The image of the Commonwealth in the United Kingdom, 1991-2011

Bachelor thesis "The Image of the Commonwealth in the United Kingdom, 1991- 2011" deals with the international organization Commonwealth of Nations, which evolved from the former British Empire after the Second World War and one of the main objectives of this thesis is to reconstruct the image of the Commonwealth in the contemporary United Kingdom. The UK played a pivotal role within the time of the formation of the Commonwealth, but during the sixties the British approach towards the Commonwealth had changed and Britain quietly started to turn away from the organisation. The timeframe of this paper is defined from 1991, the year of publication of the Harare Declaration, to present. By analysing documents and other mainly primary sources in the first section of this paper, the image of the Commonwealth is reconstructed from perspective of three elements of the British society, namely political scene, media and public. Consequently the crucial question whether the image of the Commonwealth corresponds with the reality is answered and areas where the image and the reality do not correspond are emphasised. The reality of the Commonwealth is derived from its official documents and special literature. Besides the reconstruction of the image the paper also deals with other more general topics such as the..