Exploring how modern internationalism emerged as a negotiated process through international conferences, this edited collection studies the spaces and networks through which states, civil society institutions and anti-colonial political networks used these events to realise their visions of the international. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, contributors explore the spatial paradox of two fundamental features of modern internationalism. First, internationalism demanded the overcoming of space, transcending the nation-state in search of the shared interests of humankind. Second, internationalism was geographically contingent on the places in which people came together to conceive and enact their internationalist ideas. From Paris 1919 to Bandung 1955 and beyond, this book explores international conferences as the sites in which different forms of internationalism assumed material and social form. While international 'permanent institutions' such as the League of Nations, UN and Institute of Pacific Relations constantly negotiated national and imperial politics, lesser-resourced political networks also used international conferences to forward their more radical demands. Taken together these conferences radically expand our conception of where and how modern internationalism emerged, and make the case for focusing on internationalism in a contemporary moment when its merits are being called into question.

Exploring how modern internationalism emerged as a negotiated process through international conferences, this edited collection studies the spaces and networks through which states, civil society institutions and anti-colonial political networks used these events to realise their visions of the international. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, contributors explore the spatial paradox of two fundamental features of modern internationalism. First, internationalism demanded the overcoming of space, transcending the nation-state in search of the shared interests of humankind. Second, internationalism was geographically contingent on the places in which people came together to conceive and enact their internationalist ideas. From Paris 1919 to Bandung 1955 and beyond, this book explores international conferences as the sites in which different forms of internationalism assumed material and social form. While international 'permanent institutions' such as the League of Nations, UN and Institute of Pacific Relations constantly negotiated national and imperial politics, lesser-resourced political networks also used international conferences to forward their more radical demands. Taken together these conferences radically expand our conception of where and how modern internationalism emerged, and make the case for focusing on internationalism in a contemporary moment when its merits are being called into question.

Examining the public information strategies employed by the League of Nations between 1919 and 1940, this book brings together international history, intellectual history and the history of communications to tell the story of how officials in Geneva planned for a new kind of public relations to underpin and strengthen the League's internationalist project. Drawing on multi-archival work and shedding light on the role played by journalists in international diplomacy, it follows in the footsteps of individuals who left promising careers to work for the League's information section and shape opinion on a global scale. Showcasing their vision for an open diplomacy and an informed international public, Seidenfaden shows how this was sought for and achieved against the politically charged backdrop of interwar Europe. Moving beyond the outbreak of WWII, it also shows the legacies that remained after the League was in hiatus, and many of its officials in exile. In doing so, this book reveals how public information strategies developed by the League were transferred into its successor organisation, the United Nations, which continues to shape our world today.

Debates about U.S. foreign policy have revolved around three main traditions--liberal internationalism, realism, and nationalism. In this book, distinguished political scientist Henry Nau delves deeply into a fourth, overlooked foreign policy tradition that he calls "conservative internationalism." This approach spreads freedom, like liberal internationalism; arms diplomacy, like realism; and preserves national sovereignty, like nationalism. It targets a world of limited government or independent "sister republics," not a world of great power concerts or centralized international institutions. Nau explores conservative internationalism in the foreign policies of Thomas Jefferson, James Polk, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan. These presidents did more than any others to expand the arc of freedom using a deft combination of force, diplomacy, and compromise. Since Reagan, presidents have swung back and forth among the main traditions, overreaching under Bush and now retrenching under Obama. Nau demonstrates that conservative internationalism offers an alternative way. It pursues freedom but not everywhere, prioritizing situations that border on existing free countries--Turkey, for example, rather than Iraq. It uses lesser force early to influence negotiations rather than greater force later after negotiations fail. And it reaches timely compromises to cash in military leverage and sustain public support. A groundbreaking revival of a neglected foreign policy tradition, Conservative Internationalism shows how the United States can effectively sustain global leadership while respecting the constraints of public will and material resources.

Glenda Sluga traces internationalism through its rise before World War I, its mid-century apogee, and its decline after 9/11. Drawing on archival material and contemporary accounts, this innovative history restores internationalism as essential to understanding nationalism in the twentieth century.

International Relations (IR) theory has seen a proliferation of competing, and increasingly trenchant, worldviews with no consensus on how to evaluate their relative strengths and weakness. This innovative new text provides an original interpretation of how best to navigate the clash of perspectives in contemporary IR theory. The book provides a systematic overview of the main worldviews – such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism – and their associated theoretical underpinnings. Placing liberal internationalism at the heart of the debate, it argues that the main division in IR theory is between liberal internationalism and its critics. Griffiths examines both the strengths and weaknesses of liberal internationalism as a worldview, and also explores the competing worldviews that have been generated by the perceived flaws of this perspective. Examination of crucial policy issues is incorporated throughout the text, restoring the relevance of theory for those who wish to understand those policy issues. Moreover, this book revitalises the raison d'être of contemporary IR theory and shows the role it can play in making sense of the twenty-first century.

A sweeping account of the rise and evolution of liberal internationalism in the modern era For two hundred years, the grand project of liberal internationalism has been to build a world order that is open, loosely rules-based, and oriented toward progressive ideas. Today this project is in crisis, threatened from the outside by illiberal challengers and from the inside by nationalist-populist movements. This timely book offers the first full account of liberal internationalism’s long journey from its nineteenth-century roots to today’s fractured political moment. Creating an international “space” for liberal democracy, preserving rights and protections within and between countries, and balancing conflicting values such as liberty and equality, openness and social solidarity, and sovereignty and interdependence—these are the guiding aims that have propelled liberal internationalism through the upheavals of the past two centuries. G. John Ikenberry argues that in a twenty-first century marked by rising economic and security interdependence, liberal internationalism—reformed and reimagined—remains the most viable project to protect liberal democracy.