British Federalist Concepts and the European Idea in the “Splendid Isolation” Era

Abstract

This article deals with the late Victorian era of “splendid isolation”,
emphasizing its long-neglected aspects, i. e. the British attitude towards
continental Europe and the development of British concepts of Europe with
federalist thinking leading the list. Federalist concepts of Atlanticist and
imperialist federalism are introduced along with their substantial impact on
the British thinking of Europe within the framework of the shaping of
eurofederalism, a major concretization of the British “European discourse”.
The article explores the specificity of both the emergence and the form of
British society’s federalist concepts and demonstrates how the idea of
Atlantic federalism and the calls for federalizing the Empire functioned as a
somewhat paradoxical model for pro-European thinking and how this
model affected the emerging idea of European federalism in the rigidly
conservative atmosphere of the splendidly isolated Britain.