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The study of appeasement: methodological crossroads or meeting-place?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Paul M. Kennedy
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Extract

The study of modern international relations is carried on, essentially, by two main types of scholars: diplomatic historians, and political scientists. There may be other types, like economists and sociologists, who recognize and take account of the importance of international politics in their own fields of study; but foreign affairs, and the processes that take place within the global system of relations, are not of central concern to them. By contrast, diplomatic historians (by which is meant here, not merely those who research into the rather narrow past actions of diplomats alone, but also those interested in the history of foreign policy and_what has affected it) would simply not exist if there was no perception and acceptance of international relations as a field of study; and this would be equally true of that well-defined sub-division of political science which has as its essential concern the analysis of relations between nation-states and of other ‘actors’ in the world system.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , October 1980 , pp. 181 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1980

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References

page 181 note 1 The argument could be reinforced by comparing the contents (and approaches) of journals involved with diplomatic history — say, the Historical Journal and the Journal Contemporary History—; with a much more theoretical and methodologically explicit such as the Journal of Conflict Resolution.

page 183 note 1 Thorne, C., The Limits of Foreign Policy: The West, the League and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1931–1933 (London, 1972), pp. xiii–xiv.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 183 note 2 Meyers, R., Britische Sicherheitspolitik 1934–1938 (Düsseldorf, 1976).Google Scholar

page 183 note 3 A. S. Alexandroff, ‘The Use and Abuse of History in International Relations Theory’ (Paper for the American Political Science Association Meeting, New York, August/September, 1978); Alexandroff, A. S. and Rosencrance, R., ‘Deterrence in 1939’, World Politics, xxix (1977), pp. 404—424CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gourevitch, P., ‘The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Polities’, International Organization, xxxii (1978), pp. 881–912CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Katzenstein, P., ‘International Relations and Domestic Structures: Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States’, International Organization, xxx (1976), pp. 1—46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kurth, J., ‘The Political Consequences of the Product Cycle: Industrial History and Political Outcomes’, International Organization, xxxiii (1979), pp. 1—34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 184 note 1 A good bibliography is contained in A. S. Alexandroff, ‘A Missing Link. Domestic Political Structures and International Conflict: The Cases of World War I and World War II’ (Paper for the Canadian Political Science Association Convention, May/June, 1979).

page 184 note 2 See the works referred to in Professor Gruner's article, below.

page 184 note 3 I have sought to list and analyse them all in my forthcoming book, The Realities behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980 (London, 1981)Google Scholar, chap. 6.

page 185 note 1 Kennedy, P. M., ‘The Tradition of Appeasement in British Foreign Policy, 1865–1939’, British Journal of International Studies, ii (1976), pp. 195–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 188 note 1 His most recent statement is ‘Internal Crisis and War since 1870’, in Bertrand, C. L. (ed.), Revolutionary Situations in Europe, 191J—1922 (Montreal, 1977), pp. 201—233.Google Scholar

page 188 note 2 Cowling, M., The Impact of Hitler: British Politics and British Policy 1933–1940 (Cambridge, 1975), p. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar