John Bew
The High Politics of Post-war Reconstruction in Britain
This paper will examine the high political situation in Britain after the conclusion of the Congress of Vienna and the difficulties faced by policy makers in trying to maintain domestic political stability and adjust the management of the economy following twenty years of nearly continuous warfare. It will describe how the traditional functioning of government was subject to more public and parliamentary security than ever before and that issues such as the demobilization of the army and spending on the navy were matters which nearly brought down the government. This also applied to the conduct of British foreign policy which increasingly became an area of public political ownership and debate, forcing Britain to curtail its cooperation with other European powers, despite its central role in establishing the Congress system in the first place. Ultimately, even the most “realist” of British foreign secretaries, Lord Castlereagh, recognized that foreign policy could not be conducted without a strong degree of public support.
John Bew is Reader in History and Foreign Policy at the War Studies Department at King’s College London and Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence. His research and teaching focuses on Modern British history. His publications include: Castlereagh: Enlightenment, War and Tyranny (2011), which was named one of the books of the year by the Wall Street Journal, Sunday Telegraph, BBC, and Total Politics magazine. In addition to two single-authored books, two co-edited and two co-authored books, Bew has also published essays and articles on a range of historical and contemporary topics, with a particular focus on foreign policy. These include recent contributions to Humanitarian Intervention: A History (2011) and The Primacy of Foreign Policy: How Strategic Concerns Shaped Modern Britain(2011).
