Peaceful Change: The Interwar Era and the Disciplinary Context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torbjørn L. Knutsen
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Interwar Era

The first thorough discussion of “peaceful change” took place in 1936–1937 in two international conferences sponsored by the League of Nations. The League was prompted by the uncertainties and tensions that followed decisions by Germany, Italy, and Japan to leave it. Teachers and scholars of international relations convened in these League-sponsored conferences to assess the demands of the three dissatisfied powers. As they debated how the demands of these powers could best be tackled, one answer tended to emerge: through a policy of peaceful change. But what was “peaceful change”? And how did the early IR scholars approach the concept scientifically? This chapter seeks to answer these two questions.

Sovereignty at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard V. Smith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Power ◽  
World War ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
The World ◽  
Paris Peace Conference

We have long known that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 “failed” in the sense that it did not prevent the outbreak of World War II. This book investigates not whether the conference succeeded or failed, but the historically specific international system it created. It explores the rules under which that system operated, and the kinds of states and empires that inhabited it. Deepening the dialogue between history and international relations theory makes it possible to think about sovereignty at the conference in new ways. Sovereignty in 1919 was about remaking “the world”—not just determining of answers demarcating the international system, but also the questions. Most histories of the Paris Peace Conference stop with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on June 28, 1919. This book considers all five treaties produced by the conference as well as the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey in 1923. It is organized not chronologically or geographically, but according to specific problems of sovereignty. A peace based on “justice” produced a criminalized Great Power in Germany, and a template problematically applied in the other treaties. The conference as sovereign sought to “unmix” lands and peoples in the defeated multinational empires by drawing boundaries and defining ethnicities. It sought less to oppose revolution than to instrumentalize it. The League of Nations, so often taken as the supreme symbol of the conference’s failure, is better considered as a continuation of the laboratory of sovereignty established in Paris.

Latin America and the League of Nations

1926 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-30
Author(s):  
Percy Alvin Martin
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Post War ◽  
International Status

To students of international relations it has become almost a commonplace that among the most significant and permanent results of the World War has been the changed international status of the republics of Latin America. As a result of the war and post-war developments in these states, the traditional New World isolation in South America, as well as in North America, is a thing of the past. To our leading sister republics is no longer applicable the half-contemptuous phrase, current in the far-off days before 1914, that Latin America stands on the margin of international life. The new place in the comity of nations won by a number of these states is evidenced—to take one of the most obvious examples—by the raising of the legations of certain non-American powers to the rank of embassies, either during or immediately after the war. In the case of Brazil, for instance, where prior to 1914 only the United States maintained an ambassador, at the present time Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and Japan maintain diplomatic representatives of this rank.Yet all things considered one of the most fruitful developments in the domain of international relations has been the share taken by our southern neighbors in the work of the League of Nations. All of the Latin American republics which severed relations with Germany or declared war against that country were entitled to participate in the Peace Conference. As a consequence, eleven of these states affixed their signatures to the Treaty of Versailles, an action subsequently ratified in all cases except Ecuador.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

scholarly journals REALISME DALAM KEPENTINGAN NASIONAL INDONESIA MELALUI FORUM KONFERENSI ASIA AFRIKA (KAA) DAN GERAKAN NON BLOK (GNB)

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (01) ◽  
pp. 123-139
Author(s):  
Taufan Herdansyah Akbar ◽  
Agus Subagyo ◽  
Jusmalia Oktaviani
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Research Team ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Military Power ◽  
World War ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Classical Realism

Realism is an approach and paradigm that is in international relations, Realism began to be debated during World War II (World War II) because of the failure of the League of Nations (LBB). LBB is the brainchild of idealists who are considered to have failed to prevent war and create peace. Realism existed even before the paradigm debate which was later called classical realism with one of its characters being Niccolo Machiavelly. Niccolo Maciavelly's style of realism emphasizes that human nature is egositically and creates an anarchic world. In this study the research team wanted to prove that what Niccolo Machiavelly delivered was not merely increasing military power merely to create peace, but negotiation and diplomacy methods were also instruments of the State in achieving its national interests in realism like Indonesia. The national interests of Indonesia are everything for Indonesian politicians and the existence and power of Indonesia is the goal of Indonesia's interests to avoid war. Therefore Indonesia must have played its role in the Asian-African Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement at that time as an instrument of achieving national interests in Realism. This research will use qualitative research methods with a historical approach. The results of this study provide answers that Realism is not merely militaristic but also a role as a rational actor.

scholarly journals SHERWOOD EDDY, THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE, AND THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN INTERNATIONALISM IN 1920S AMERICA

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL G. THOMPSON
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Christian Nation

By tracing the career of influential YMCA missionary Sherwood Eddy, this essay brings to light the origins of Christian internationalism in 1920s America. Far more than mere boosterism for Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, and far more than mere “pacifism” or Social Gospel “idealism”(reductive categories with which activism in the period is often associated), Christian internationalism in the interwar period was a movement defined by three broad and far-reaching impulses. First, it was characterized by the proliferation of new enterprises such as travelling seminars, conferences and publications devoted to reflection on the ethics of international relations. Second, it comprised a holistic, oppositional and radical political orientation that went beyond legalist internationalism and encompassed agitation against imperialism and racism. Third, the movement was premised on a fundamental critique of the idea of America as a “Christian nation”. Eddy's career highlights the unique importance of the missionary enterprise in giving shape to these impulses in the 1920s and beyond.

scholarly journals ‘The Life of Individuals as well as of Nations’: International Law and the League of Nations’ Anti-Trafficking Governmentalities

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 647-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN LEGG
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
General Public ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
International Mobility ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Trafficking In Women ◽  
Legal Model ◽  
Women And Children

AbstractThis paper will address an often-neglected agenda of the much-derided League of Nations: its ‘social’ and ‘technical’ works. These targeted human security through regulating different forms of international mobility, including the fight against trafficking in women and children. The League used conventions and conferences to commit nation-states, in a legal model, to standardized anti-trafficking measures. It also, however, worked to educate and inform states, voluntary organizations, and the general public about the nature of trafficking and the ways of combating it. The latter techniques are here interpreted using Foucault's governmentality writings, which encourage us to look beyond the juridical epistemologies of international relations and international law, but not beyond the interlacing of laws and norms, here explored through interwar League governmentalities.

The Decline of the Great Rapprochement

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Bowman
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
The Us ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Post War

This chapter examines the activities of the Pilgrims Society against the backdrop of official international relations in the immediate post-war years, in particular during the presidency of Warren Harding. It analyses the Pilgrims Society’s role in many of the most pressing issues in the Anglo-American relationship, for example the US refusing to join the League of Nations, the war debt question, and naval disarmament. It focuses on a banquet held in London in 1921 for the US Ambassador George Harvey, whose remarks at the event about the League of Nations caused controversy and resulted in significant levels of press coverage. This chapter also looks at the growing anti-Britishness in the US in this period and examines how this impacted upon the Pilgrims Society. The chapter ultimately establishes that the Pilgrims Society consolidated its position as a semi-official public diplomacy actor while at the same time coming under increasing public scrutiny.

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