The Past, Present and Future of Anglosphere Security Networks: Constitutive Reduction of a Shared Identity

This chapter maps a new terrain of public policy collaboration in the Anglosphere. Over the past decade, ministers, mandarins and their deputies from across core Anglosphere states – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and United States – have begun to establish and entrench a new class of transgovernmental networks with their counterparts. Though such networks rarely come into public view, they are significant sources of the ideas and information used to forge domestic public policy. Increasingly, moreover, these networks are turning informal cooperation into distinctive quasi-institutional arrangements. This chapter contributes to new literatures in International Relations and Public Policy exploring the underlying normative ideas that contribute to transnational governance. Drawing from public statements from network participants, it considers the dynamics and political implications of three specific network cases: the Quintet of Attorneys-General, the Five Country Ministerial and the Five Country Conference. Here it is found that Anglosphere institutions are pursuing ever-deeper collaborative ‘transgovernmental’ strategies to overcome nascent global threats to national interests. These are cohered by a series of appeals to a shared construction of the Anglosphere’s identity, its globality and the threats it faces.