A Collaborative Process

: The Making of British Policy on Hong Kong’s Future in the Late Cold War, 1979-1984

Abstract

This thesis examines the British government’s foreign policy-making in the late Cold War through the case study of the Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong’s future between 1979 and 1984. It contextualises British policy-makers, particularly Thatcher, in the wider domestic and global dynamics in the late Cold War instead of focusing on the personal relationships between British ministers, and those with other heads of state. This approach aims at revising the methodology and understanding of existing scholarship, which focuses on Thatcher and her ideologies to contend that Thatcher as Prime Minister dominated British foreign policy-making in the 1980s.
By putting British policy-makers in the wider contexts, this thesis argues that British foreign policy-making was a collaborative process between multiple political actors inside and outside the British government instead of being dominated by any minister as forceful as Thatcher. It attempts to bring the existing scholarship on British foreign policy in the 1980s out of the shadow of Thatcher: no longer should the 1980s be seen as a standalone period of modern British history which was characterised by Thatcher and her ideologies. Rather, the 1980s Britain found its roots in the 1970s. Its foreign policy was also inextricable from the intersection of global and domestic dynamics in the 1980s. Thatcher was only a part of the collaborative process in making British foreign policy-making and, more generally, British history in the 1980s.

Date of Award	10 Dec 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Robert Bickers (Supervisor) & Simon J Potter (Supervisor)