W.K. Hancock and international relations in Australia: The commonwealth as a model of world government

Abstract

W.K. Hancock's most important contribution to Australian international relations is his Survey of the Commonwealth, a work informed by a nuanced analysis of the theory of sovereignty sympathetic to the Grotian position of the emerging "English school". Committed to the contemporary idea of the Commonwealth centred on a shared affirmation of liberty derived from self-rule, Hancock also took seriously but rejected a political economy approach. Though sceptical of some of the grander claims made for the Commonwealth, he did not sufficiently confront the anomalous position of India despite evidence that this question preoccupied him. His conception of the Commonwealth is ultimately derived from the prescription of J.C. Smuts for international organisation and is thus founded on the advocacy of a species of international society as the key to international order. © 2009 School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.