British Foreign Policy: An Examination of the Relationship between British Intelligence, Democratic Peace Theory, and International Law through the Lens of Ethnic Stratification & Mass Atrocity in Southeast Asia 1965-1990.

Abstract

Democratic peace theory suggests that democratic states do not engage in covert action against one another.1 Academic scholarship, however, indicates that democratic states will use covert action against an elected government if national security planners perceive there is democratic decay in its national trajectory. However, this does not account for why a state would contravene democratic norms and international law. Nor does it account for why a state would intervene against another democratic state leading to a more authoritarian leader being supported. Based upon a combination of archival research, including media files, historiography, and analysis of democratic peace theory, the thesis explains why, in the non-European Cold War setting, Britain engaged in covert action against democratically elected governments in Indonesia and Cambodia. Moreover, the thesis will contend with how Britain continued to interfere in the internal affairs of states despite participating in international law conferences designed to bolster international norms including that of non- interference. The thesis proffers the hypothesis that perceptions of state trajectory and countering communism outweighed obligations to international law and democratic norms, such as democratic peace theory. The thesis will argue that between 1950 and 1965 Indonesia and Cambodia were emerging democracies and although they were not colonised by Britain, they were both considered Anglophile Adjacent Territories (AATs) which posed a threat to British interests. This threat was related to increased communist activity which national security planners perceived could destabilise former British colonies. Former colonies have tended to maintain close relations with the imperial power that colonised it. The retention of these relations was a policy objective for Britain. However, this does not account for how Britain shaped developments in states that it did not colonise. The research will argue that perceptions of security underpinned this decision-making process with AATs assuming temporary importance when there was a perception that communism had made advances. To counter these advances national security planners targeted AATs, which gained temporary importance whilst Britain engaged in covert action leading to examples of what this thesis terms zonal foreign policy. When the perceived threat subsided, Britain pivoted to soft power regardless of whether the state was more authoritarian. This enables the thesis to produce clear findings that demonstrate DPT does not hold as a rationale for British foreign policy in the context of Indonesia or Cambodia. Nor does the presumption that international norms dictate foreign policy hold true. Rather a combination of threat perception, security concerns and a desire to protect its former colonies shaped British foreign policy and trumped obligations to international law and democratic norms. ----------- 1. Michael Poznansky, "Stasis or Decay? Reconciling Covert War and the Democratic Peace," International Studies Quarterly Vo.59, No.4(December 2015). p.815