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The Role of International Organization: Limits and Possibilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Stanley Hoffmann
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No field of study is more slippery than international relations. The student of government has a clear frame of reference: the state within which occur the developments which he examines. The student of international relations, unhappily, oscillates between the assumption of a world community which does not exist, except as an ideal, and the various units whose decisions and connections form the pattern of world politics—mainly, the nation-states. International organizations therefore tend to be considered either as the first institutions of a world in search of its constitution or as instruments of foreign policies. The scholar who follows the first approach usually blames, correctly enough, the nation-states for the failures of the organization; but he rarely indicates the means which could be used to bring the realities of world society into line with his ideal. The scholar who takes the second approach stresses, accurately enough, how limited the autonomy of international organizations has been and how little they have contributed to the achievement of their objectives; but because he does not discuss his fundamental assumption—the permanence of the nation-state's driving role in world politics—he reaches somewhat too easily the conclusion that the only prospect in international affairs is more of the same.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , August 1956 , pp. 357 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1956

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References

1 We have argued this elsewhere at greater length. See “Quelques Aspects du Rôle du Droit International dans la Politique fitrangere des Etats” in: Association Française de Science Politique, La politique étrangère et ses fondements, Paris, Armand Colin, 1954, p. 264–270Google Scholar. See also Feller, A. H., “In Defense of International Law and Morality,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 07 1952 (Vol. 282), p. 77–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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3 SeeCarr, E. H., Nationalism and After, New York, Macmillan, 1945, p. 53Google Scholar, for predictions to the contrary.

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15 This tendency is criticized by H. J. Morgenthau, cited above, Ch. XXIX, and byNiemeyer, Gerhard, ”A Query about Assumptions of International Organization,” World Politics, 01 1955 (Vol. 7, No. 2), P. 337CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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17 See Khrushchev's, speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR, New York Times, 01 15, 1956Google Scholar.

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26 See the debate between Eagleton, Clyde and Wright, Quincy in Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 1954, p. 32–34, 67, 116, 119Google Scholar. The long discussions in UN organs on human rights, show similar arguments.

27 See Eagleton, Clyde, “Excesses of Self-Determfnation,” Foreign Affairs, 07 1953 (Vol. 31, No. 4), p. 592CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Yardstick of International Law,” Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, 11 1954 (Vol. 302), p. 68Google Scholar.

28 An examination of UN substantive recommendations on Palestine, Kashmir, Spain, and South Africa's apartheid policies, and of their gradual watering down or abandonment is the basis of this assertion (see Goodrich and Simons, cited above, chapters IX to XII). The success of UN intervention in Indonesia remains an isolated instance in this respect (i.e. substantive recommendations on issues not directly connected with the old war).

29 See the fate of the committees created for dealing with German elections, with apartheid policies and with the problem of Indians in South Africa (see Goodrich and Simons, cited above, chapters VIII and XIII).

30 See a study of these “ad hoc concerts” inHaas, Ernst B., “Types of Collective Security: An Examination of Operational Concepts,” American Political Science Review, 03 1955 (Vol. 49, No. 1), p. 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 SeeBell, Coral, “The UN and the West,” International Affairs, 10 1953 (Vol. 29, No. 4), p. 464CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 In particular in the case of the Organization of American States.

33 Claude, I. L, Swords into Plowshares, New York, Random House, 1956, p. 122Google Scholar, comments that the Commonwealth has been the greatest exporter of insoluble disputes to the UN (Kashmir, Indians in South Africa).

34 Kennan, George, Realities of American foreign Policy, cited above, p. 42Google Scholar.

35 See Kennan, George, Realities of American Foreign Policy, cited above, p. 105–106Google Scholar.

36 See Perroux, François, L'Europe Sans Rivages, Paris, Presses Universitaires, 1954Google Scholar, especially part II; Corbett, Percy, “Congress and Proposals for International Government,” International Organization, IV, p. 383–399Google Scholar, p. 390, and Rivero, Jean, “Introduction to a study of the development of Federal Societies,” International Social Science Bulletin, Spring 1952 (Vol. 4, No. 1), P. 375Google Scholar.

37 See the case against regionalism in economic organizations inMikesell, Raymond F., “Barriers to the Expansion of UN Economic Functions,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 11 1954 (Vol. 302), p. 39–40Google Scholar, and Perroux, cited above, especially p. 399–415.

38 See Claude, I. L., “Individuals and World Law,” Harvard Studies in International Relations, 1952Google Scholar.

39 Hans Morgenthau, cited above, in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and Review of Politics; Buehrig, Edward H., “The United States, the United Nations and Bipolar Politics,” International Organization, IV, p. 573–584, p. 583Google Scholar.

40 See Furniss, Edgar S. Jr, “A Re-examination of Regional Arrangements,” Journal of International Affairs, 05 1955 (Vol. 9. No. 2), p. 79–89Google Scholar.

41 See a summary ofPineau's, M. project in Le Monde, 05 5, 1956, p. 2Google Scholar.

42 M. Pineau's plan envisages also the establishment, within the world agency, of a board which would buy and sell surplus commodities produced by underdeveloped areas, and stabilize the market prices of raw materials.

43 Advocated, for instance, by George Kennan, cited above, p. 59–60.

44 Morgenthau, Hans, cited above and “The Yardstick of National Interest,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 11 1954 (Vol. 302), p. 77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jiri Liska, cited above.

45 See the concluding remarks of Haas, E. B., cited above, World Politics, 01 1956Google Scholar.

46 The contrast between the Colombo Plan and the failure of the Simla Conference, where the initiative was left to the local leaders, is a case in point. SeeHenderson, William, “The Development of Regionalism in Southeast Asia,” International Organization, IX, P. 463–476Google Scholar.

47 SeeCohen, Benjamin V., “The Impart of the United Nations on United States Foreign Policy,” International Organization, V, p. 274–281Google Scholar.

48 The record of the European Coal and Steel Community, impressive as it is, does not rival NATO's and justifies Lincoln Gordon's question whether similar results could not have been reached without the apparatus of supranationality (“Myth and Reality in European Integration,” Yale Review, 09 1935 (Vol. 45, No. 1), p. 80–105Google Scholar, p. 92).

49 See on this subjectPadelford, Norman J., “Political Cooperation in the North Atlantic Community,” International Organization, IX, p. 355–365Google Scholar.

50 In addition to trusteeship territories, of course. SeeModinos, P., “La Convention Européenne de Droits de l'Homme,” Annuaire Europeen, Vol. I, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1955Google Scholar.

51 Safeguards that make cooperation possible, even though it will be slow, are better than schemes which disintegrate because they were too bold. The failure of EDC shows how necessary it is to provide for common mechanisms which do not create, among the weaker members, fear lest the potential superiority of one of the partners will be accentuated by the process of integration.

52 See Morgenthau, Hans, Politics Among Nations, cited above, p. 500Google Scholar; contra Wright, Quincy, “International Organization and Peace,” Western Political Quarterly, 06 1955 (Vol. 8, No. 2), p. 149CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Claude's, I. L. discussion in Swords into Plowshares, cited above, p. 382–387Google Scholar and 400–402.

53 See Arnold Wolfers, cited above, and E. H. Can, cited above, p. 52–53.