scholarly journals Transnationalism and the League of Nations: Understanding the Work of Its Economic and Financial Organisation

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRICIA CLAVIN ◽  
JENS-WILHELM WESSEL

This article explores the work of the little-studied Economic and Financial Organisation of the League of Nations. It offers a sustained investigation into how this international organisation operated that assesses the transnational aspects of its work in relation to its inter-governmental responsibilities, and demonstrates the wide-ranging contribution of the organisation's secretariat. The second part of the article establishes the way in which transnationalism enabled the United States, the League's most influential non-member, to play a crucial role in shaping the policy agenda of the League. It also shows how a growing sense of frustration in its work prompted EFO to attempt to free itself from inter-governmental oversight and become an independent organisation to promote economic and financial co-operation in 1940 – a full four years before the creation of the Bretton Woods agreements.

Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman

Although the League of Nations was the first permanent organization established with the purpose of maintaining international peace, it built on the work of a series of 19th-century intergovernmental institutions. The destructiveness of World War I led American and British statesmen to champion a league as a means of maintaining postwar global order. In the United States, Woodrow Wilson followed his predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, in advocating American membership of an international peace league, although Wilson’s vision for reforming global affairs was more radical. In Britain, public opinion had begun to coalesce in favor of a league from the outset of the war, though David Lloyd George and many of his Cabinet colleagues were initially skeptical of its benefits. However, Lloyd George was determined to establish an alliance with the United States and warmed to the league idea when Jan Christian Smuts presented a blueprint for an organization that served that end. The creation of the League was a predominantly British and American affair. Yet Wilson was unable to convince Americans to commit themselves to membership in the new organization. The Franco-British-dominated League enjoyed some early successes. Its high point was reached when Europe was infused with the “Spirit of Locarno” in the mid-1920s and the United States played an economically crucial, if politically constrained, role in advancing Continental peace. This tenuous basis for international order collapsed as a result of the economic chaos of the early 1930s, as the League proved incapable of containing the ambitions of revisionist powers in Europe and Asia. Despite its ultimate limitations as a peacekeeping body, recent scholarship has emphasized the League’s relative successes in stabilizing new states, safeguarding minorities, managing the evolution of colonies into notionally sovereign states, and policing transnational trafficking; in doing so, it paved the way for the creation of the United Nations.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 121-146
Author(s):  
Charmaine G. Misalucha

Abstract There is a need to reformulate the way in which we view international relations. Rather than simply a play at an obscure theater with the same characters reprising their respective roles based on an old script, international relations need to be seen as a play at the world stage whose script is always being reviewed, revised, rewritten, and renegotiated by characters who are actively searching for ways to be accommodated. In this way, the characters and the roles they play are provisional: they become who or what they are because of actions they take, and not necessarily because they are fated to be revered or condemned. To achieve the fluid nature of this script, one must pay attention to language games. These games allow for the participation of both sides of the equation – the Philippines and the United States – in the creation of the structure and direction of their relationship.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeleine C Pill

Abstract Philanthropic foundations have become increasingly important actors in the governance of cities in decline in the United States. The relationships between foundation and other actors within city governance are illuminated via contrasting interpretations of state-society power relationships which highlight the mutability of ‘civil society’ as an oppositional or integrated part of the state. After detailing a typology of philanthropy of place, the twofold role played by foundations in the governance of neighbourhood revitalization in the cities in which they are embedded is explored: not only as an important source of funding and support for neighbourhood-based organizations, but as contributors to the creation of neighbourhood revitalization policy agendas. Considering the cities of Baltimore and Cleveland reveals that the policy approaches adopted have tended to align with the predominant neoliberal policy agenda rather than revealing foundation actors as activists who assist the organizations they support in exerting agency to contest or seek to transform the prevailing hegemony. This makes clear the need for rigour in defining what constitutes civil society, and points to the importance of embedded philanthropic practices in enabling civil society agency.


Author(s):  
Mary S. Barton

In May 1925, the League of Nations convened a Conference for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War in Geneva, Switzerland. Six weeks of negotiations resulted in a new Arms Traffic Convention (as well as the Geneva Protocol against the usage of chemical and biological weapons), which representatives from eighteen countries—including the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan—signed on June 17. The United States led the way to that moment yet did not follow through on it afterward. The treaty, which lacked robust enforcement mechanisms, languished in national legislatures and never entered into force. Even so, it had a constructive legacy: the compilation and publication of statistics on gun-running. Intelligence based on open and closed sources collected for, and resulting from, the Arms Traffic Conference, indicated systematic violations of the European peace settlements and revealed a world awash in guns.


1923 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-437
Author(s):  
Eugène Borel

From the day on which the United States of America declared that it would not become a party to the League of Nations, the thoughts of many people have naturally turned to the situation created by this abstention, the seriousness of which was necessarily clear to everyone.Some think that the matter should be taken lightly. In their opinion the attitude of the United States can only be transitory and at some future time, which may, however, be still far distant, the country will modify its decision and make up its mind to occupy the place reserved for it in the League of Nations. Others allow themselves to be misguided by a different hope. According to them the League of Nations cannot live and will sooner or later disappear to make place for another grouping of nations which would win the approval and adhesion of the American Republic. Between these extreme views there lie the proposals of those who seek relief in the present situation, basing their expectations either upon such a revision of the Covenant as would satisfy the United States or upon the creation of a world association which would join the United States, the present League of Nations and other states not yet belonging thereto into one great group.


2006 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per H. Hansen

Histories of the rising popularity of Danish modern furniture in both Denmark and the United States have traditionally ascribed its success to the inherent beauty of Danish design. This article argues that Danish modern furniture succeeded for two other reasons. First, through the creation of powerful narratives, or stories, that framed the way consumers made sense of this furniture; and, second, through the calculated development of a network of individuals and organizations whose goal was to promote and legitimize these narratives.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paige Driscoll

Since his beginning as a filmmaker in Britain, Alfred Hitchcock has become a household name not only in Britain and, later, the United States, but also internationally. Hitchcock’s unique auteur style has made his name recognizable even if one has not personally viewed one of his many films. How is it, then, that Hitchcock has accumulated such a distinct and well-known style? Using examples from his films, the research of other Hitchcock experts, and cinematic technique and terminology resources, this article illustrates the way Hitchcock’s visual techniques have contributed to the creation of this auteur style. The visual techniques examined include lighting, camera movement, and visual story-telling technique, each demonstrated using specific examples from one or more of Hitchcock’s films. While Hitchcock’s audiences may be diverse in spoken and cultural language, visual communication is universal. The visual techniques Hitchcock employed are what made him the internationally recognized auteur that he is credited as today.


Author(s):  
Alan Sharp

In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson of the United States demanded ‘a new and more wholesome diplomacy’ to replace the international architecture that had failed to prevent the war that was currently engulfing the world. This chapter investigates some of the origins of this ‘New Diplomacy’ and the attempts made at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference to implement its principles, most notably the creation of the League of Nations, attempts to encourage world disarmament, and the application of national self-determination, which advocates hoped would create a stable and peaceful ‘New Europe’. The clash between aspirations and reality was highlighted by the problems inherent in applying national self-determination to hopelessly ethnographically mixed regions and in seeking a fair and reasonable solution to reparations and inter-Allied debts. The chapter concludes with a survey of the post-war settlement, its practicalities and its reputation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eko Wahyono ◽  
Rizka Amalia ◽  
Ikma Citra Ranteallo

This research further examines the video entitled “what is the truth about post-factual politics?” about the case in the United States related to Trump and in the UK related to Brexit. The phenomenon of Post truth/post factual also occurs in Indonesia as seen in the political struggle experienced by Ahok in the governor election (DKI Jakarta). Through Michel Foucault's approach to post truth with assertive logic, the mass media is constructed for the interested parties and ignores the real reality. The conclusion of this study indicates that new media was able to spread various discourses ranging from influencing the way of thoughts, behavior of society to the ideology adopted by a society.Keywords: Post factual, post truth, new media


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