Pioneers in International Administration: A Prosopography of the Directors of the League of Nations Secretariat

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torsten Kahlert
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Second World War ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
World War ◽  
Clear Trend ◽  
Organizational Contexts ◽  
Career Trajectories ◽  
Second World ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis article investigates interwar internationalism from the perspective of the highest personnel of the first large-scale international administration, the League of Nations Secretariat. It applies a prosopographical approach in order to map out the development of the composition of the group of the section directors of the Secretariat over time in terms of its social and cultural characteristics and career trajectories. The analysis of gender, age, nationality, as well as educational and professional backgrounds and careers after their service for the League’s Secretariat gives insight on how this group changed over time and what it tells us about interwar internationalism. I have three key findings to offer in this article: First, the Secretariat was far from being a static organization. On the contrary, the Secretariat’s directors developed in three generations each with distinct characteristics. Second, my analysis demonstrates a clear trend towards professionalization and growing maturity of the administration over time. Third, the careers of the directors show a clear pattern of continuity across the Second World War and beyond. Even though the careers continued in different organizational contexts, the majority of the directors remained closely connected to the world of internationalism of the League, the UN world and its surrounding organizations. On a methodological level, the article offers an example of how prosopographical analysis can be used to study international organizations.

Digitale ontsluiting van het Centraal Archief Bijzondere Rechtspleging : Mogelijkheden en onmogelijkheden

2020 ◽  
Vol 133 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-324
Author(s):  
Ismee Tames
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
Second World ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Digital Access to the Legal Files of those tried for Nazi collaboration in the Netherlands: Possibilities and ImpossibilitiesThis article reflects on the findings of a pilot project called Triado that digitized a sample of the 4km of legal files created by the Special Jurisdiction for investigating Dutch Nazi collaboration (CABR) in the years after the Second World War. We show that large scale digitization may help to analyze complex historical sources in new ways, thus deepening our understanding of the consequences of war and genocide. However, this can be achieved only if all specialists involved develop ways to deal with ambiguity in the sources: instead of disambiguation we need mixed approaches that allow for data to have multiple meanings and for interpretation of meaning to change over time. This article offers suggestions and gives a brief overview of some of the possibilities for researchers and lay users of digitized historical sources.

The Conflation of Race and Propaganda in the Mobilization of Africans for the Second World War

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110549
Author(s):  
Raphael Chijioke Njoku
Keyword(s):  
African Diaspora ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Second World War ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
World War ◽  
Benito Mussolini ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Second World

The primary focus here is to accentuate the competing roles of race and propaganda in the enlistment of Africans and African Americans for the Second World War. Among other things, the discussion captures on the interwar years and emphasizes the subtleties of African American Pan-Africanist discourses as a counterweight to Black oppression encountered in the racialized spaces of Jim Crow America, colonized Africa, and the pugnacious infraction that was the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935–1936. Tying up the implications of these events into the broader global politics of 1939–1945 establishes the background in which the Allied Powers sought after Black people’s support in the war against the Axis Powers. Recalling that Italy’s fascist leader Benito Mussolini attacked Ethiopia in 1935 with poisonous gas while the League of Nations refused to act, points to the barefaced conflation of race and propaganda in the Great War and the centrality of African and African Diaspora exertions in the conflict.

Part I Historical Overview, Ch.2 Intellectual Cooperation Organisation, Unesco, And The Culture Conventions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vrdoljak Ana Filipa ◽  
Meskell Lynn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Second World War ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Field ◽  
Adoption And Implementation ◽  
Second World

This chapter provides an overview of multilateral interventions in the field of cultural heritage and its legal protection over the last century by focusing on the work of specialist cultural international organizations that have spearheaded the adoption and implementation of the leading treaties. The first part examines the early work of the League of Nations’ Intellectual Cooperation Organisation from the 1920s to the Second World War. The second part considers the work of its successor, UNESCO from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. The concluding observations consider the challenges which both organizations faced in realizing their mission in the cultural field. A deeper understanding of the ideals, challenges, and tensions which have marked the internal workings of UNESCO, its forerunner, and their Members States is fundamental to appreciating the instruments and initiatives in the cultural field that they adopted and seek to implement.

Enlarging Yugoslavia: Tito's Quest for Expansion, 1945–1948

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Niebuhr
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
World War ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Second World ◽  
Over Time

When Yugoslav strongman Josip Broz Tito secured power at the end of the Second World War, he had envisioned for himself a new Yugoslavia that would serve as the center of power for the Balkan Peninsula. First, he worked to ensure a Yugoslav presence in the Trieste region of Italy and southern Austria as a way to gain territory inhabited by Slovenes and Croats; meanwhile, his other foreign policy escapades sought to make Yugoslavia into a major European power. To that end, Yugoslav agents quickly worked to synchronize the Albanian socio-economic and political systems through their support of Albanian Partisans and only grew emboldened over time. As allies who proved themselves in the fight against fascism, Yugoslav policymakers felt able to act with impunity throughout the early post-Cold War period. The goal of this article is to highlight this early foreign policy by focusing on three case studies – Trieste, Carinthia, and Albania – as part of an effort to reinforce the established argument over Tito's quest for power in the early Cold War period.

License Limitation Regulations: The South African System

1973 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 2077-2084 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. P. D. Gertenbach
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Conservation Policies ◽  
The Government ◽  
New Industry ◽  
Second World

The exploitation of pelagic shoal resources off South Africa’s west (Atlantic) coast began during the second world war, with large-scale expansion beginning in 1947–49. At the end of the forties, the Government lacked the scientific evidence to formulate effective conservation policies, and pending the outcome of the research programs it deemed it advisable to put a brake on the expansion of these fisheries.An obvious measure was a ceiling on the annual catches. But this would not necessarily have prevented further influx into the fishing or the processing phases of the industry. As part of an economy-wide practice to require licenses for various kinds of operations, these were required for all fishing boats and factories. The Government decided in 1949 to refuse the issue of licenses for additional fish-processing factories and to limit the number and capacity to those already in operation or under construction.In 1953 the fishermen, aware of the limitation on the outlets (factory intakes) for their catches, and the continued influx of outsiders into the flourishing fishing side, willingly agreed to the freezing of the number and hold capacity of vessels fishing for pilchards and maasbankers. After the enactment by parliament of the necessary enabling laws, regulations were issued to establish a Pilchard/Maasbanker Boat Limitation Committee consisting of government, factory, and fishermen representatives to apply the controls over the number of boats, their hold capacity and the allocation of this fleet to the various factories.Adjustments, including some increases in the capacity of the fleet, were made from time to time to cope with changing conditions in the resource.A serious weakening in the control system occurred when fishing and processing licenses were granted to operators of fishmeal factory ships.The results of the limitation of entry into the fishing phase and the processing phases include several significant trends, among which are a smaller number of boats, larger-size boats with more powerful engines and equipment, and increased factory-ownership of boats. The factories introduced stickwater plants and other processes to increase the yield of meal from the available tonnage of raw fish.Although the industry has experienced difficult periods, it nevertheless seems, broadly viewed, that through the policy of restricting entry at the early stages of the new industry, it acquired sufficient resilience to cope not only with the ups but also the downs. It appears doubtful that "overcrowded" fishing and processing sectors would have had sufficient resilience to face fluctuating catches and fishmeal prices.

Correction

1967 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 287-287 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
World War ◽  
Uniform Law ◽  
The Hague ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Sale Of Goods ◽  
Second World

A. Szakats, “The Influence of Commonwealth Law Principles on the Uniform Law on the International Sale of Goods” (1966) I.C.L.Q. (July) 749–779.In the July issue of I.C.L.Q. on p. 749, note 6, and on p. 779, reference was made to the Donaldson Committee and it was quoted that in their view “there was no demand or need for any changes in the law as contained in the Sale of Goods Act.” As source, L. A. Ellwood, “The Hague Uniform Laws Governing the international Sale of Goods,” Some Comparative Aspects of the Law Relating to Sale of Goods, I.C.L.Q. Suppl. Publication No.9 (1964), pp. 38–42, was referred to. In fact no such comment was made by the Committee. The author expresses his regret for the error. [The Board of Trade point out that the passage cited by Dr. Szakats summarised the views of H.M. Government on the original Draft Law, which was issued through the League of Nations before the second World War. Editor]

2. Historical development and contemporary concerns

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Clapham
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Second World War ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
World War ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
Second World

The content of human rights is usually understood by reference to the legal catalogue of human rights we find developed through international texts. ‘Historical development and contemporary concerns’ examines the key text for human rights today—The Universal Declaration of Human Rights—adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly. Since that time many treaties and intergovernmental Declarations have supplemented this proclamation of rights. The treaties are best viewed as providing a framework against which we can legitimately judge the performance of governments. How did this human rights catalogue come about? What roles did the League of Nations and Second World War play?

Party Voting in the United States Congress

1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel C. Patterson ◽  
Gregory A. Caldeira
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
United States Congress ◽  
World War ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Party Voting ◽  
Second World ◽  
Over Time

By the standard of most European parliaments, levels of party voting in the United States Congress are relatively low. Nevertheless, party voting does occur in the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the American context, a party vote occurs when majorities of the two congressional parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, oppose one another. The authors construct measurements of levels of party voting in Congress in the years after the Second World War. They then develop a model to test the effects of a number of independent variables that influence fluctuations in party voting levels over time. The study models the time series for party voting and demonstrates striking differences between the House and Senate in the correlates of partisan cleavage.

A Study of Bias in British and American History Textbooks

1965 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Mowat
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
World War ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Second World

The examination of historical works, and especially school textbooks on history, for evidence of national bias, is nothing new. Between the wars the focus was on British and German histories, which were an object of concern to the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. Since the Second World War the subject of national bias in historical works has been taken up by the Council of Europe and UNESCO. A recent study has been concerned with current British and American textbooks, which have been examined for evidences of bias against the United States and Britain respectively.

scholarly journals AN EXAMINATION OF THE POWER POLITICS IN THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, 1918-1945

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
EDIAGBONYA MICHAEL
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
World Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

This paper discusses the power politics in the League of Nations. It examines the League of Nations as a formal international organisation whose purpose was the maintenance of world peace. It analyse the gross oppression of the major European powers over the smaller nations, as well as engaging in bitter rivalry yet the League of Nations could not take decisive actions. The inability of the League of Nations to prevent the occurrence of the Second World War also came to focus. Data for the study was obtained through oral interview as primary sources and secondary sources such as books, newspapers, articles, theses, dissertation journals etc. It was found that the establishment of the League of Nations became an acceptable concept because of casualties and devastation associated with the First World War. It was demonstrated that the League of Nations later became a toothless bull dog because it could not prevent the constant violations of its covenant by the major European powers. It was also found that the second world could have been avoided if the organisation was proactive in handling the issues that led to the war. It concluded that the League of Nations lacked the cohesive force to adequately intervene in conflict and crises.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document