This study addresses Government media policy throughout the Falklands War of 1982. It considers the effectiveness, and charts the development of, Falklands-related public relations’ policy by departments including, but not limited to, the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The literature of the 1980s concerning the media during the conflict still dominates the historiography of the subject. This thesis is the first significant reappraisal of the work offered during the decade in which the war occurred. It is informed by recently released archive material and newly conducted interviews, and boasts an extensive analysis of the content of the printed press during the conflict. There are a number of central hypotheses contained in this research (as well as many lesser theories). This thesis argues that media policy observed by the MoD in relation to the Task Force journalists was ill-prepared, reactionary, driven by internal MoD motivation and that ultimately, control of policy was devolved to the men on the ground. This thesis advances that MoD media policy in Britain, while as reactive as that rolled out to the Task Force, became more effective as the war progressed. The MoD failed to adequately cater for the British media until the middle of May 1982, at which time a number of sensible and potentially successful initiatives were introduced – specifically the News Release Group and the Military Briefing Group. It is also the contention of this work that the machinery developed centrally, by the Cabinet Office and No.10 Press Office in the form of the South Atlantic Presentation Unit and Information Group, had the potential to be successful additions to the regular organisation of Government. However, neither had enough authority and were plagued by departmental rivalries. While the media-related initiatives of the MoD ultimately became more successful, those of wider Government became less effective. Finally, this thesis provides a serious analysis of the printed press in order to substantiate the hypothesis that much of what had been argued about the printed press was generalised and oversimplified – its reliance on Argentine source material, its jingoistic nature, the dominance of reports on armed conflict and its aversion to a diplomatic settlement.

This thesis examines the utility of coercion theory in complex contemporary conflicts through a study of the Afghan conflict as it unfolded in the provinces of Faryab and Kunduz from 2005 to 2012. The last two decades have produced ample examples of incidents where the UN, international alliances or states have found it necessary to use force in order to coerce states or armed groups to stop unacceptable activities or change their behaviour. However, the potential of military force to induce behavioural change in such conflicts is understudied and poorly understood. In the Afghan conflict the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) together with the Afghan security forces applied force in order to influence the Taliban and other groups who violently opposed the elected government to change their behaviour. Although neither ISAF nor the participating nations had articulated a coercive strategy, force was used consistent with coercion theory on a number of occasions. Coercion theory consists of a number of assumptions and presuppositions, the existence of which should be present on the ground for theory to have utility. This thesis argues that these were generally not, or only to a limited degree present in the Afghan conflict. It further argues that in the cases where ISAF and its Afghan allies applied force consistent with theory, it did generally not translate to the desired outcomes, in particular when coercion represented the dominant effort. This thesis consequently argues that coercion theory is not well suited to provide explanatory power to or predict outcomes in conflicts that are comparable to the conflict in Afghanistan. In particular, theory’s presumption of unitary actors, the rationality presumption and the notion of the credible threat is insufficient. Theory’s notion of coercive mechanisms also assumes a connection between human behaviour and what may influence it that is overly simplistic. This consequently proposes a revised set of assumptions and presuppositions as well as a revised understanding of mechanisms that acknowledges that coercion alone is rarely sufficient to instil sustainable change.

This thesis unfolds from the observation that, in the years immediately following the defeat of Germany in May 1945, the radio was the best-preserved and most popular medium of mass communication. It explores the implications of the radio's dominance as a medium that both crosses and helps to define the boundaries of nation and region, as well as 'public' and 'private' space during a time when the upheavals of war and occupation were restructuring both the physical space of Germany as well as its political and symbolic spaces. It examines the practices of everyday broadcasting from the Allied-controlled radio stations in the western zones of occupied Germany to show how within the radio programmes, the diverse experiences of radio listeners were able to from part of a larger narrative of 'Germanness' at a time when Germany did not exist. Chapters explore the embedding of the radio within the every mental landscape of Germany, as well as within the private space of the home. It is argued that, in maintaining the relationships between the outside public world and the safe world of the home, the radio not only represented a means of remembering a collective German past, but also one of the primary places for the negotiation of new German identities in the present. Further chapters explore the ambiguities in the visions of these spaces produced by the radio. The production of private space is examined through a discussion of women's programming, showing the way that such programmes structured the debate surrounding women's position in society around their use of the scarce resource of time. A close examination how radio programming addressed the wider space of Germany shows how by imbuing the everyday visions of the broadcast region with the symbols of Heimat, radio programmes created a vision of Germany that at once embraced modernity and gave the impressions of maintaining a link with a usable past.

From its establishment in 1966 until its closure in 1999 the Glaswegian fashion design and manufacturing company, ‘Marion Donaldson’, was one of the most successful independent fashion businesses in the United Kingdom. The longevity enjoyed by the company coincided with a period of intense social, political, and economic upheaval in the United Kingdom, the effects of which contributed to the decline and eventual deterioration of the domestic fashion industry by the end of the century. This thesis takes ‘Marion Donaldson’ as its central case study, and uses the history of the company as a lens through which to investigate how the British fashion industry operated in practice, and how individual businesses in that industry collaborated, adapted to change, and coped with the industry’s decline. Structured around what were the four key sectors of the domestic fashion industry – design, manufacturing, sales, and retailing – this thesis demonstrates the importance of small businesses, collaboration, and balance to the industry as it battled decline. By focusing on a Glasgow example, it adds to the existing scholarship on British fashion and business in the post-war period, and goes some way to offering a corrective to those studies that have focused only on London-centric histories. The history of women’s fashion in the twentieth century has been dominated by metropolitan studies of elite clothing, while the history of mass-produced women’s wear and its associated industries have been overlooked. This thesis redresses the balance in this respect through analysis of evidence from the ‘Marion Donaldson’ Collection and the oral testimony of Marion and David Donaldson, owners of the company. In addition to oral history, the thesis builds on current methodology used in dress and textile history, economic history and the history of business and enterprise culture, and applies it to the wider context of the British fashion industry using a combination of surviving artefacts and traditional documentary sources.

This thesis analyses British Jewish identity between 1945 and 1960 through the medium of Jewish youth movements. It argues that youth movements are key sites for the formation and transmission of communal identities into subsequent generations. It entails institutional studies of three Jewish youth organisations: the Jewish Lads’ Brigade, the Victoria Boys’ and Girls’ Club, and the Maccabi Union and is divided accordingly, with chapters devoted to each. The thesis examines the preferred identities that each club sought to impose on their members, using these identities as case studies for the wider British Jewish community. Each chapter addresses issues of national identity, gender, sexuality, faith, ethnicity, Jewish heritage and culture, Zionism, popular music and youth behaviour in order to construct an image of the manner in which various sections of British Jewry perceived their sense of identity. The results of the thesis demonstrate that British Jewish identity was fragmented and heterogeneous, with various sections of the community interpreting the over-arching communal identity in a number of different and at times contested ways. These interpretations were liminal in nature, existing at the boundaries of a variety of sub-identities, and drew on themes that were specific to both British Jews and to wider non-Jewish society, demonstrating that British Jews saw no distinction between the ‘British’ and ‘Jewish’ aspects of their identities. Such interpretations were highly dynamic and continued to evolve in the face of developing circumstances, both within and outside of British Jewry. In exploring the differing communal identities on offer within British Jewry, the thesis also charts the emergence and priorities of a new communal elite and suggests that it is more precise to speak of multiple British Jewish identities and communities than of a single communal bloc.

Through a study of geopolitical codes, this thesis examines the condition of the Westphalian sovereign state in the post-Cold War world. Focusing primarily on the events of September 11th 2001 and their aftermath, the research questions the sustainability of the state as conceived by (neo)realists in the context of new regional and global actors and the processes underpinning these. From a critical realist perspective the study uses a comparison between Europe, where regionalization is particularly noticeable, and the hegemonic United States, in order to explore how the non-state global terrorist actor and the regional European actor impact upon responses, characterizations and therefore geopolitical codes relating to terrorism. In so doing the plausibility of emerging common European geopolitical codes is considered. The thesis is structured around the discussion of the codes of the United States, Britain and France, in addition to a more limited examination of the European Union. This (neo)realist component is complemented by the use of discourse analysis, a technique more common in critical geopolitics. The analysis is applied to government documents from each of the sample states (and the EU). From this analysis the research determines that each state retains unique geopolitical codes while sharing many components that contribute to their reproduction as sovereign states. Furthermore, although common European codes appear to be unlikely in these circumstances, the European context and imaginations apparent in Britain and France points to a regional dimension. The thesis concludes that the Westphalian sovereign state remains the dominant geopolitical actor, although other actors impinge upon it. This is more apparent in Europe where the regional dimension constitutes an added layer of governance and may signify a move away from the ‘modern’ character of the Westphalian state that continues to be more persistent in hegemonic America.

This thesis is concerned with the development of a Fair Trade social movement in Britain between 1960 – 2000. It situates the analysis of Fair Trade within the context of historical debates about political consumption. It examines the role of the ethical consumer as a political activist and questions whether Fair Trade has led to a new understanding of the meaning of global citizenship. It is argued that contemporary questions about the limitations of Fair Trade as a model for international development should be grounded in an informed understanding of the intellectual and applied origins of the movement. Revisiting the origins of Fair Trade is not only an important academic exercise but provides the movement with an opportunity to reassess its core values. The intellectual origins of the movement are considered with reference to the nineteenth century thinkers and consumer campaigns. Although building on the politics of the past, the messages and organisational structure of Fair Trade represented a new and distinctly modern approach to campaigning more closely aligned with the ‘new social movements’ than traditional labour or consumer politics. The roles of the main actors are explored, including development non-governmental organisations, religious groups, consumer organisations, co-operatives and supermarkets. While acknowledging the consumer at the heart of the Fair Trade movement, it is argued that what is needed is a more nuanced approach to our understanding of ethical consumerism.

This thesis examines the British Commonwealth and Allied Naval forces operation on the west coast during the final two and a half years of the Korean War, particularly focused on their co-operation with the anti-Communist guerrillas. The purpose of this study is to present a more realistic picture of the United Nations (UN) naval forces operation in the west, which has been largely neglected, by analysing their activities in relation to the large number of irregular forces. This thesis shows that, even though it was often difficult and frustrating, working with the irregular groups was both strategically and operationally essential to the conduct of the war, and this naval-guerrilla relationship was of major importance during the latter part of the naval campaign. It concludes that, to the British Commonwealth Commanders and Allied Naval forces on the west coast, a large part of the relationship with the guerrillas during the Korean War could be explained as that involving a compelled co-operation with unreliable partners.

The thesis analyses US foreign policy toward Italy in the postwar period by considering the multi-faceted nature of the relationship between the countries. It looks at the motivations and challenges facing American visions of a stable anti-communist Italy, as well at the hopes and limitations facing Italian interlocutors in their interaction with the US hegemon. In analysing the overlaps and dissimilarities between policy toward the country and broader approaches in Europe, it explores how the Cold War shaped the US attitude toward Italy and how Italy influenced American conceptualisation of the Cold War. With particular focus on the attempt to bolster anti-communist groups before the first Italian national election in April 1948, it charts the emergence of a perception of success within the Truman Administration vis-à-vis the effectiveness of its efforts to prevent a communist ascension to power. Confident that they had shaped the election outcome, US officials considered intervention as an inaugural case of ‘Political Warfare,’ which was defined as the use of ‘all means short of war’ to achieve national objectives. Such perceptions were significant for how American officials considered events in Italy during the previous years, while it held important ramifications for the future, problematic, trajectory of US-Italian relations and ongoing American efforts to engage in organised Political Warfare.

My thesis explores language policy and practice in the history of the people of Gibraltar between 1940 and 1985. This period covers the wartime Evacuation and the Spanish border restrictions and closure, and it is also fundamental in the emergence of Gibraltarian identity and democratic rights. My contention is that these developments were facilitated by growing accessibility to the English language. From being largely the preserve of the colonial establishment and the elite, it emerged as pre-eminent in official use, the media and culture, and higher oral registers. This change was hastened by the Evacuation, which increased awareness of the need for English. The Clifford Report of 1944 reformed the whole education system and gave a central role to English. Clifford, Gibraltar’s Colonial Secretary, and indeed educationalists at the Colonial Office, proved themselves far more enlightened than their governing counterparts in Gibraltar. Their reform greatly contributed to political development in the following decades. With the Spanish border closure, the English language and the sense of attachment to Britain gained further consolidation, co-existing with the move away from overt colonialism. In my examination of language behaviour in Gibraltar, including bilingualism and the use of Spanish, interview material supplements written sources.