Interwar internationalism: Origins and impact of a ‘Scientific’ approach to the study of international relations

The First World War spurred an interest among academic scholars, philanthropic foundations, and even policymakers in some countries to look for conditions which can ensure lasting world peace. This required them to adopt an “internationalist” outlook in that a mere examination of domestic socio-economic and political conditions would have been myopic and would have failed to explain the persistence of conflict among nation-states. The search for peace in the interwar period was accompanied with a belief among scholars that it was the political class which was responsible for these continual conflicts. They believed that the publics of different nation-states inherently supported peace. Misplaced priorities among statesmen, to put it simply, caused wars. Consequently, the conditions for lasting peace could only be identified if we detached ourselves from pursuit of narrow interests and the concomitant “beggar-thy-neighbour policies” which was characteristic of the interwar period. Inter-war internationalism was characterized by a fundamental belief that if we studied inter-state relations, diplomacy, and statecraft scientifically, it would be possible to establish lasting peace i.e. it would be possible for the concerned scholars to establish and participate in transnational networks who can then guide policymakers on how to establish and maintain stable, ordered, democratic, and peaceful societies. This essay examines the origins of liberal internationalism in the interwar period which, inter alia, shaped and was shaped by transnational networks such as think tanks, academics, philanthropic foundations and so on. The impact it had on post-war period, especially with respect to the very way IR as a separate discipline of inquiry functioned, is also investigated, including discussions of how it evolved over time.