Poliiics and Reform (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989); Ben Klandermans, Hanspeter Kriesi and Sidney Tarrow (eds,), International Social Movement Research, Vol. World War 1 and American Society (New York, NY: Holmes & Meier. 19S4). Peace or Ifer; The American Struggle. '2 Indeed, throughout the century peace activism focused on arbitration, through promoting bilateral arbitration treaties and clauses in treaties. 1919-1939, Second Edition (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1946, reprinted 1964). Carr’s book occupies a special place in the field of IR for two reasons. Jonathan Haslam described Carr as: "Fervently individualist, ferociously intelligent, and scrupulously honest, Carr was by nature reserved and taciturn. Yet a closer look at the history of nineteenth and early twentieth century movements indicates that Carr's broad-brush treatment mischaracterised this strand of social activism in significant ways—ways that hinder, rather than help, our understanding of the impact of such movements on international politics. 19. 10. Specific ethical principles such as 'equality of status' can thus have little meaning when applied to relations between states.56 The problem of designing a moral code is compounded when dealing with the anarchic nature of international politics. He disparaged, for example, the campaign for 'the popularisation of international politics' in the 1920s and 1930s as an overly emotional reaction to the breakdown of international order during the pre-war years.3' He painted utopianism with a broad brush, as encompassing virtually all attempts to 'reform' foreign policy so that it conformed to given rules of behaviour and/or moral principles. But far from a continuation of mid-nineteenth century notions of 'harmony', or even the continuation of ideas favouring the internationalisation of liberal standards on the part of Progressive-era elites, interwar peace movements and their supporters by-and-large believed that international legal norms and institutions had to possess the capacity to control, in addition to reform, states' war-prone tendencies. CarT sought to outline the normative history of utopianism in international politics; he also spelled out in some detail who the 'Utopians' were, although his definition was sweeping and often contradictory.". Beware of Gurus: Structure and Action in International Relations', Review of International Studies (Vol. exercised such enduring appeal? The series of Peace Congresses, held from 1843 to 1849, was inspired by the success of the 1840 World Ami-Slavery Convention held in London. Social movements have made these attempts as part of a much less successful endeavour to promote law as a means of ensuring international peace. They also had no developed economic programme or critique. This stigma has endured in both popular and theoretical parlance over the past fifty years and should be re-examined. Secondly, they differed from pre-World War I activists in their concentrated and relatively unified stance in favour of the principles that all states should disatm and that trade in arms should not be. However, much of this literature primarily addresses itself to the role of states as agents, thereby neglecting the part played in international politics by domestic and transnational actors. 20, No. 127-31. 123-24. Consequently, it is difficult to categorise the movements of this era as abettors of a harmony based on particularistic political or economic notions. 1. My position on Cair's fit with the realist tradition is obviously closer lo that of Bull, op.cit., in note 14, or Michael Joseph Smith, Realist Thought from Weber so Kissinger (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1986), Chapter 4. ", A major component of the link between liberalism and peace at tjiis time, justifying Carr's critique of the liberal harmony of interests, was peace groups' tendency to support the international status quo against revolutionary movements. Profession: Historian, historiographer, academic, diplomat. International relations theory has challenged this benign interpretation of events by categorising peace reformers through history as 'Utopians' or 'idealists'. Carr covers much of the same historical ground in The Twenty Years' Crisis, but my contention is that, in treating this. 74. 12. Peace movements made an impact during the period because many groups could legitimately claim to represent thousands (and in the case of the British League of Nations Union or the US National Council for the Prevention of War, tens or even hundreds of thousands) of adherents which served to increase their chances of being heard in the Press, Parliament, Congress, and Cabinets in both countries," Their activity constitutes what Carr labelled the 'popularisation of international politics' in the interwar period. Cobden and other liberals in the movement, for example, 'had little sympathy...with the contemporary movements for national liberation on the. 57. "What's At Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate? 26. 3, July 1994), pp. No. The facts speak only when historians calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context. Although the call for understanding the full body of Carr's work by contemporary theorists has merit, it is difficult, in my view, to interpret Carr's conclusions in his best known and most often used work as other than a defense of the necessity, sony as it may be, of realpolilik. Just as the original American and London Peace Societies were aware of each other's work and look steps to communicate with each other, William Lloyd Garrison's New England Non-Resistance' Society, founded in 1838, sent emissaries to Britain to recruit working-class Chartists to the methods of non-resistance, although with only limited success.41 Likewise, labour activism for peace began to spread to the United Slates: in 1846 Elihu Burrilt founded the League of Human Brotherhood, an international organisation that attempted to attract a working class membership." Peace movement activism in nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain and the United Stales can be categorised into five periods: the foundational period in the post-Napoleonic and War of 1812 era; the period of radical/institutionalist debates in the 1830s and 1840s; the era of mid-century conflicts (during and after the Crimean and Civil wars) that resulted in the temporaty decimation of peace movements; late nineteenth and early twentieth-century progressivism; and the post-progressive era of the partial institutionalisation of movement goals in the form of the League of Nations.29 Despite this periodisation, which is done for heuristic clarity, these phases of peace movement activity should be viewed as only partially discrete. In this article, I take issue with both the substance and the implications of Carr's argument. E.H. In the United States, the war with Mexico seemed to improve the peace movement's status during the 1840s, but the Civil War fifteen years later, like the Crimean War for the British, had the effect of seriously curtailing peace activism and decimating the membership of peace societies. 3744. 40. 47. It is also unclear how such a moral order can be founded on the type of 'realistic' assessment of power that does not attempt to transcend given power relationships, since powerful states, as Carr himself emphasises so welt, have little interest in promoting the authority or prosperity of those who challenge their position. Cecelia Lynch is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA, A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations. Moreover, Carr implicates peace movements in his trenchant critique of nineteenth and twentieth century liberalism and sees them as principal advocates of what he labels the 'harmony of interests', i.e., the notion that what is good for the individual is good for the collectivity, even when the 'individuals' who define the collective good happen to be those who are most powerful and prosperous. Charles DeBenedetti (ed.l. Finally, Carr "chose to restate his criticisms of peace activists, groups and international law and organization in 1946, after many of his other works had appeared, in a second edition to The Twenty Years' Crisis. ation of the community of nations to prevent war, and ingenious authors have gone back to Sully, or sometimes to Plato, for anticipations of the League of Nations. After 1857, with nationalism and imperialism on the rise, both Cobden and the Quaker liberal John Bright, the leaders of the then more or less fused free trade and peace movements, lost their seats in Parliament.". He argued in a speech at Chatham House later that year: "Both the German and Russian regimes, today, represent a reaction against the individualistic ideology prevailing at any, in Western Europe, for the last hundred and fifty years...The whole system of individualist laissez-faire economy has we know, broken down. Beales. 24 (Dec 1998), pp. Both the German and Russian regimes, today, represent a reaction against the individualistic ideology prevailing at any, in Western Europe, for the last hundred and fifty years...The whole system of individualist laissez-faire economy has we know, broken down. 400 B.C.E.) International Journal (Vol. Carr equated liberalism with utopianism, and refused to see how the latter might include categories that could be differentiated from the former. utopia:neality = freewilkdeterminism = lheory:practice = the intellectual:the bureaucrat -left:right = ethics:politics'. His biographer, Jonathan Haslam, has pointed out: "Because of previous illness Carr was judged unsuitable for the fighting services and instead was recruited as a temporary clerk at the Foreign Office, where he worked in the all-encompassing contraband department that organized the blockade against the central powers. 17. 56-67. 113-32. The London group expended a considerable amount of energy and resources in attempts to spread its ideas on the Continent, while the US society concentrated on proselytising and disseminating tracts to religious congregations. In the book Carr called for the creation of a socialist European federation. Consequently, interwar movements no longer expressed qualms about disarmament: arms reduction, either unilateral or multilateral, became the primary focus of many in the movements on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a decade. If the historian necessarily looks at his period of history through the eyes of his own time, and studies the problems of the past as a key to those of the present, will he not fall into a purely pragmatic view of the facts, and maintain the criterion of a right interpretation is its suitability to some present purpose? for critical discussion of this debate, Martin Hollis and Steve Smith. ' Rather they asserted that the reality was that certain forms of international behaviour had led to the outbreak of the most horrific war in human history...and therefore they must be changed'. 8, 12, and 14; Robbins, opsit., in note 29, pp. Thus, as a result of both the changing sociological composition of groups interested in 'peace' and the new competition between stales for colonies and prestige, the mix of norms and institutions that peace activists attempted to internationalise evolved away from the notion of a harmony of interests. 1, 1992), p. 96. argues that, '(p]erhaps ironically, Can's political realism is a useful point of departure' in addressing 'the question of how states and other social actors-could create new political communities and identities'. ", Thus, the origin of organised peace activity was directly related to the occurrence of major international conflict: the original peace societies sprang up almost simultaneously in the United States and Britain as a direct reaction to the war of 1812 and the Napoleonic wars." Recognising both the persistence and the evolutionary nature of peace movement activity is critical, therefore, for transcending the misleading dichotomisation of social activity into realist or idealist camps. The following section delineates these continuities and changes in the norms promoted by movements. They also were 'surprised and delighted' to leam of each others' existence and. On the point of the dichotomisation fostered by realist 1R theory, see R.B J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 13. LibraryThing Review User Review - Schmerguls - LibraryThing. On the sources of international law, see, for example, the classic text by J. L. Briefly. International Relations, classical realism, and especially on the realist/idealist dichotomy that flows from the latter. October 1991), pp. Classical realism is distinguished here from neorealism and structural realism, in that the former at least implicitly and often explicitly addresses questions of the possibilities of ethical action in international life, and the role of various levels of actors in achieving order, peace and security.12 Indeed, CarT in particular and classical realism in general have enjoyed a renaissance of interest on the pan of many critics of structural realism who see in classical realism both a more holistic analysis and a more sophisticated method of. Man… is not totally involved in his environment and unconditionally subject to it. 23-24, and Beales, op.cil., in note 19, p. 68. Disarmament supplanted even the progressive-era push for codification of international law in the eyes of many activists, because mere codification of existing practices in international law—particularly the foundational respect for states' sovereign. [...] The inner meaning of the modem international crisis is the collapse of the whole structure of utopianism based on the concept of the harmony of interests.33, Because of this conclusion, Cair saw th®influence of peace movement actors as, at best, an anachronistic attempt to graft nineteenth century liberal notions of harmony onto twentieth century political reality and, at worst, a trend that promoted dangerous illusions about what was possible in international life. Reisman and Anloniou, The Laws cfWar (New York, NY: Random House, 1994), p. xviii. 1989); Charles Chatfield. The trends toward professionalisation of many occupations [e.g., leaching, medicine, law, and social work) did little at first to negate the growing elite Establishment influence on the movements—indeed, well-connected spokespersons were most often seen as a boon to the cause. Using the pseudonym "John Hallett" Carr wrote several articles on Russia for journals such as The Spectator, The Fortnightly Review and the Times Literary Supplement. Carr’s work examines why the League of Nations and the peace as implemented by the Treaty of Versailles failed, ultimately resulting in WWII. In 1942 Carr published Conditions of Peace. Peace groups gradually developed a program founded on agreement to internationalise two of the four liberal institutions: 1) juridical equality of members, and 2) representative legislatures 'deriving their authority from the consent of the electorate' (in the international realm, the gradual move toward global international organisation)." Carr later admitted: "Like a lot of other people, I took refuge in Utopian visions of a new world order after the war. I focus my critique of Can- on this book in particular because, although the corpus of his work covers topics as diverse as nationalism, the Bolshevik revolution, and British foreign policy, none of his other works have approached the impact made by The Twenty Years' Crisis on the field of. His History of the Peloponnesian War is in factneither a work of political philosophy nor a sustained theory ofinternational relations. Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe: The Crisis of Ideas and Purpose (New York, NY: Garland. 11 -13, all of whom identify Carr with the realist/idealist dichotomy. In fad, the notion of a false 'harmony' founded upon the interests of the powerful probably applies best to the US-led international order after World War 11. By the end of World War 1, peace groups' focus had coalesced around plans to internationalise participatory institutions (and their concomitant rights) in the belief that "peace' required universal participation and equality of status—norms thai, it was believed, would allow for peaceful change rather than legitimate an unjust status quo. See, for example, Richard W. Mansbach, The Global Puzile: Issues and Actors in World Politics (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. ), International Social Movement Research, Vol. Carr now became Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales. Thomas J. 83. His theory sees “…power as the main driving force of internal politics.” and that “No interaction in the international arena can be well understood without reference to the selfish nature of states, to their … Marvin Swaitz, The Union of Democratic Control in British Politics During the First World War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. In the middle of the century, movement groups articulated more forcefully norms of arbitration and adjudication of disputes, while simultaneously promoting the idea that peace and prosperity through free trade went hand-in-hand. ElemenLs of this "recognition' are currently referred to in the international relations literature as the 'agcnl-struclurc debate'. 80. 1 E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1939), p. 19. 1976); Merle Curti. His remit extended to Russia, where he worked to get goods in (while they fought the Germans) and later to keep goods out (once the Bolsheviks seized power).". 18-22, Martin Hollis and Steve Smith attribute the notion of the idealist tradition to Carr white pointing out that the term was not used by early rtalistsr John Spanier uses CarT's own dichotomisation of 'utopianism/realism in Games Nations Play, Eighth Edition (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1993), pp. CT: JAI Press, 1989); Thomas Rochon, Afobitamg for Peace (Princeton. Burdened by emotions with which he found it difficult to cope, he was always more relaxed in writing than in conversation. In 1917 he was assigned to the Northern Department, which dealt with relations with Russia. On the role of rules in structuring international political society more generally, see Nicholas Onuf, World of Our Matin/;: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989). Churchill added that he would very much like the "Bolsheviks" to have it. 60. Cooper, op.cit., in nole 19, pp. First, Carr's conceptions of law, morality and purposeful social agency remain, in my view, underdeveloped in his other works. Find books Carr actually harks back to the changes in ideas brought about by the Enlightenment (the idea of rational progress), the French revolution (the participation of the masses), and the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations {laissez-faire liberalism). Ibid., pp. Carr favoured the appeasement policies of Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain. 30. 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