Lucian M. Ashworth

Realism and the spirit of 1919: Halford Mackinder, geopolitics and the reality of the League of Nations

Recent analyses of interwar International Relations (IR) have argued that there was no realist–idealist debate, and that there is no evidence of a distinct idealist paradigm. Less work has been done on realism in the interwar period. This article analyses the thought of one particular early 20th-century realist: Halford J. Mackinder. A product of the development of political geography, and a major influence on American strategic studies, Mackinder is best known for his Heartland thesis, which has been interpreted as environmental determinism. Yet, Mackinder’s realism is a complex mix of geopolitical analysis and the influence of ideas on human action. His concepts of organizer and idealist foreign policy ideal types pre-date Carr’s realist–utopian distinction by two decades, while his interpretation of the realities of international politics is at odds with Morgenthau’s realism. A closer analysis of Mackinder’s realism (1) underscores the links between geopolitics and realist strategic studies; (2) demonstrates the diversity of realist approaches in interwar IR; and (3) shows that it was possible to be a realist and also support the League of Nations. There are limits to Mackinder’s usefulness to 21st-century IR, but an understanding of his brand of realism is necessary for a fuller understanding of the development of realism as a 20th-century school of thought.

The Poverty of Paradigms: Subcultures, Trading Zones and the Case of Liberal Socialism in Interwar International Relations

In a recent article in International Affairs Duncan Bell argued that the work of Peter Galison in the history of science could be usefully applied to the study of the history of International Relations (IR). In this article I take up Bell’s challenge, claiming that Galison’s post-Kuhnian history of science approach can be used both to understand the history of IR and to replace the ultimately confusing notion of ‘paradigm’ in the study of IR theory. Galison’s method of using ‘microhistories’ to explore the workings of ‘subcultures’ in science is applied to the case study of liberal socialism in interwar IR. Through this case I argue that microhistories can help us understand why certain subcultures in IR theory thrive, and others decline. This understanding in turn could help us comprehend the state of currently active subcultures in IR, and give us an alternative to the intellectually unhelpful concept of ‘paradigm’.

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.

Feminism, War and the Prospects for Peace

It is generally accepted in IR that before the 1980s there was little or no feminist theory in IR. Yet, there were feminists in IR prior to the 1940s who had their own particular take on global politics. This article seeks to reassess the ideas and impact of IRs first-wave feminism by concentrating on the works of one particular writer: Helena Swanwick. While not the only feminist writing on international affairs in the period, Swanwick is interesting both because of her earlier involvement in the feminist and suffragette movements, and because she constructed a clear analysis of the problems of security that was based on her suffragette experience. In the 1920s she gave sound reasons for opposing ‘League wars’ against aggressor states, but in the late 1930s this led her to support appeasement. Despite this, her criticisms of both collective security and the pre-1914 international anarchy are an interesting corrective to both the realist approach that emerged after the 1940s and the supporters of a tighter League system in the 1920s and early 1930s. It is also an indication of the extent to which a feminist agenda had been part of mainstream IR before 1939.

Rethinking a Socialist Foreign Policy: The British Labour Party and International Relations Experts, 1918 to 1931

Between 1918 and 1929 the British Labour Party, working in conjunction with many of the top names in International Relations (IR), developed a coherent foreign policy centered around reforming the international system. This was a major policy change for a political party that, up until then, had concentrated on domestic social and political issues. The construction of Labours interwar foreign policy was part of a wider intellectual revolution that produced the separate discipline of IR after the First World War, and the splits in Labour over foreign policy mirrored similar splits in the wider IR literature. Particularly important here were the differences of opinion over the relationship between arbitration, sanctions, and disarmament in a system of League of Nations pooled security. Labours close association with IR experts and intellectuals resulted in the construction of an international policy that, while addressing socialist themes, drew on an older liberal tradition. The ultimate goal of this policy was to create pacific international conditions favorable to the development of democratic socialism. While events after 1931 forced a major rethinking in the Party, Labours IR experts continued to provide policy-relevant advice that shaped the Partys responses to the rise of fascism.

Whose Commonwealth? Responses to Krishnan Srinivasan's The Rise, Decline and Future of the British Commonwealth

Abstract Krishnan Srinivasans provocative book The Rise, Decline and Future of the British Commonwealth is the first full-length study of the Commonwealth for some years. The Round Table invited five leading Commonwealth scholars and activisits to respond from varying perspectives. They find the book stimulating and irritating in equal measure. The debate is set to continue.

Missing Voices: Critical IPE, Disciplinary History and H.N. Brailsford’s Analysis of the Capitalist International Anarchy

One of the most effective ways of disciplining a discipline is to control the historical narratives that lay out the nature and origins of a field of study. IPE is no different. The recent disciplinary history of IPE by Benjamin Cohen (2008a) provides a coherent account of the origins of IPE that validates the division of IPE into ‘American’ and ‘British’ schools, represents the core question in IPE as the relation between economics and political science, and also tends to marginalize critical IPE. This chapter questions some of the assumptions in Cohen’s narrative by looking at the critical IPE of H.N. Brailsford. Brailsford’s work not only reveals the deep roots of critical IPE, but also questions Cohen’s assumptions about the origins of IPE and IPE’s relationship with International Relations (IR).

How Should We Approach the History of International Thought

Lucian Ashworth invites us to expand the notion of disciplinary history in order to analyze the production of International Relations (IR) thinkers and IR communities as arguments in context (and, one should add, in contexts not defined by arbitrary disciplinary boundaries). Surveying how the history of political thought has been renewed by the Cambridge School, the analytical tradition (Mark Bevir), and the history of science (Peter Galison), Ashworth argues that a proper historical approach to the development of our international concepts does not mean that one is stuck with mere “narratives” that are equally valid. “The role of historical methods,” he suggests, is “to help us judge these narratives on their own merits” and, one would add, critically discriminate among them.

Progressivism Triumphant? Isaiah Bowman’s New Diplomacy in a New World

The geographer Isaiah Bowman was a strong internationalist and a not inconsiderable influence on the foreign policies of presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. A geographer as well as a progressive, he applied a distinctly American interpretation of Lebensraum to the problems of conquest, trade and raw materials. By combining political geography with Wilsonian progressivism, Bowman was able to construct an approach to international affairs that simultaneously accepted geophysical limits on policy, while also arguing that new approaches to global order could mitigate the negative effects of those limits. Bowman’s view of international affairs represents a survival of progressivist ideas, and given the influence of Bowman on later US foreign policy it could be argued that Bowman’s success represents the backdoor triumph of progressivism.

Democratic Socialism and International Thought in Interwar Britain

It has become commonplace in International Relations (IR) accounts of the interwar years to present the debates in Britain as dominated by what are called “liberal internationalists.” Many of the key figures in the period, such as Norman Angell, Leonard Woolf, or Philip Noel-Baker, are often referred to as liberals, and their ideas are then contrasted with what current IR scholars regard as the attributes of realism. While there is a grain of truth to this nomenclature—many of these thinkers came from a politically liberal background prior to 1914—it is also a classification that obscures a far more important self-identification of many of the British international experts of the period. For many, it was not liberalism that defined their political beliefs after 1919; in fact, there was a general consensus that liberalism and the liberal order associated with the nineteenth century had suffered a mortal blow during the War (see, e.g., Angell 1972 [1921]). Rather, they identified themselves as socialists, and were more often than not associated with the Labour Party. This growth in socialist-orientated international thinking was not without its ironies and complexities. The development of the Labour Party, socialist thinking, and, specifically, socialist attitudes to international order and foreign policy was a very recent phenomenon.