A broken silence? Mass Observation, Armistice Day and ‘everyday life’ in Britain 1937–1941

Between 1937 and 1941 the social survey organization Mass Observation collected material on the ways that the British people experienced and thought about the commemorative practices that marked the anniversary of the Armistice of 1918. What they found was that while people were largely united in their observation of the rituals of remembrance, their thoughts and feelings about these practices were diverse. For some, the acts of commemoration were a fitting way to pay tribute to both the dead and the bereaved. For others, these acts were hypocritical in a nation preparing for war. This article draws on the Mass Observation material to trace some of the diverse ways that remembrance was embodied in everyday life, practised, experienced and understood by the British people as the nation moved once again from peace to war, arguing that studies of the practices of remembrance alone tell us little about how they have been understood by participants

Understanding non-governmental organizations in world politics: the promise and pitfalls of the early ‘science of internationalism’

The years immediately preceding the First World War witnessed the development of a significant body of literature claiming to establish a ‘science of internationalism’. This article draws attention to the importance of this literature, especially in relation to understanding the roles of non-governmental organizations in world politics. It elaborates the ways in which this literature sheds light on issues that have become central to twenty-first century debates, including the characteristics, influence, and legitimacy of non-governmental organizations in international relations. Amongst the principal authors discussed in the article are Paul Otlet, Henri La Fontaine and Alfred Fried, whose role in the development of international theory has previously received insufficient attention. The article concludes with evaluation of potential lessons to be drawn from the experience of the early twentieth century ‘science of internationalism’

The return of the 'Conchie': newspaper representations of conscientious objectors and pacifists in World War II

This chapter will consider the ways in which British regional and national newspapers represented conscientious objectors in the early stages of World War 11

Social Movements and International Relations: A Relational Framework

Social movements are increasingly recognized as significant features of contemporary world politics, yet to date their treatment in international relations theory has tended to obfuscate the considerable diversity of these social formations, and the variegated interactions they may establish with state actors and different structures of world order. Highlighting the difficulties conventional liberal and critical approaches have in transcending conceptions of movements as moral entities, the article draws from two under-exploited literatures in the study of social movements in international relations, the English School and Social Systems Theory, to specify a wider range of analytical interactions between different categories of social movements and of world political structures. Moreover, by casting social movement phenomena as communications, the article opens international relations to consideration of the increasingly diverse trajectories and second-order effects produced by social movements as they interact with states, intergovernmental institutions, and transnational actors

The London Peace Society and absolutist–reformist relations within the peace movement, 1816–1939

This article revisits the author's pioneering archival work on the world's leading peace association of the nineteenth century, the London Peace Society (LPS), to focus on its distinctive strategy for dealing with the fact that from the outset, the peace movement had two distinct wings, absolutist (the small core of pacifists) and reformist (the rather larger penumbra of pacificists). Unlike other early such associations, which adopted different membership strategies, the LPS catered to both wings but in a two‐tier hierarchy: Its top tier, the national committee that determined its policy, was strictly pacifist and rejected even defensive war, but no such stringency of belief was required of the bottom tier of ordinary members, which therefore contained many pacificists. Top‐tier pacifism served the LPS well for half a century, in particular enabling it to outperform its American counterpart, but for the next half‐century caused it to fall between two stools by disappointing absolutists as well as reformists. It was tacitly abandoned as the LPS plunged into steep decline on passing its centenary and was repudiated on the eve of the Second World War

Divided sovereignty : empire and nation in the making of modern Britain

Original article is available at : http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ Copyright Palgrave MacmillanGreat Britain is regarded as a classic example of the Weberian state, and thus as a model of a developed state that might be contrasted with developing states. However, this view conceals the formative role of empire in the evolution of the British state. Rather than take the distinction between a ‘metropolis’ and a ‘periphery’ as given, this article explores the mutual constitution of state and empire. What it finds is that the political identity of the British state changed dramatically during the first half of the twentieth century as British intellectuals and policy-makers attempted to develop a new political community, primarily through the vehicle of the Commonwealth. The British state of the interwar years decentralised its decision making and embedded itself firmly in new multilateral networks. A rationalised, centralised British state emerged after the Second World War and only then within a context of multiple (principally Atlantic and European) political identities. The modern British state is as much a post-colonial invention as are states of the ‘developing’ world.Peer reviewe

Emancipation from Violence through Global Law and Institutions : A Post-Deutschian Perspective

From a post-Deutschian perspective, common institutions may aggravate the problem of conflicts and violence, but they can also be part of its solution. Contradictions and conflicts arise from shared processes and especially those of global political economy. Contradictions can be overcome through learning and building common institutions. Social contexts differ in terms of their self-transformative capacity, which is closely related to the question of democracy. While a hardening will means trouble; actors, rules and institutions can be made more open to challenge and revision. In essence, what emerges from these considerations is a normative vision of, and an argument for, pluralism and democratic governance of the world system. This is not a panacea, however, and many contingencies must be taken into account.Peer reviewe