David Long

The Harvard School of Liberal International Theory: A Case for Closure

This chapter advances a critique of an increasingly dominant school in international relations: the Harvard School of Liberal International Theory.The academics who make up this school are joined in a common project of creating an alternative to realism and neorealism in international theory, and draw explicitly or silently on liberal premises, theories and/or ideas to advance this project. The focus of this chapter is on two authors, Robert O. Keohane and Andrew Moravcsik, who exemplify the Harvard School of Liberal International Theory.

Who killed the International Studies Conference

This article considers the rise and fall of the first institution of international academic cooperation on international relations, the International Studies Conference (ISC), which was established in 1928 and continued activities into the 1950s. Its formation preceded by decades the present ISA as well as the international organisation of political scientists. The demise of the ISC was a result of the failings of the ISC itself, the influence of UNESCO especially its Department of Social Sciences, and the challenge posed to the ISC by the formation of the International Political Science Association.

C. A. W. Manning and the Discipline of International Relations

As one of the first holders of a Chair in International Relations, Charles Manning was a significant early proponent of and advocate for the now wildly popular academic study of international relations. In his lifetime he may have lost the battle over the vision of the discipline that he propounded. But it is arguable that his views resonate more today than they did when he died in 1978.

J. A. Hobson and Idealism In International relations

J. A. Hobson died on April Fools’ Day in the first year of the Second World War. This, and a whimsical anecdote from A. J. P. Taylor, might appear to be enough to justify the portrayal of Hobson as an idealist. This paper critically assesses the work of J. A. Hobson and its relation to idealism as a category of international relations thought. An examination of Hobson’s writings on international relations shows that there are three distinct strands of thought, three modes of idealism. These modes of idealist thought differ on fundamental propositions about international relations as well as in their prescriptions for a reformed world order. In short, consideration of Hobson’s work destabilizes the monolithic category of idealism in international relations. Put another way, idealism blurs important distinctions in Hobson’s work.

International Functionalism and the Politics of Forgetting

Most accounts of the development of the functional approach in international relations begin with a brief tribute to some of the precursors, such as Arthur Salter, Paul S. Reinsch, Leonard Woolf, the Fabians, Guild Socialists, and Pluralists. They then move swiftly on to David Mitranys A Working Peace System and a logical evaluation and an assessment in light of subsequent experience in the realm of international organization.1 This

Liberalism, Imperialism, and Empire

State action and intervention is approached from a different angle by David Long, who examines the work of two liberal thinkers writing a century apart — J.A. Hobson and Michael Ignatieff. While both wrote on liberalism and liberal internationalism, Hobson was a critic of imperialism whereas Ignatieff is a proponent of Empire. In comparing the two, Long argues that Ignatieffs, and liberal, universalism understands difference as lack or absence of Western values, rather than as the presence of a particular history and structure; it precludes an approach based on specific knowledge and openness to alternatives. It also obscures Western states role in the creation of the problems they seek to solve through imperial intervention.

Working for Peace: the Functional Approach, Functionalism and Beyond

Functionalism has been a feature of international relations theory for over fifty years. In that time, it has been modified, augmented, supplemented, critiqued and ignored. The approach has inspired both sharp criticism and emulation. In its initial form it was primarily concerned with the creation of a more peaceful and stable world order. It has come over time to be identified with the establishment and study of international organizations such as the European Union and the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations. Since the Second World War, functionalists and neofunctionalists have emphasized the role of technical and intergovernmental organizations in the creation of a cooperative international polity. Yet this focus does not exhaust the scope of issues that can be comprehended by the functional approach. The work of David Mitrany, commonly cited as the originator of the functional approach, spans the causes of war, the anatomy of nationalism and the distinction between peasant and industrial economies. Similarly, the functional approach to international relations spans conflict analysis and resolution, world order studies, and liberal and social democratic approaches to the global political economy.

The Security Discourses of the European Union: a Functional Critique

As it enters the next millennium, the European Union (EU) is increasingly dealing with matters relating to international security. Besides the transformation of European security as a result of the end of the Cold War, the inclusion in the Maastricht Treaty of the Common Foreign and Security Policy as a second pillar of the Union as well as an enhanced relationship with the European defence organization, the Western European Union, marked a new phase in the European Union’s security policy. However, all is not well, apparently. While the EU appears to be grappling with security policy in earnest for the first time in its history, the results have been decidedly mixed. War in the former Yugoslavia served to heighten the sense of urgency to giving a security profile to the EU as conflict in the Balkans has dispersed refugees across the continent of Europe and for a time threatened to spread into the wider Balkans area. Yet common wisdom regarding EU involvement in the crisis in Bosnia has been that it was a major policy failure.2

Three Modes of Internationalism in the Work of J.A. Hobson

J. A. Hobson’s discussions of international relations have a wide range: from proposals for an international government to a critique of the League of Nations, from a defence of free trade to proposals for international economic organisation. While most studies of Hobson’s international relations concentrate on the theory of imperialism, this paper examines J.A. Hobson’s internationalism.