The Unofficial Commonwealth Relations Conferences, 1933–59: Precursors of the Tri-sector Commonwealth

One of the unique features of the Commonwealth as an international association is the width and depth of its non-political manifestations. At recent Commonwealth conferences political and official consultations have been held in parallel with large civil society, business and youth forums and, in some cases, inter-faith dialogues. Growing collaboration between the political, civil society and business elements gives rise to the notion of the ‘tri-sector Commonwealth’. The concept of an ‘association of peoples’ as well as one of nations, does, however, have a long pedigree. Between 1933 and 1959 a series of Unofficial Commonwealth Relations Conferences, organised by Chatham House and its overseas affiliates, were held at roughly five-yearly intervals to analyse the implications of the most recent Imperial Conferences. Politicians and civil servants joined with lawyers, academics, editors, military men, agriculturalists and trade unionists. In contrast to the political Commonwealth, women had a part in the unofficial conferences. And among more than 400 participants at Toronto 1933, Lapstone 1938, London 1945, Bigwin 1949, Lahore 1954 and Palmerston North 1959 were fifty-five academic historians and other writers of history, who included most of the leading authorities on the Commonwealth of the 1930s and 1940s.     

Correction

SCOTLAND

The Coastal Geomorphology of North Uist. By W. Ritchie. O'Dell Memorial Monograph No. 1, 11 1/2 x 8 1/2, 32 pages, 12 figures, Department of Geography, University of Aberdeen, 1968, 10s.

Farming. By Miss Ann Glen. 7 1/2 x 8 1/2. 42 pp. + vi. Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., London, 1969. 6s.

GENERAL

Urban Studies: an aid to research. By B. N. Sinha and T. N. Achuta Rao. 207 pp. Karnatak University, Dharwar, India, 1968.

Cultural Geography: An Evolutionary Introduction to Our Humanized Earth. By J. E. Spencer and W. L. Thomas. 10 3/4 x 7 3/4, viii+591 pp. Photographs, figures and tables. John Wiley, Chichester, 1969. 97s.

The Arid Zones. By K. Walton. 8 1/4 x 5 1/4. 175 pp. 1 figures, bibliography. Hutchinson University Library, London, 1969.12/6d.

World Atlas of Mountaineering. Ed. by Wilfred Noyce and Ian McMorrin. 11 x 8 1/4 224 pp. Nelson, 1969. 90s.

EDUCATIONAL

Environmental Studies—a concentric approach. By T. H. Masterton. 9 3/4 x 6 3/4 Pp. 68. Illustrated. Bibliography. Oliver Boyd, Edinburgh 1969. 18s.

A Notebook of Physical Geography. By K. Briggs. 9 3/4 x 7 1/2. Pp. 109. One of a series of Basic Geographical Notebooks. Univ. of London Press Ltd., 1969. 11s.

North West Europe ‐ A New School Geography, Vol. 4. By Dobson &; Virgo. 7 3/8 x 10 pp. 128, illustrated, index. English University Press, 1969. 16s.     

The Implementation of Public Policy: Still the Missing Link

Although theories of public policy and theories of governance both seek to establish relationships between policymaking and its consequences, they do not complement each other very well. Public policy models tend to de-emphasize that which governance theories tend to emphasize: the influence on government performance of implementation, broadly described as the actions taken by those engaged in administration (including managers at all levels, those engaged in service delivery, and third-party agents) after a policy has been lawfully promulgated by elected officials and interpreted by the courts. A comparison of a recently developed theory of public sector performance with several prominent theories of policymaking suggests that multilevel governance theories can supply what continues to be the missing link in public policy theories. At the same time, governance theories might be enriched by the process modeling of public policy theories.