Wilton Park and the Commonwealth

This article provides an overview of themes relevant to the Commonwealth in the recently published volume The Policies and Power of Public Diplomacy – Wilton Park’s Road. Initially a ‘re-education camp’ for German officers after World War II, Wilton Park was a key part of Sir Winston Churchill’s vision to build a democratic post-war Germany, a goal also endorsed by the 1951 Commonwealth London Declaration. Now an executive agency of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Wilton Park serves as a first-class international policy forum for ministers, diplomats, academics and opinion formers from countries around the world, and soft power asset, which has worked in more than 50 countries. In spite of Wilton Park’s and the Commonwealth’s differing origins and geographical focus, they both seek to promote international understanding and peace. Indeed, there is a remarkable complementarity and more recently convergence in their respective programmes. In the context of Commonwealth Declarations and the 1960s debate about the compatibility of Commonwealth and European Economic Community membership, this article examines how Wilton Park advanced policy thinking on a range of issues of particular relevance to, and at times about, the Commonwealth.