Distant Relations: A Study of Identity, Ethics and Power in the Relationship Between Britain and the United Kingdom Overseas Territories

Abstract

This thesis contributes to new understandings of the contemporary relationship between Britain and the fourteen remaining United Kingdom Overseas Territories. By examining the discourse of social and political elites in Britain and in several Overseas Territories it identifies the significance of the role of identity in shaping perceptions and relations between these international actors. The thesis explores how understandings of the Overseas Territories as either part of, external to, or occupying an intermediate position with regard to the British state, shapes power relations and ethical considerations in the relationship between Britain and the territories. The importance of identity in this analysis contributes empirically and theoretically to a constructivist research agenda in which inter-subjective meaning attributed to international actors holds equal weight to power and material factors.