary talks (1972-1973); official negotiations (1973-1975). The British were defensive détente sceptics at the beginning of this process, but became ambitious and positive contributors over the course of the talks. The thesis thus argues that London played a significant part in the CSCE. British foreign policymakers were initially architects of the Cold War, but then early and active proponents of détente until the mid-1960s, when their continental partners adopted a more proactive approach. London was to return to the forefront of détente diplomacy when the CSCE process got under way. Its involvement in the CSCE also marked an important step in Britain’s own transformation into a European middle power. The multilateralisation of détente coincided with Britain’s integration into the European Community, providing a propitious environment in which London’s negotiators acted with determination and skill, thus reasserting their country’s influence despite its continuing relative decline.

Pour faire face au nouvel environnement stratégique, opérationnel et médiatique né de la fin de la Guerre froide et surtout pour tenir compte des leçons de leur engagement en Irak et en Afghanistan, les militaires britanniques ont fait de l'influence le concept majeur de leurs opérations. En 2009, ils publient ainsi trois doctrines (stabilisation, contre-insurrection et exécution des opérations) qui font de l' « influence » le principe directeur de toute opération militaire, voire leur objectif même. En s'appuyant sur la théorie du changement dans les organisations, cette thèse retrace les raisons (qu'elles soient politiques, qu’elles relèvent de l'opinion publique ou qu’elles proviennent des militaires eux-mêmes) qui expliquent pourquoil'institution militaire à dû innover. À travers les changements introduits dans la doctrine puis dans la formation des militaires et dans le renforcement voire dans la création de nouvelles unités, elle montre l'institutionnalisation de la transformation engagée en 2009. Enfin, elle s'interroge sur les défis que les militaires britanniques doivent encore relever afin de concrétiser cette nouvelle approche des opérations. / To face up to the new strategic, operational and media environments that emerged after the end of the Cold War, and above all to take into account the lessons of their involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the British military have turned “influence” into the major concept of their operations. Thus, in 2009, they published three doctrines (stabilisation, counterinsurgency and campaign execution) which establish “influence” as the guiding principle of any military operation, or even as its objective. Through the use of the theory of organisational change, this thesis traces the reasons (whether they are political or stem from the attitudes of public opinion or from the military themselves) that explain why the military had to change. Through the changes introduced in doctrine and then in the formation and training of the military and in the strengthening and even the creation of specialised units, itshows the institutionalisation of the transformation initiated in 2009. Eventually, it focuses on the challenges the British military must still take up so as to make this new approach to operations concrete.