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“Dash and Doubt” Walter Bagehot and International Restraint

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

David Clinton
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Abstract

Walter Bagehot was Victorian Britain's premier political commentator on and analyst of the operation of governmental institutions and practices. He also wrote prolifically on international affairs, though this aspect of his work has been less remarked on. His attitude of quietism in foreign policy derived from his belief that, although in domestic affairs the age of government by custom and coercion had been succeeded—in certain developed countries, at any rate—by the practice of government through reasoned debate and compromise, in the relations among nations difficulties of communication caused by differences of worldview continued to make international relations the realm of power clashes marked by mutual misunderstandings. His response was to urge his country to have as little as possible to do with this more “primitive” arena of politics; and his warnings remain a classic statement of the dangers of unintended consequences and overly ambitious activity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 65 , Issue 1 , Winter 2003 , pp. 89 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2003

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References

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21. “The Legal Relation of England and of Individual Englishmen to the Civil Struggle in the United States,” p. 252;Google Scholar“The State of Parties” (2 04 1864), CW, 14: 289;Google Scholar“Lord Palmerston” (21 10 1865), CW, 3:277;Google Scholarreport of the Bridgewater Mercury (13 June 1866) on Bagehot's speech (5 06 1866), in CW, 14:367.Google Scholar

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32. See Wight, Martin, International Theory: The Three Traditions, ed. Wright, Gabriele and Porter, Brian (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1992), p. 32.Google ScholarJenkins, Roy, in Churchill: A Biography (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2001)Google Scholar, argues the case for Churchill's liberal conscience. Sisson (referred to earlier), on the other hand, would say that Churchill's greatness lay in his appreciation for English historical tradition and community, an appreciation that, he contends, Bagehot's liberal individualism lacked or even scorned.

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