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The word Anglosphere describes a group of anglophone (English-speaking) nations which share historical, political, and cultural characteristics rooted in or attributed to the historical experience of the United Kingdom (UK). The Anglosphere includes those former colonies and dominions of the UK where English is the main language.

The term is usually attributed to science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, used in his 1995 novel The Diamond Age. Its first published use after this was in an article by James C. Bennett entitled "Canada's World Advantage" which appeared in a Canadian newspaper, The National Post, on 4 January 2000 (page A16). The term "Anglophonie" is used rarely, usually in contradistinction to Francophonie, but is more common in other languages.

Definitions

The term incorporates ideas about history, culture, geography, politics, legal systems, and economics, and its definition is necessarily loose. It can mean just English-speaking nations, or it may mean all the nations which use legal systems based on Common law. It can refer to Great Britain and the British-settled countries where the original settler populations came mainly from the British Isles. It can also be seen as an expansion of Atlanticism, a much older concept in international relations, to include Pacific nations such as Australia and New Zealand. It also fills a gap in the English vocabulary corresponding roughly to the French phrase le monde Anglo-Saxon. Thus, it could carry a wide variety of connotations.

According to Bennett, "the Anglosphere is not a club that a person or nation can join or be excluded from, but a condition or status on a network", and

... as a network civilization ... without a corresponding political form, has necessarily imprecise boundaries. Geographically, the densest nodes of the Anglosphere are found in the United States and the United Kingdom, while Anglophone regions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and South Africa are powerful and populous outliers. The educated English-speaking populations of the Caribbean, Oceania, Africa and India pertain to the Anglosphere to various degrees.

Historian Robert Conquest has also promoted the concept. John Ibbitson of the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail identified five core English-speaking countries with common sociopolitical heritage and goals: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Writer Mark Steyn, who uses the term often, takes it to denote the nations that were or have been part of the British Empire for a significant period of time, and thus were heavily subject to British political influence: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States at the core, then India, New Zealand, and South Africa, and finally outliers like Grenada and St. Lucia.

Lawrence M. Mead, Professor of Politics at New York University, provides a different definition. Rather than using the term "Anglosphere", he identifies "Anglo nations" such as Britain and the chief territories that were settled initially from Britain—pre-eminently the United States but also Australia, Canada and New Zealand. According to Mead: "What makes a country Anglo is that its original settler population came mainly from Britain." By this definition, India and South Africa are not "Anglo nations" because "British settlers never formed the bulk of their populations."

Advocacy

A leading advocate of the importance for contemporary international relations of a concept of Anglosphere is James C. Bennett, founder of The Anglosphere Institute. His book The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century (ISBN 0-7425-3332-8), published in 2004, is an extended exposition of his version of the concept.

The Andrew Roberts book A History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900 specifically references Bennett's book and the Anglosphere, and promotes a "united we stand, divided we fall" ethos for the English-speaking world.

Bonding qualities

In a political context, the Anglosphere largely comprises the United Kingdom and some of its former colonies, including prior and current members of the Commonwealth of Nations. These territories have many common features, most of which come from their shared history. These include:

• British-inspired democratic political institutions
• common law legal system (trial by judge and/or jury, etc)
• capitalist, free market economies
• the entire English-language corpus of literature, philosophy, poetry, and theatre, though this complements native cultural counterparts and innovations (e.g. Hollywood, Bollywood, Celtic culture) rather than supplants them.

Some exceptions obviously apply: for example, the United States, Ireland and South Africa have republican systems of government while the others have constitutional monarchies; Quebec and Louisiana do not use Common Law, with Scotland and South Africa using hybrid systems, and so on.

The Anglosphere nations also share other similarities, including traditional and established civil rights and personal freedoms. These make the Anglosphere different from other English-speaking international groups, notably the Commonwealth of Nations. Bennett writes:

Anglospherism is assuredly not the racialist Anglo-Saxonism dating from the era around 1900, nor the sentimental attachment of the Anglo-American Special Relationship of the decades before and after World War II.... Anglo-Saxonism relied on underlying assumptions of an Anglo-Saxon race, and sought to unite racial "cousins." ... Anglospherism is based on the intellectual understanding of the roots of both successful market economies and constitutional democracies in strong civil society.

Anglosphere co-operation and common ground

The group of nations have a history of co-operation and close political ties. A network of varying military alliances as well as intelligence arrangements (such as the UKUSA Community which runs Echelon, or the ABCA agreement) exists between the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and some are in free trade areas with each other. The countries of the Anglosphere were military allies in major world conflicts in the 20th century, most importantly World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. The US, the UK, and Australia co-operated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while other NATO allies of the United States did not participate.

On the other hand, the group is in no sense a bloc. During the 1950s and 1960s the Suez crisis and Vietnam War caused divisions on how to approach regional conflicts. Common ground has not always been attainable between the Anglosphere members. During the 1980s New Zealand adopted an anti-nuclear policy, and declared a nuclear-free zone around the country. Visiting United States warships that would not confirm or deny the presence of nuclear arms were thus banned from entering New Zealand ports. This led to a period of ostracism of New Zealand, an ally in previous conflicts.

Polls have shown that most citizens of Anglosphere nations regard other Anglosphere countries as their closest "friends and allies". The United Kingdom, Australia and Canada are usually named as the United States' closest friends and allies, while the other nations routinely list the US and the UK at the top of their lists.

The Anglosphere nations freely interchange cultural materials. Certain actors, directors, movies, literature, and TV shows enjoy high levels of popularity across the Anglosphere nations. The USA remains the largest global exporter in film, television and music; within the United States, many prominent actors and some musicians originate from other Anglosphere nations. Stars such as Russell Crowe (New Zealand and Australia), Jim Carrey (Canada), Charlize Theron (South Africa), Bono (Ireland), Orlando Bloom (England), Nicole Kidman (Australia) and Arnold Vosloo (South Africa) often appear to transcend their birth nationalities, and instead adopt cross-cultural identities that have earned them great popularity with fans of all seven nations. The Anglosphere's main cultural divide continues to be over sports, which vary considerably from nation to nation, with football (in its varying forms), cricket, rugby, ice hockey, curling and baseball having different popularities.

Criticism

The Anglosphere as a concept has attracted some debate. Critical views overlap, and also extend over a number of schools of thought.

Cultural relativists

Some have criticised the term as an application of ethnocentrism to international relations by implying that certain nations and their cultures are superior to others. Journalist George Monbiot wrote, "instead of the Ummah, the anglosphere... I don’t hate Britain, and I am not ashamed of my nationality, but I have no idea why I should love this country more than any other. There are some things I like about it and some things I don’t, and the same goes for everywhere else I’ve visited."

Regionalists

Regionalists believe that the idea of cultural alliances is a distraction from regionally-based unions or partnerships, such as NAFTA and The Americas in United States and Canada, the European Union for the United Kingdom or Oceania and the Asia-Pacific for Australia and New Zealand.

Regionalists tend to be on the left wing. In the United States they tend to favour immigration from South and Central America. In the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, critics may see the United States as representing a type of cultural conservatism and economic liberalism, which they believe should be avoided. There is also unease that the argument towards cultural allegiances is a proxy for racism: that is to say, it encourages partnerships with white nations in geographically diverse, and often far-off locations rather than ones with closer, ethnically different neighbours.

In such a vein, Michael Ignatieff has written that the term overstates the similarities of the United States and the UK, and understates the similarities of, and the connections between, the UK and continental Europe.

Realists

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Realism is a defined school of thought on international relations, more interested in maintaining effective power dynamics and self-gain than culture partnerships. It sees power as the defining factor in a state's relations, and may conclude that culture is irrelevant, aside from perhaps as a propaganda source. The clash between realists and Anglospherists may be sharper than any clash with another school.

Realists argue that it is dangerous for one power to see itself as having a permanent alliance with another power whose interests in a few years may be at odds with their own.

The most notable clash between Anglospherists and realists came during the Suez crisis, when the United States and Canada refused to support the UK over the Anglo-French Suez Canal intervention (with Israel's collusion).

A second spot of tension came during the Falklands War, during which some realists in the administration of President Ronald Reagan encouraged the United States not to support the British side of the conflict. Some held the view that an Argentinian defeat would endanger the military Government, with the possible risk of it being replaced by a Communist Government, which would have weakened the US position in the Cold War. In the end the realists lost the argument however, and the US provided moral and logistical support to the UK after the failure of Alexander Haig's diplomacy.

Most recently since 2003, the Iraq War emphasised differences. Canada and New Zealand refused to support combat activities conducted by the coalition with the other three countries (other than with small contingents engaged in ancillary activities).

Autonomists

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Autonomists criticise the Anglosphere concept from the cultural side. They argue that the culture of a particular society is either largely home grown, or consists of many more factors than simple heritage from the "Anglosphere", and that the Anglosphere concept tends generally to underestimate the impact of non-English cultures, such as the Irish, Scots-Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, Dutch and Québécois cultures. They argue that in all member states, there is wide variation from the supposed distinctive characteristics of the Anglosphere.

Similarly, they regard American culture as having been divorced from the United Kingdom for too long to be regarded as congruent. For example, Americans are more likely to be friendly to free enterprise, and the British to the mixed economy and welfare state. Since the American Revolutionary War American and British experiences have greatly diverged, the United Kingdom's experience of a worldwide Empire not being shared by Americans (though the United States has held colonies such as the Philippines and Guam, and some have argued that America has behaved as an empire at various other times throughout its history - see American Empire for more details on this controversial issue). Autonomists argue that, furthermore, the two World Wars did not at all provide the same experiences, the particular British reaction being formative of much of its post-war culture.

In the United States autonomists tend to be natural cultural conservatives, while in Australia they are found both on the right and the left (e.g. see the 1930s Australia First Movement). In the United Kingdom, they also fall across the political spectrum (see Merry England).

The core-and-satellite model

When considering for purpose of argument a six-country Anglospheric model (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand), the Anglosphere is made up of three regions, each split into a larger dominant "core" and a smaller subsidiary "satellite state". Namely:

1. Europe: United Kingdom + Ireland
2. North America: United States of America + Canada
3. Australasia: Australia + New Zealand

The association of an entire cultural region with the dominant "core" nation state is typically resented by the smaller "satellite" state. Irish, Canadian, and New Zealand identity is to some extent defined by its otherness, in a sort of "sibling mentality". Comparing the Australia-New Zealand relations with that of Canada and the United States, a number of parallels exist. Although on a global scale, Australia and New Zealand combined are smaller than Canada by any metric, and they, along with the United Kingdom and Ireland, and the rest of Europe for that matter, are also viewed by many as satellites of the United States and its global influence. Nevertheless, the satellite states, in this particular regional model, have developed a world-view and foreign policy that places a greater emphasis on multilateral rather than unilateral institutions. Certainly, Ireland has been first a neutral nation, then oriented towards the EU. This tendency was partially illustrated during the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq which saw the Anglosphere satellite states (Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand) refuse to involve themselves, in direct contrast to the three core states (USA, UK, and Australia), although the full reason for this division is perhaps more complex and nuanced. It should be noted, also, that this model does not consider the unpopularity of the Iraq war among the UK and Australian general populations and the contributions made by other countries such as Italy, Spain and Japan.

Historical perspectives

The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland are all former colonies of the British Empire, and the first four of these were settled by immigrants from Britain and Ireland. The similarities of these countries, it is sometimes argued, were manifested by certain historical conditions which they have all faced.

Anglosphere nations have a history of co-operation and close political ties. A network of varying military alliances as well as intelligence arrangements exists between five of the nations, and some are in free trade areas with each other. The countries of the Anglosphere were military allies in the majority of major world conflicts in the 20th century. The United States, the UK, and Australia continued in this vein in their cooperation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a venture in which other close allies of the United States did not participate.

The United Kingdom and the European 'Continent'

Seeking to make a distinction between the Anglosphere and other countries of Europe or European Union ("the continent", or "continental Europe", as it is sometimes referred to) comes down to identifying key differences between the United Kingdom and the other members of the European Union. Arguing that the Anglosphere is culturally different from "Continental Europe" assumes inter alia that there is a unified "continental" European culture, something which is not supported by historical perspective.

There are certainly key cultural differences between the United Kingdom and individual European states (e.g. France or Italy), but it would be difficult to sustain an argument that the culture of the UK is in some way unique in its distinctiveness when set against the massive diversity of "the continent" as a whole. It is possible to probe the continent's internal diversity by reflecting on the cultural similarities and differences of the following pairs of countries: Finland and Portugal, Lithuania and Italy, Bulgaria and Norway. However, if one is to generalise, the United Kingdom is perceived by most commentators to be more culturally similar to the near neighbour countries of northern and western Europe (e.g. Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden) and less similar to those of eastern Europe.

Cultural differences: The example of the UK and France

Advocates of the view that British culture is distinct from 'European' culture often draw on France as an example. Whilst it is possible to gain important insights into both cultures by probing the culture differences between the two states, there are undoubtedly many more cultural similarities than differences between the two countries, which are geographically close (France is one of the UK's nearest neighbouring states) and whose history and language are deeply intertwined (reference the history of the two states since 1066, the date of the Norman invasion of England and victory over the English at the Battle of Hastings).

In the Middle Ages, England and France emerged as distinct leading European nation-states. They were often at war. For centuries the English monarchs spoke French, had extensive holdings in Northern and Western France (at various times Calais, Normandy, Britanny, Anjou, Aquitaine). The motos on the UK royal coat of arms is still in in French. Until 1801, the Royal Arms also contained the Arms of France (three gold fleurs-de-lis on a blue background) in one quarter, dating from the claim to the French throne made by Edward III in 1337 that lead to the Hundred Years' War.

From the 17th century onward, as the two countries conquered extensive empires outside Europe, each attempted to increase its colonial possessions and prevent the other from doing so. France lost most of its possessions in India and North America to the British in the 18th century, although the British later lost the 13 colonies of the United States which revolted with French assistance. The rivalry was renewed in the scramble for Africa in the 19th century. Although both countries have lost their empires, apart from a few residual dependencies, and are now members of the European Union, some traces of Anglo-French rivalry remain.

In language, on the other hand, there has been a profound mutual influence between Anglophone and Francophone cultures. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, French remained the language of the English court and ruling class for three hundred years. Mediaeval English grew from the need for communication between the Norman French speaking lords and their English peasants who spoke Anglo-Saxon with Norse/Danish influences. This is why it has a much simplified grammar (for example most words do not have gender and verb declension is limited). Other migrations of French speakers to England were Huguenots and Waloons fleeing wars of religion in the 16th century, and royalist refugees from the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. Roughly a third of the vocabulary of the English language (e.g. agree, brave, carry, define, empire, etc.) comes from the French language. The English have without compunction seized new words from many other languages while French academics are called upon instead to devise new French words that conform to existing French vocabulary and in particular to resist Franglais. The French strive to maintain their language as part of their cultural heritage whilst the English are disinterested in attempting to control the evolution of their language.

In this debate, the example of Canadian confederation - the ongoing interaction between French and English Canada providing a major impetus in its development - is a prominent one, reflected in Canada's membership in both the Commonwealth and La Francophonie.

The USA and continental European influence

Regardless of the distance separating America from Europe (unlike the United Kingdom's proximity), the country's population is also significantly descended from non-Anglo European immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. The total number of immigrants from European regions other than England largely outnumbers those of English ancestry. Louisiana was originally a French colony with French settlers; parts of New York and New Jersey were originally a Dutch colony, New Netherland; while Florida and the entire Southwestern United States were originally Spanish possessions. Furthermore, the Southwestern United States, which includes what are now the country's two most populous states in California and Texas, was part of Mexico until well into the 19 century. There have been numerous non-British influences in the United States. All manner of Continental European cultures are now fused in the United States.

According to the most recent census, only 8.7% of Americans claim to have predominant English ancestries, with other British and Irish groups such as the Scottish, Welsh and Scots-Irish each making up less than 2% of the population. Combined however, British and Irish ancestries would by far be the largest ancestral group in the US (~ 25% of the population). This figure would be even greater if one includes those claiming 'American' ancestry, but who are also of British Isles origins. The top three ancestries in the United States are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), and African (8.8%). Italians (5.6%), Polish (3.2%) and French (3%) are also major self-identified continental European ancestries.

America has a history of direct contact with Europe, other than through the United Kingdom's affairs.

The United Kingdom and the 'continental' experience: political history

Proponents of the concept of Anglosphere argue that no English-speaking country ever was ruled by an absolute monarch, hence none has ever seen the effectiveness and sheer dominance of such rulers as Peter the Great of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia, or King Louis XIV of France. This is however only true for those countries outside the British Isles, and the United States was born of a struggle, the American Revolution, against taxation imposed, if not by an absolute monarch, then by a non-representative British colonial government. Ireland, largely English speaking, made many attempts to throw off the English (later British) yoke, until successful in the 20th century in obtaining home rule for geographically the greater part of Ireland as a 'free state' and later completely independent status as a republic. The power of the English kings was gradually eroded with milestones being actions to wrest power from the king by the nobility at Magna Carta and by the landed commons in the English Civil War and English Restoration. The English Civil War and Glorious Revolution could quite well be considered as struggles against attempts by kings of the Scottish Stuart dynasty, Charles I and James II/VII, to re-establish an absolute monarchy in both England and Scotland. It can be argued that James's overthrow began the modern English parliamentary democracy: never again would the monarch hold absolute power.

At the time of the Holy Alliance, after the Napoleonic Wars had ended, democratic reforms started earlier in the UK, with Catholic Emancipation in 1829, propelled by the economic and social changes spoken of as the Industrial Revolution. The process took a century to complete, however, if universal suffrage is taken as the marker. Other European countries overlapped in particular reforms. The character of UK politics differed in several ways from those prevalent in continental Europe, with anti-clericalism largely absent and feeling against the monarchy rarely politicised, British socialism more closely allied with the Protestant religious tradition and British right-wing and nationalist thinking considered by some to have been largely moderated by Disraeli's conservative thought (if one excepts the Irish Home Rule question, to 1922). As a result, Continental European politics appears to be more driven by partisan feeling.

Institutional history

A certain residual resistance against the metric system is symptomatic in the USA. On the other hand, the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have largely embraced the metric system in principle, if not always in practice.

English-speaking countries, except for the state of Louisiana, and parts of Canada, have not had legal systems based on the Napoleonic Code. The case of Scotland is considered anomalous, since its system is an older system largely independent of common law. Some states in the USA, that at one time were a part of the Spanish Empire and later Mexico have vestiges of the Napoleonic Code. The community property statutes in regards to family law (most relevant in divorce property distribution) that are present in California and seven other western states are an example of this.

No English-speaking country ever had a government installed by Napoleon, though there were some Bonapartists in England. The foreign princes (Dutch and German following the Glorious Revolution) ruling in England were in theory constitutional monarchs, on sufferance. On the other hand, there was an earlier scare that England would become a fief of the Holy Roman Empire's ruling Hapsburg family when Philip II of Spain was king in right of marriage to Mary I of England.

No English-speaking country (save, perhaps, Ireland and, in more modern times, South Africa, the latter only when speakers of Afrikaans were politically dominant) had the secret police that existed throughout Europe in the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, and which were brought to a higher level under Napoleon. (This ignores some facts about British government actions, in particular in the Jacobin scares of the 1790s; it might be defended as a broad description of policy, such as the non-recognition of a minister for the Interior).

Against this one can argue that the UK and USA have in fact fundamental divergences in a number of aspects of their institutions. These include separation of church and state, the constitutions and the monarchy. For example, the UK has a constitution distributed piecemeal amongst various competing texts, a parliamentary system, and a centralized (though partly devolved) government; the USA has a unitary written constitution, a presidential-congressional system, and a federal governing structure, with multiple levels of sovereignty. Though both nations are certainly democratic, (and the two systems they have, the Westminster and Presidential-Congressional systems, are the first democratic systems to emerge since antiquity) both are very different in structure and outcomes produced.

Commonalities in the twentieth century

The consequences of the World War I did not result in fascism or communism being adopted in the Anglosphere; there were fascist and communist sympathisers, but they never gained political power except in some very limited ways. None of the countries was occupied by the Fascist powers (except the Channel Islands, which are crown dependencies rather than part of the UK), and some United States territory in the Pacific (Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands, Wake Island, and Guam).

The philosophical trends in the United Kingdom, with logical positivism gaining at one point the upper hand, and in the United States, with a consistent strand of interest in types of pragmatism, differ from the existentialism and later philosophical trends in continental Europe. This distinction became sharp around 1930.

Identity cards were used in the UK as part of a National Register 1915-1919 and 1939-1952. Otherwise identity documents have not yet been required. Their introduction was motivated by the government wish to register adults for possible conscription for the two world wars, although they were retained for a period after each conflict.

Discussion of Anglo-American diplomacy is often formulated, from the UK side, in terms of the existence and health of the special relationship, mostly harking back to the years 1941 to 1945 of very close alliance. This could be called a 'Churchillian' formulation.

The Anglosphere has cemented itself in formal alliances, such as that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and ANZUS, and is more directly manifested in the existence of the ABCA Armies and the UKUSA Community, an intelligence-gathering alliance formed by Anglosphere members.

Current trends

Samuel P. Huntington, in his controversial work Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity (2004), claimed that America's national identity is largely based on Anglo-Protestant culture, and that Latino culture represents a threat to that heritage; in other words, the USA is subject to a pull towards Latin America.

References

1. Cliff. "Comment S'Appelle?". Retrieved 2007-07-24.
2. Champion, C.P. "Britannia's Children: Migration from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales since 1600.(Book Review)". Retrieved 2007-07-24.
3. Karl-Heinz Stoll. "Anglophonie". Retrieved 2007-07-24.
4. "Anglophonie, francophonie, camerounité". Retrieved 2007-07-24.
5. Stephenson, the originator of the term, did not use the term in any specific geopolitical sense but rather to describe a fictional race called the Atlantans who, when immigrating to London, were "poor in equity but rich in expectations".
6. "Orphans of the Anglosphere?", James C. Bennett, Albion's Seedlings, November 21, 2005
7. ^ The Anglosphere Primer: part 1, James C. Bennett, 24 July 2003
8. "Scourge and poet", Andrew Brown, The Guardian, February 15, 2003
9. "Pip, pip for the Brits -- despite the blips", Mark Steyn, Macleans, February 10, 2006
10. "Popular to the end", Mark Steyn, Western Standard, June 5, 2006
11. "Why Anglos Lead", Lawrence Mead, The National Interest, December 01, 2005
12. George Monbiot (9 August 2005). "The New Chauvinism". Retrieved 2007-07-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
13. Tom Hayden (4 May 2006). "Who Are You Calling An Immigrant?". Retrieved 2007-07-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
14. Robert Conquest, Reply by Michael Ignatieff (23 March 2000). "THE 'ANGLOSPHERE'". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2007-07-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)

Sources

• Ankerl, Guy: Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. Geneva: INUPRESS, 2000. ISBN 2881550045.

See also

• ABCA Armies
• Anglo
  • Anglo-American relations
  • Anglo-Australian relations
  • Anglo-Catholicism
• Anglo-ethnic
  • Anglo-Celtic Australian
  • Anglo-Irish
  • Anglo-Indian
  • Anglo-Norman
  • British New Zealander
  • English-American
• Anglo-Saxon
  • Anglo-Saxons
  • Anglo-Saxon language
• ANZUK
• ANZUS
• Cultural regions
  • Sprachraums
    • Anglo-America
• List of countries where English is an official language
• Anglosphere challenge

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External links

• The Commonwealth Secretariat official site
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Commonwealth

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• Cultural spheres of influence