Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:25:36.818Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Democracy and International Organization: The Experience of the League of Nations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

James T. Watkins IV
James T. Watkins IV
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The relationship between the domestic political philosophy of a state and its reliability as a member of an organized world community is one of the more hotly debated issues in the present discussion of future international organization. On one side of the argument is the school of thought which holds that international organization can be safely erected only upon a basis of solidly democratic states. On the other side is the school which denies that there is any such close connection between the internal political organization of a state and its external relations. In support of their respective positions, the former school can cite the early American experience and the latter the early Swiss experience.

Type
International Affairs
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 36 , Issue 6 , December 1942 , pp. 1136 - 1141
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1942

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Among the more important proposals for world organization which have recently appeared are Bingham, Alfred M., The United States of Europe (New York, 1940)Google Scholar; Curry, W. B., The Case for Federal Union (New York, 1939)Google Scholar; Curtis, Lionel, A World Order (New York, 1939)Google Scholar; Heymann, Hans, Plan for Permanent Peace (New York, 1941)Google Scholar; Howard, Graeme K., America and a New World Order (New York, 1940)Google Scholar; Newfang, Oscar, World Federation (New York, 1939)Google Scholar; Streit, Clarence K., Union Now (New York, 1938)Google Scholar, and Union Now with Britain (New York, 1941); and Wells, H. G., A New World Order (New York, 1940).Google Scholar

2 In this connection, a study of national representation at the meetings of the Council has, however, almost nothing to teach us. The seats at the Council table, cherished by the Great Powers and coveted by the others, were so rarely permitted to remain empty by those entitled to sit in them that one must search long before coming upon an instance. Except for absences in anticipation of, or following on, notice of withdrawal from League membership (Brazil, 1926; Spain, 1926; Japan, 1933; Germany, 1934; Italy, 1936), the only instances of absence from Council sessions are those of Panama, 74th and 80th sessions; Guatemala, 75th session; Ecuador, 95th session; Iran, 106th and 107th sessions; and Peru, 106th and 107th sessions. Also, in the course of the Ethiopian dispute Italy declined to be represented at the second part of the 89th session. (Data for the Council meetings may be found in the Minutes of the Council, Sessions I–CVII; beginning with the sixteenth session, the Council Minutes were published in the Official Journal. Data for the Assembly meetings may be found in the Records of the Assembly, Sessions I–XX; beginning with the fourth secsion, the Assembly Records were published as special supplements to the Official Journal.)

3 The choice of 1914 is arbitrary. But time must elapse before democratic institutions can be regarded as stable, as the history of the last twenty years clearly teaches. A people with popular institutions of government sufficiently sound to survive without either dictatorship or violent change in the quarter-century following 1914 may be considered a democracy of some maturity.

4 Excluded from the study are the diminutive states of Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, and Liechtenstein; the Mohammedan states of Oman, Yeman, Saudi Arabia, and Nepal, which maintained negligible diplomatic relations; such question able entities as Tibet and “Manchukuo”; as well as the unique Vatican City.

5 All of the 15 “Atlantic democracies” proposed by Clarence Streit as the nucleus for world union are included, with the addition of Colombia, Czechoslovakia, Luxemburg, and Uruguay. For Streit's discussion of the question of selection for the nucleus, see Union Now, Chap. V. His omission of Luxemburg, however, is not explained.

6 The record is not carried beyond 1939, as the fortunes of war robbed later developments, such as France's notification of withdrawal, of their significance for this study.

7 New Zealand was absent from the extraordinary Assemblies of 1934 and 1935; Ethiopia, from the extraordinary Assembly of 1935, as well as from the extraordinary Assembly of 1937, and thereafter, though, in view of the circumstances, she cannot be held accountable for any but the absence in 1935; Haiti was absent from the extraordinary Assembly of 1926; Liberia, from the extraordinary Assembly of 1937; Panama, from the extraordinary Assembly of 1926 and the ordinary Assembly of 1939; and Thailand, from the extraordinary Assemblies of 1934 and 1935. These derelictions in otherwise clean records are not sufficient to warrant a different clas sification for the states in question.

8 Divided into six groups according to their record, the twenty-four appear as follows:

The following data are needed to complete the picture, but do not warrant changing the classification of any state concerned: Mexico (Group II), for financial reasons, gave notice of withdrawal in 1932, but continued to be represented in the Assembly and, later, on the Council, and finally cancelled her notice before the expiration of the two-year period; Chile (Group III) was absent from the June, 1936, meeting of the XVIth Assembly; Spain (Group IV) gave notice of withdrawal in 1926 following the so-called “Council crisis,” but reconsidered before the expiration of the two-year period; Italy (Group VI) was absent from the March meeting of the extraordinary Assembly in 1932; the U.S.S.R. was absent from the XXth Assembly, which convened to consider the invasion of Finland, and which resulted in the expulsion of the U.S.S.R. from the League.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.