Falkland Islands: Political Parties and Pressure Groups Material

Constitutions, platforms and country guides issued by the Desire the Right Party (Falkland Islands) and the Falkland Islands Office.

Although the Falkland Islands are now most famous for the 1982 war the materials held here do not deal directly with that conflict. However there are indications of early islander opposition to the prospect of Argentinian sovereignty in descriptions of the 1968 visit by Lord Chalfont which sought to faciliate the transfer of the islands, and of British efforts throughout the 1970s to tie economic investment to closer political co-operation with the Argentines. The items from the 1989 election are also interesting in this respect, showing that the war, whilst still an issue, is less significant than the need to ensure continuing economic stability. The shortage of political party materials can to an extent be ascribed to the Falklands' tradition of non-partisan candidates standing in elections.

Alphabetically by organisation, and then in rough chronological order.

Open to all for research purposes; access is free for anyone in higher education.

Institute of Commonwealth Studies

The Political Archives Project was a 2.5 year project to catalogue political archive material held in the libraries of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas to the University and present it as a cohesive virtual collection. The project was successfully completed in July 2005. Descriptions of all the documents may be found by searching the library catalogue at http://catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/, or via the Political Archives website: http://polarch.sas.ac.uk

Records at item level on library catalogue (SASCAT)

Description compiled by Daniel Millum, Political Archives Project Officer at the Institutes of Commonwealth and Latin American Studies.

Copies can usually be obtained - apply to library staff.

The ICS political parties collection was begun in 1960-1961, with special emphasis being placed on primary material such as party constitutions, policy statements, convention reports and election manifestos. Since then, the main method of gathering material has been to appeal directly to political parties throughout the Commonwealth, though contributions from Institute members and staff following visits to relevant countries have been significant. More recently material has been collected by means of downloading documents from the websites of the major parties.

No further accruals are expected

See also Political Party, Trades Unions and Pressure Group Materials for other Commonwealth countries and related material in the library's main classified sequence, all held at the ICS.