Ethnic Actors and International Crises: Theory and Findings, 1918–2001

One of the most sustained debates among students of international politics concerns the linkage of systemic polarity to levels of stability. The present investigation attempts to contribute to this dialogue in two ways.

First, prior studies of polarity and stability are reappraised in terms of the central concepts and presumed causal linkage, leading to several changes in approach. Specifically, polarity cannot be assessed only in terms of the distribution of power; the concept also should incorporate the notion of autonomous decision centers. With respect to instability, war is considered to be a less complete indicator than international crisis. Incorporating these revised concepts, a model of security regimes is devised deductively, including a rank‐ordering of polarity configurations in terms of stability levels.

Second, renewed testing focuses on the presumed ordering of configurations from most to least stable: bipolarity (1945–62), multipolarity (1929–39) and polycentrism (1963–85). Data from the International Crisis Behavior Project on 292 cases from 1929 to 1985 provide the evidence to compare the phases of polarity. A set of bivariate indicators and a multivariate index are used in the assessment of instability, with each confirming the hypothesized ordering of polarity configurations.     

Tweaking the Lion's Tail: Edgar J. Tarr,the Canadian Institute of International Affairs,and the British Empire, 1931–1950

In its first 2 decades the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), Canada's premier foreign policy think tank, never functioned merely as a neutral and apolitical research organization. Under the leadership of Edgar Tarr, president of the Monarch Life Assurance Company, and in its capacity as the Canadian Council of the transnational Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), in the 1930s and 1940s the CIIA became an instrument that championed Canadian national autonomy and sought to expand Canada's international role, while challenging British imperialism, racism, and Anglo–Saxon dominance. Prominent Canadian diplomats and other officials were complicit in this enterprise, which reached its apogee at the IPR conference held at Mont Tremblant, Quebec, in December 1942. The CIIA's activities during this period revealed the porosity and imprecision of the boundaries in Canada between the state and non-state realms. Throughout World War II, DEA and other Canadian government representatives attended CIIA and IPR conferences as “official non-officials,” effectively cooperating with private individuals in a network of purportedly non-governmental organizations that enabled Canada to exert leverage on the British government, reject British leadership, align itself with the United States, and secure a greater world role. CIIA leaders and Canadian officials also consciously encouraged nationalist forces in India, China, and Southeast Asia that sought to reject colonial rule and Western dominance. CIIA activities thus became part of a web of diplomatic interactions across a transnational network of think tanks within and outside the British Empire that had their own impact upon international affairs.     

Moore,R. (2010). Nuclear Illusion,Nuclear Reality Britain the United States and Nuclear Weapons, 1958–64

W.N. Medlicott, Douglas Dakin and M.E. Lambert (eds.), Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, First Series, Volume XX. German Reparation and Allied Military Control 1922. Russia, March 1921‐December 1922 (London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976). 970 + lxx pp. £23. ISBN 0–11–591553–2

W.N. Medlicott and Douglas Dakin (eds.), assisted by Gillian Bennett, Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, First Series, Volume XXII. Central Europe and the Balkans 1921. Albania 1921–2 (London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1980). 885 + cxii pp. £45. ISBN 0–11–591555–9

David S. Newhall, Clemenceau. A Life at War (The Edwin Meilen Press: Lampeter, 1991). 682 + xv pp. £35.95. ISBN 0–88946–785–4

J. Calvitt Clarke III, Russia and Italy against Hitler. The Bolshevik‐Fascist Rapprochement of the 1930s (Contributions to the Study of World History No. 21, Greenwood Press: Westport, Connecticut, 1991). 218 + xvii pp. £59.95. ISBN 0–313–27468–1

David Dutton, Simon. A political biography of Sir John Simon (Aurum Press, 1992). 364 + viii pp. £25. ISBN 1–85410–204–4

Peter Neville, Neville Chamberlain. A study in failure? (Personalities and Power Series, Hodder and Stoughton, 1992). £5. ISBN 0–340–56308–7     

Re-reading the Indian Emergency: Britain,the United States and India’s Constitutional Autocracy, 1975–1977

The period known as the “Emergency” in India—June 1975 to March 1977—is widely recognised as one of the darkest episodes in the nation’s 70-year history. Fundamental rights were suspended, whilst the courts had little or no authority. The security services received emergency powers to make arrests without explanation. Although the political, social, and economic history of the Emergency remains well known, there is nothing on the international history of this period. This analysis provides the first contribution to its diplomatic history. Examining the role played by the United States and Britain, in particular, finds basis largely on declassified papers available in the Indian, American, and British national archives as well as a survey of over 300 newspaper articles on and around the Indian Emergency.     

Unilateral Pan–Americanism: Wilsonianism and the American Occupation of Chiriquí, 1918–1920

This analysis draws lessons about the failure of Wilsonian Pan–Americanism from an examination of the American occupation of Chiriquí, Panama, an event long neglected by historians. It argues that the Woodrow Wilson Administration missed an opportunity to demonstrate to Panamanians, and Latin Americans more generally, the benefits to be gained by accepting its tutelage and leadership in inter-American affairs. Rather than collaborate with a sympathetic Liberal regime in Panama City, Washington embarked on a unilateral mission to re-make a part of Panama in its image. The result was a surge of nationalist resistance that threatened the overthrow of the government in Panama City and hastened the end of the occupation. Chiriquí is representative of American efforts in the region before the 1930s and helps to explain Wilson’s failure to build a “new world order” in the Western Hemisphere.