Soft Power and Hard Choices: Royal Diplomacy in the Carolean Age.

A former colonial power needs to be deft in criticising, or seeking to influence: the South African government has appeared ambiguous over the Russian invasion of Ukraine - against which Britain has been a leader - but the African National Congress had been supported by Moscow, when the British government of Margaret Thatcher had appeared ambiguous over apartheid. One of the registers for some of Britain's recent convulsions - to which the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2016 EU membership referendum, the 2020 pandemic, may be added to the death of Elizabeth II, and three Prime Ministers in two months - is how often, abroad, empire is adduced, or raised, as a possible explanation. When Charles curated Britain's and South Africa's shared history with items from the Royal Collection, Nelson Mandela featured prominently, his triumphant 1996 state visit one of the landmark events of Elizabeth's reign. Thus the immediate diplomatic impact of the Carolean era is that that the head of state and head of the Commonwealth can once again be fully involved, and utilised - in words they would never use - as a soft-power asset for the UK. [Extracted from the article]