Civil Servants' role in the formulation of British foreign policy and the role of women, with Prof Gaynor Johnson

The War & Diplomacy Podcast: From the Centre for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University

Prof Gaynor Johnson explores the often-overlooked role civil servants in the formulation of foreign policy, including the role of women in the British Foreign Office. She discusses innovative methodological approaches to the study of diplomatic history, including the use of prosopography.

Gaynor has published widely in the field of international history on topics ranging from fanaticism and warfare to interwar appeasement. She led a major AHRC project on British and French attitudes towards European integration between 1919 and 1957. A major preoccupation of her work has been the study of diplomacy and diplomats. She has published studies of Robert Cecil, Eric Phipps and Lord D’Abernon to name but a few.

She has been Professor of International History at the University of Kent since 2013. She sits on the executive committees of the British International History Group and the Transatlantic Studies Association and was previously book reviews editor for the International History Review. She is also an Honorary Researcher at the Centre for War and Diplomacy.

Gaynor's article 'Women Clerks and Typists in the British Foreign Office, 1920-1960: A Prosopographic Study' has just been published and you can find a full copy here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592296.2020.1842066

Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).