‘Building the Global Network?’ The Reform of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office under New Labour

From 1997 onwards the FCO was reshaped by New Labour. The removal of responsibility for overseas aid to a new Department of International Development (DFID) was perhaps the most dramatic change. Successive cuts to the FCO budget and the progressive centralization of foreign-policy decision-making in Number 10 also had their effects, as did a series of government-directed reforms to recruitment practices. In an effort to make it more accountable...