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Interwar International Relations Research: The American Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

William T. R. Fox
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Extract

What is today in the United States conventionally known as international relations is a subject different in content and emphasis from its counterpart of even two decades ago. Much of what seemed important in 1929 seems irrelevant, and some of it even trivial, in 1949. Another twenty years may perhaps bring a similar judgment on work now being done. But we ought at least to be aware of the direction in which we have been moving if we are to control the future development of the field.

In 1930 the following statement passed unchallenged in a discussion among some of Ameria's leading social scientists: “The emotional drive is so highly developed in the kind of person who goes into the international relations field that it often leads to unclear thinking.” The implication that no one without this drive could conceivably be persuaded to enter the field is a commentary on the disesteem with which international relations research was then regarded.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , October 1949 , pp. 67 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1949

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References

1 This paper and the succeeding one by Frederick S. Dunn were prepared for the Committee on International Relations Research of the Social Science Research Conucil. Each one has been extensively revised as a result of discussions with groups of scholars in New York, Washington, and Palo Alto.

2 Mr. Carnegie's letter to the Trustees read at their first meeting, December 14, 1910, Year Book for 1911, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D. C, 1912, p. 3. Andrew Carnegie was a believer in simplified spelling.

3 The search by the historian for the person or persons responsible for bringing on World War I was paralleled by other social scientists' quest for the cause of war. Various simplistic determinisms, other than those already alluded to, among which economic determinism and the devil theory of war were probably the most fashionable, flourished. In a way the belief in the possibility of discovering the cause of war reflected the prevailing optimism; for if the cause could be isolated, the cure could be prescribed.

4 Concentration on the Geneva institutions was most highly developed in the United States but was not a unique characteristic of the American student of international relations. Professor S. H. Bailey in England was able to interpret a directive to survey educational and research activities “in so far as they tend to impart a knowledge of the League and develop a spirit of international co-operation” as a mandate to survey “the objective study of international relations.” See his International Studies in Modern Education, London, 1938.

5 The SSRC's major effort in the international relations field occurred between 1931 and 1933. Professor James T. Shotwell directed its work as a member of the SSRC staff, and a committee of men of affairs under Owen D. Young replaced the Council's earlier academic international relations committee. The work during this period of concentrated activity was not so much concerned with inquiries into the nature of the field as with the survey of existing organizations and creation of new research organizations here and abroad. His work therefore stands largely outside the scope of the present analysis of trends in research.

6 “Report of the Advisory Committee on International Relations of the Social Science Research Council,” mimeographed, 1927.

7 Cf. ibid., esp. Part II.

8 See, for example, the works directed or edited or written by such men as Shotwell (the series on the economic and social history of the First World War), Fay and Schmitt (the war guilt studies), Hayes and Moon (on nationalism and imperialism), Merriam (the civic training series), and Hudson (the codification of international law).

9 Some of the more exaggerated claims made about UNESCO's contribution to maintaining world peace suggest that this belief still persists.

10 New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1911.

11 Cf. Lippmann, Walter, An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society, Boston, Little, Brown, 1937Google Scholar, for an analogous description of what went wrong with laissez-faire economics.

12 Cf. The Idea of National Interest, New York, Macmillan, 1934; and The Ofen Door at Home, New York, Macmillan, 1934.

13 Cf. The Practice and Procedure of International Conferences, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1929; The Protection of Nationals, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1932; and The Diplomatic Protection of Americans in Mexico, New York, Columbia University Press, 1933.

14 Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1942.

15 1st edition, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1933.

16 New York, McGraw-Hill, 1935.

17 Cf. his “National Security and Foreign Policy,” Yale Review, Spring, 1940, pp. 444–60; and “Political and Military Strategy for the United States,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, January, 1941, pp. 112–19.

18 Cf. Harold, and Sprout, Margaret, The Rise of American Naval Power, 1776–1918, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1939Google Scholar; Toward a New Order of Sea Power, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1940.

19 Cf. America's Strategy in World Politics, New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1942.

20 New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1940.

21 Kirk, Grayson L. reaches a similar conclusion in The Study of International Relations, New York, Council on Foreign Relations, 1947.Google Scholar