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The Anglosphere is a group of English-speaking nations that share historical and cultural ties with England, and which today maintain close political, diplomatic and military co-operation. While the nations included in different sources vary, the Anglosphere is usually not considered to include all countries where English is an official language, so it is not synonymous with anglophone, though the nations that are commonly included were all once part of the British Empire. The definition is usually taken to include
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States in a grouping of developed countries called the core Anglosphere. This term can also encompass Ireland and less frequently Malta and the Commonwealth Caribbean countries such as
Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda (, ) is a sovereign country in the West Indies. It lies at the juncture of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in the Leeward Islands part of the Lesser Antilles, at 17°N latitude. The country consists of two maj ...
, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize,
Dominica Dominica ( or ; Kalinago: ; french: Dominique; Dominican Creole French: ), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. It is geographically ...
,
Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pe ...
,
Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis,
Saint Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerindian ...
, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Public opinion research has found that people in the five core Anglosphere countries consistently rank each other's countries as their country's most important allies in the world. Relations have traditionally been warm between Anglosphere countries, with bilateral partnerships such as those between
Australia and New Zealand Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...
, the United States and Canada and the United States and the United Kingdom constituting the most successful partnerships in the world.


Definitions and variable geometry

The term ''Anglosphere'' was first coined, but not explicitly defined, by the science fiction writer
Neal Stephenson Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work exp ...
in his book ''
The Diamond Age ''The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, set in a future world in wh ...
'', published in 1995.
John Lloyd John Lloyd may refer to: Artists, writers, and entertainers *John J. Lloyd (1922–2014), American art director and production designer *John Lloyd (graphic designer) (born 1944), co-founder of design consultancy Lloyd Northover *John Lloyd (journa ...
adopted the term in 2000 and defined it as including English-speaking countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, and the British West Indies. The
Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...
dictionary defines the Anglosphere as "the countries of the world in which the English language and cultural values predominate".


Core Anglosphere

The five main ("core") countries in the Anglosphere (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) are all developed countries and maintain a close affinity of cultural, diplomatic and military links with one another. All are aligned under such programmes as: * ABCANZ Armies *
Air and Space Interoperability Council The Air Force Interoperability Council or AFIC is an organisation tasked with enhancing coalition military aviation amongst the "Five Eyes" countries, which consist of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and United States. The orga ...
(air forces) *
AUSCANNZUKUS AUSCANNZUKUS is an abbreviation for the naval Command, Control, Communications and Computers (C4) interoperability organization involving the Anglosphere nations of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It is als ...
(navies) *
Border Five Border Five (Border 5; B5) is an informal forum on customs and border management policy issues with participation from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The participating authorities are: * Department of Home ...
* Combined Communications Electronics Board (communications electronics) *
Five Country Conference Migration 5 (M5, formerly the Five Country Conference on migration) is a conference of the immigration authorities of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. The five countries work together to "enhance ...
(immigration) * Five Eyes (intelligence) *
Five Nations Passport Group The Five Nations Passport Group is an international forum between the passport-issuing authorities of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States to share best practices in the issuance, development, and management of p ...
* The Technical Cooperation Program (technology and science) *The UKUSA Agreement (signals intelligence). In terms of political systems, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have Charles III as head of state, form part of the Commonwealth of Nations and use the Westminster parliamentary system of government. Most of the core countries have first-past-the-post electoral systems, though
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
and New Zealand have reformed their systems and there are other systems used in some elections in the UK. As a consequence, most core Anglosphere countries have politics dominated by two major parties. Below are two tables comparing the five core countries of the Anglosphere (data for 2021/2022):


Culture and economics

Due to their historic links, the Anglosphere countries share many cultural traits that still persist today. Most countries in the Anglosphere follow the
rule of law The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannica ...
through common law instead of civil law, and favour democracy with legislative chambers above other political systems. Private property is protected by law or constitution.
Market freedom In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
is high in the five core Anglosphere countries, as all five share the Anglo-Saxon economic model – a capitalist model that emerged in the 1970s based on the
Chicago school of economics The Chicago school of economics is a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles. Milton Friedman and George Stigle ...
with origins from the 18th century United Kingdom. The shared sense of
globalisation Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
led cities such as
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
, London, Los Angeles,
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
, and Toronto to have considerable impacts on the financial markets and the
global economy The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans of the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities which are conducted both within and between nations, including production, consumption, ...
. Global popular culture has been highly influenced by United States and United Kingdom. Imperial and US customary measurement systems are often used in Anglosphere countries in addition to or instead of the
International System of Units The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. E ...
.


Proponents and critics

Proponents of the Anglosphere concept typically come from the political right (such as Andrew Roberts of the UK Conservative Party), and critics from the centre-left (for example Michael Ignatieff of the
Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada (french: Parti libéral du Canada, region=CA) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism,McCall, Christina; Stephen Clarkson"Liberal Party". ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' ...
).


Proponents

As early as 1897,
Albert Venn Dicey Albert Venn Dicey, (4 February 1835 – 7 April 1922), usually cited as A. V. Dicey, was a British Whig jurist and constitutional theorist. He is most widely known as the author of ''Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitutio ...
proposed an Anglo-Saxon "intercitizenship" during an address to the Fellows of All Souls at Oxford. The American businessman
James C. Bennett James (Jim) Charles Bennett (born 1948) is an American businessman, with a background in technology companies and consultancy, and a writer on technology and international affairs from a conservative point of view. During the 1980s he was involve ...
, a proponent of the idea that there is something special about the cultural and legal ( common law) traditions of English-speaking nations, writes in his 2004 book ''The Anglosphere Challenge'': Bennett argues that there are two challenges confronting his concept of the Anglosphere. The first is finding ways to cope with rapid technological advancement and the second is the geopolitical challenges created by what he assumes will be an increasing gap between anglophone prosperity and economic struggles elsewhere. British historian Andrew Roberts claims that the Anglosphere has been central in the First World War, Second World War and
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. He goes on to contend that anglophone unity is necessary for the defeat of
Islamism Islamism (also often called political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism) is a political ideology which posits that modern states and regions should be reconstituted in constitutional, economic and judicial terms, in accordance with what is ...
. According to a 2003 profile in '' The Guardian'', historian Robert Conquest favoured a British withdrawal from the European Union in favour of creating "a much looser association of English-speaking nations, known as the 'Anglosphere'".


CANZUK

Favourability ratings tend to be overwhelmingly positive between countries within a subset of the core Anglosphere known as CANZUK (consisting of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom), whose members form part of the Commonwealth of Nations and retain Charles III as head of state. In the wake of the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) as a result of a referendum held in 2016, there has been mounting political and popular support for a loose free travel and common market area to be formed among the CANZUK countries.


Criticisms

In 2000, Michael Ignatieff wrote in an exchange with Robert Conquest, published by the '' New York Review of Books'', that the term neglects the evolution of fundamental legal and cultural differences between the US and the UK, and the ways in which UK and European norms drew closer together during Britain's membership in the EU through regulatory harmonisation. Of Conquest's view of the Anglosphere, Ignatieff writes: "He seems to believe that Britain should either withdraw from Europe or refuse all further measures of cooperation, which would jeopardize Europe's real achievements. He wants Britain to throw in its lot with a union of English-speaking peoples, and I believe this to be a romantic illusion". In 2016, Nick Cohen wrote in an article titled "It's a Eurosceptic fantasy that the 'Anglosphere' wants Brexit" for '' The Spectators Coffee House blog: "'Anglosphere' is just the right's PC replacement for what we used to call in blunter times 'the
white Commonwealth The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...
'." He repeated this criticism in another article for '' The Guardian'' in 2018. Similar criticism was presented by other critics such as Canadian academic Srđan Vučetić. In 2018, amidst the aftermath of the
Brexit referendum The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country shoul ...
, two British professors of public policy Michael Kenny and Nick Pearce published a critical scholarly monograph titled ''Shadows of Empire: The Anglosphere in British Politics'' (). In one of a series of accompanying opinion pieces, they questioned: They stated in another article:


Opinion polls

A 2020 poll by YouGov revealed that all four of the other core Anglosphere countries were among the top 10 most positively viewed countries by Americans, with Australia and Canada ranking behind only the United States itself in the poll. Another 2020 poll by YouGov showed that New Zealand, Canada and Australia were the most positively viewed countries by the British. A 2018 poll by the Lowy Institute similarly indicated that New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom were the three most positively viewed countries by Australians. Their 2020 version of the poll again put Canada and the United Kingdom at the top, but New Zealand was not included as an option. A 2020 poll by the
Macdonald–Laurier Institute The Macdonald–Laurier Institute (MLI) is a conservative, libertarian think tank located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, affiliated with the global Atlas Network. Its Managing Director is Brian Lee Crowley, who founded the Atlantic Institute for Marke ...
suggested that Australia was the most positively viewed country by Canadians. Australia and the U.S. were ranked as having the most favorable view of Canada's influence to the outside world, according to a 2012 GlobeScan survey of 22 countries. In a 2019
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the w ...
poll, a plurality of Canadians and Australians named the United States as their country's closest ally.


See also

* Anglo-Americans * AUKUS * British diaspora * English-speaking world * Eurosphere; Francosphere (French), Hispanosphere (Spanish), Lusosphere (Portuguese) *
Five Power Defence Arrangements The Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) are a series of bilateral defence relationships established by a series of multi-lateral agreements between Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, all of which are Commonwe ...
* '' History of the English-Speaking Peoples'' (Winston Churchill) *
JUSCANZ The JUSCANZ Group is an informal, information-sharing coalition of like-minded countries at the UN Human Rights Council, United Nations Human Rights Council and other United Nations bodies, such as the United Nations General Assembly Third Committe ...
* List of countries and territories where English is an official language * List of countries by English-speaking population * White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP)


Notes


References


Citations


Further reading

* * * * Bennett, James C.
Dreaming Europe in a Wide-Awake World
. The National Interest, no. 78 (2004): 119–29. Accessed April 21, 2021. * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


James C. Bennett (2002) An Anglosphere Primer
presented to the Foreign Policy Research Institute
BBC Radio 4: Archive on 4 (2017-12-16): Return of the Anglosphere

From Insularity to Exteriority: How the Anglosphere is Shaping Global Governance – Centre for International Policy Studies
{{Territories of the British Empire British Empire Commonwealth of Nations European civilizations Historical regions Modern civilizations