The study of International Relations (IR) emerged in the context of transnational networks of scholars, politicians, and philanthropists who sought to devise a peaceful world order in the face of international conflict. Prompted by the Great War, the pioneers of IR argued that international politics should be subject to public and academic investigation. In order to generate the required expertise, they established a range of university-based as well as policy-oriented institutions during the 1910s and 20s. Rather than studying political theory or advancing scientific methodology, however, early IR scholars focused on current affairs and became involved in foreign politics themselves. Throughout the formative period of IR, from 1914 to 1940, its protagonists oscillated between understanding and making international politics. This dissertation examines the formation of IR from about 1914 to the Second World War, with particular emphasis on the range of international actors and institutions that shaped the discipline. Based on multi-archival research in Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, it explores the key venues for the study of IR. In particular, the dissertation reflects how IR scholars used transnational forms of exchange, such as the organs of intellectual cooperation at the League of Nations. It also incorporates women and feminist approaches to IR. Contrary to conventional historiography, the dissertation argues that IR was neither founded in 1919, nor dominated by coherent schools of thought during the inter-war period. Instead, it demonstrates how the discipline was formed by an eclectic group of scholars and practitioners, men and women, English-speaking and international. By building on recent revisionist literature and by re- integrating neglected actors, the dissertation reveals the complex and sometimes inconsistent ways in which issues of international politics became the subject of academic study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:729807 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | StoĢckmann, Jan |
| Contributors | Clavin, Patricia M. |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e028dab4-29e4-45af-91b0-e15fb7ef47b7 |
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