Transnationalism and the League of Nations: Understanding the work of its economic and financial organisation

Contemporary European History

Volumn 14, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 465-492

  Clavin, Patricia ^a   Wessel, Jens Wilhelm ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 41149172048     PISSN: 09607773     EISSN: 14692171     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0960777305002729     Document Type: Review

References (56)

1. Beverley Nichols, Cry Havoc! (London: Jonathan Cape, 1933), 123
2. Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson and Duncan Snidal, 'The Rational Design of International Institutions', International Organization, 55, 4 (2001), 761
3. The point is also made by Susan Strange in 'Why Do International Organizations Never Die?', in Bob Reinalda and Bertjan Verbeek, eds., Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations (London: Routledge, 1998), 214-216
4. Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore, 'The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations', International Organization, 53, 4 (1999), 699-732
5. Clive Archer, International Organizations, 3rd edn (London: Routledge, 2003), 68-73
6. Bertjan Verbeek, 'International Organizations' The ugly duckling of international relations theory?', in Reinalda and Verbeek, Autonomous Policy Making, 16
7. The recent preoccupation with epistemic communities in international relations reinforces the latter view. See the seminal work of Peter M. Haas, ed., Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997)
8. See, e.g., Hadewych Hazelzet, 'The Decision-Making Approach to International Organizations. Cox and Jacobson's Anatomic Lesson Revisited', in Reinalda and Verbeek, Autonomous Policy Making, 27-41
9. Verbeek, 'International Organizations', 22
10. Archer, International Organizations, 71-2. The first studies offered a forceful realist critique
11. A. Iriye, Global Community. The Role of International Organisations in the Making of the Contemporary World (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Los Angeles Press, 2002), 21
12. David Armstrong, The Rise of the International Organisation. A Short History (London: Macmillan, 1982), 27
13. This characterisation is echoed by F. S. Northedge and M. J. Grieve, A Hundred Years of International Relations (London: Duckworth, 1971)
14. and in Charles Henry Alexandrowicz, International Economic Organisations (London: Stevens, 1952), 76, 110
15. The more recent work by Victor-Yves Ghebali, 'The League of Nations and Functionalism', in A. J. R. Groom and Paul Taylor, eds., Functionalism. Theory and Practice in International Relations (London: University of London Press, 1975), 141-61, offers only a very brief account of EFO's structure and functions
16. For details of the League Secretariat, see Denys P. Myers, Handbook of the League of Nations; A Comprehensive Account of its Structure, Operation and Activities (New York: World Peace Foundation, 1935)
17. Vladimir D. Pastuhov, Memorandum on the Composition, Procedures and Functions of Committees of the League of Nations (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1943) (Pastuhov was a Czechoslovakian member of the Opium Traffic Section)
18. For a list of members of section see League of Nations, The Official Journal of the League of Nations, Geneva, October 1937, 793 and 805
19. Elisabeth M. Langer, League of Nations List of Commissions and Committees, Economic and Financial Section. Prepared under the direction of Laura S. Turnbull (New York: Woodrow Wilson Foundation Memorial Library, 1946)
20. See Louis W. Pauly, 'The League of Nations and the Foreshadowing of the International Monetary Fund', Essays in International Finance, No. 201, December 1996, 1-52
21. and Neil de Marchi, 'League of Nations Economists and the Ideal of Peaceful Change in the Decade of the "Thirties"', in Craufurd D. Goodwin, ed., Economics and National Security. A History of Their Interaction. Annual Supplement to Volume 23, History of Political Economy (London: Duke University Press, 1991), 143-78
22. Dubin's work usefully outlines the League's contribution to economic appeasement. See Martin D. Dubin, 'Toward the Bruce Report: the Economic and Social Programs of the League of Nations in the Avenol era', in Graduate Institute of International Studies, ed., The League of Nations in Retrospect: Proceedings of the Symposium organized by the United Nations library and the Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva: Berlin de Gruyter, 1983), 42-72
23. Menzies's work explores the early origins of EFO, notably the activities of the Economic Committee, in the early 1920s: A. Alexander Menzies, 'Technical Assistance and the League of Nations', The League of Nations in Retrospect, 295-312
24. Jean Siotis's examination is short and contains a number of errors. See Jean Siotis, 'The Institutions of the League of Nations', The League of Nations in Retrospect, 19-41. The best overview of literature on the League as a whole can be found at http://www.indiana.edu/league/bibd.htm
25. On the often stylised nature of UN meeting records, reports and notes see Anthony Mango, 'The Role of the Secretariats of International Institutions', in Paul Taylor and A. J. R. Groom, eds., International Institutions at Work (London: Pinter Publishers Limited, 1988), 43-5
26. For a lucid overview, see David Armstrong, Lorna Lloyd and John Redmond, From Versailles to Maastricht. International Organisation in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996)
27. See Art. 23 of the Covenant, in John Fischer Williams, Some Aspects of the Covenant of the League of Nations (London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934, 277-9)
28. See also Ghebali, 'League of Nations and Functionalism', 146
29. and Menzies, 'Technical Assistance', 295
30. Alfred Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law 1918-1935 (London: Macmillan, 1939), 320 ff.
31. Martin Dubin, 'Transgovernmental Processes in the League of Nations', International Organization, 37, 3 (1983), 485-489
32. Menzies, 'Technical Assistance', 296
33. Ghebali, 'League of Nations and Functionalism', 150
34. Government officials, of course, were at pains to point out publicly that governments did not designate committee members, but attended in their personal capacity as experts. See, e.g., F. A. Van Woerden, La Société des Nations et Le Rapprochement Economique International (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1932), 13
35. See also Wertheimer, International Seaetariat, 113
36. Patricia Clavin and Jens-Wilhelm Wessels, 'An Idol of Gold? The League of Nations Gold Inquiry and the Great Depression, 1929-32', International History Review, 26, 3 (2004)
37. For others, transnationalism implies connections between nation states at sub-state level on a more exclusive basis. See, e.g., articles published under the title of 'People in Motion, Nation in Question: The Case of Twentieth-Century America', Journal of American History, 84, 2 (1997), 524-82
38. See Wertheimer, International Secretariat, chs. VI and VII
39. See Gottfried Haberler, Prosperity and Depression (Geneva: League of Nations, 1937)
40. Jan Tinbergen, Statistical Testing of Business Cycle Theories, 2 vols. (Geneva: League of Nations, 1938 and 1939)
41. J. B. Condliffe, Markets and the Problem of Peaceful Change (Paris: International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, 1938)
42. Nurkse, International Currency Experience: Lessons of the Inter-war Period (Princeton: League of Nations, 1944)
43. See, e.g., League of Nations, Trade Relations Between Free-market and Controlled Economies (Geneva, 1943)
44. League of Nations, Quantitative Trade Controls: Their Causes and Nature (Geneva: 1943)
45. and Folke Hilgerdt, The Network of World Trade (Geneva: League of Nations, 1942)
46. and Industrialization and Foreign Trade (Geneva: League of Nations, 1945)
47. Gottfried Haberler, Prosperity and Depression. A theoretical Analysis of Cyclical Movements, 1st edn (Geneva: League of Nations, 1936)
48. The Assembly convened every September and consisted of delegates from around sixty member states, each of which had one vote. The delegations comprised no more than three representatives plus deputies and technical advisers for the Assembly committees. The general Assembly sessions were open to the public. The League Council consisted of three to six permanent member states and between four and eleven elected member states which were usually represented by foreign ministers. It convened between three and four times annually. The original permanent members were Britain, France, Italy and Japan. During their temporary League membership Germany (1926-1933/4) and the Soviet Union (1933/4-1939) also became permanent members. Only Britain and France remained permanent members throughout the history of the League, as Italy and Japan defected in the 1930s. See A. LeRoy Bennet, International Organizations. Principles and Issues, 5th edn (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Englewoods Cliffs, 1991), 26, 29-30
49. Margaret E. Burton, The Assembly of the League of Nations (New York: Howard Fertig, 1974 [1941]), 96-7
50. Patricia Clavin, The Failure of Economic Diplomacy: Britain, Germany, France and the United States, 1931-36 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), 143-153
51. Walter LaFeber, The American Age. United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad Since 1750 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), 356
52. For a more detailed assessment of US participation, see Patricia Clavin, 'Internationalist Minds in Nationalist Bodies: the United States and the League of Nations, 1933-40', paper presented to the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, Austin, Texas, 2004
53. See Economic Committee, 'Remarks on the Present Phase of International Economic Relations', Geneva, 13 Sept. 1935
54. Stoppani to Halifax, 11 Aug. 1936, PRO T188/148
55. This has been missed by historians of economic appeasement who see proposals for an international economic conference emerging for the first time in 1937 or 1938. In fact, the idea never went away after the arrest of the World Economic Conference of 1933. See Clavin, Failure of Economic Diplomacy, 167-73, 190-201
56. They often write of 'Geneva-based ILO-LON economists', although many of the League reports originated from committees comprising government representatives, such as the Delegation on Economic Depressions. League officials, League economists, members of the International Labour Organisation, League committees and delegations comprising national representatives are frequently, and confusingly, lumped together See Andres M. Endres and Grant A. Fleming, International Organisations and the Analysis of Economic Policy, 1919-1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)