Internationalism and the Transformation of Global Inequality Reform Politics Across Borders, 19th and 20th Centuries

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Level: 
Master's
CEU credits: 
2
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Semester: 
Winter
Start and end dates: 
10 Jan 2011 - 1 Apr 2011
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of Gender Studies
Department of History
Department of International Relations and European Studies
Stream/Track/Specialization/Core Area: 
Social and Political History in a Comparative Perspective
CEU Instructor(s): 
Susan Zimmermann
Additional information: 
“Reform”-internationalisms, which have played an important, and with time, growing role in global, regional and national history, and in international relations, included a whole universe of organizations, and thematic foci, such as trans-territorial missionary activities, the International Working Men’s Association, South-South women-networks, the League of Nations, the international women’s movement, the UNO, the international Red Cross, Human Rights activism and humanitarian intervention, the abolition of the slave-trade and slavery, the International Labour Organization, Black inter-nationalism, the Comintern, the Planned Parenthood Federation, scientific cooperation, the World Social Forum, and many more. The course introduces students into central dimensions of the history of “reform”-internationalisms on the basis of the current “state of the art” in research on these internationalisms. The intention here is to develop core knowledge about various fields and dimensions of the history of organized internationalism and to critically discuss assumptions and implications shaping the various research perspectives present in the field. The course foregrounds a dimension of the history of internationalisms that has hitherto rarely formed a focus of systematic inquiry: the relationship between “reform”-internationalisms on the hand, and historically changing and developing worldwide “divisions of labor” and unequal global relations on the other. We will explore the role played by “reform”-internationalism in different periods of time in the struggle over worldwide power relations, and in challenging and reshaping these power relations, and we will ask, how, to what extent, and with what consequences, internationalisms themselves have been shaped by unequal global relations and power structures, and by a multitude of historical conflicts over global inequality. In asking these questions, we will shed light on two problem zones in the history, and frequently also in the scholarly analysis, of internationalisms. We will, first, explore the role dominant Western world-regions or states, and norms and values born in the West, have played in the history of “reform”-inter-nationalisms, rather than reproducing the assumptions on which this dominance has been based historically. Second, we will broaden our understanding of the role played by non-dominant world regions, as well as non-Western states and territories, in the history of internationalism, and the contribution of related actors to challenging and shaping unequal global relations.
Learning Outcomes: 
This course introduces a complex theme relating to diverse research areas in transnational/global history. It involves scholarship from, and perspectives grounded in, a number of different disciplines. It is intended to develop students’ understanding of: • Why and how we need to “think together” a whole range of historical developments in order to understand the relations between internationalisms and global inequality; • The key role these relations played in the history of internationalisms, international politics, and global interaction more generally; • What, in concrete terms (and not only by adding a fashionable buzzword), it means to do global history, i.e. history transcending national and other boundaries.
Assessment : 
In order to reach these goals the course requirements are designed as to encourage: • In depth involvement with the required reading and documents, and their historical and scholarly contexts; • Critical exploration and discussion of complex and multi-layered historical processes introduced by the readings, the instructor’s presentations, and other material. Therefore – while no term paper is written for this class – the course requirements are the following: • Careful preparation for all classes by dealing with the literature and the mostly very short, added documents as listed above. • Each student on three occasions introduces in class his/her reading of the document and the required reading, relating it to the instructor’s lecture given in the previous week and our developing knowledge about the history of internationalisms and global inequality; in addition students are invited to consult additional sources of information and further literature, and, if they wish so, will receive individual help and guidance to do this. After further in depth discussion of the required reading and the document in class, the student submits in writing a reaction paper referring to: the required reading and document he/she presented and discussed orally (and if possible additional reading); the discussion of the required reading; the related lecture given by the instructor. Each student submits altogether three reaction papers of this type, 7 pages each. • Participation in all sessions is mandatory. The final grade will be calculated on the basis of: • Active participation in the course in and beyond class, including the three introductory oral presentations: 40%. • Three reaction papers: 60%.
Full description: 

Topics and Required Reading:

Please note that the required reading is to be read for the following unit in all cases.

Unit 1

Introduction

Document:

PAUL S. REINSCH, INTERNATIONAL UNIONS AND THEIR ADMINISTRATION (EXTRACT)

(taken from: The American Journal of International Law, 1 [1907] 3, 579-623)

Required Reading:

Clive Archer, International Organizations, Routledge 2001, ch. 4: “Writings on International Organizations,” extracts: 112-ca.158, 164-168, 172-173.

Nico Krisch, International Law in Times of Hegemony: Unequal Power and the Shaping of the International Legal Order, in: The European Journal of International Law 16 (2005) 3, 369-408, extracts: 381-389, 396-399, 407-408.

Unit 2

Anti-slavery, global hegemony, global transformation – A long term perspective

Document:

OATH TAKEN BY, and TREATY WITH THE CHIEFS OF GALLINAS ETC. (1850)

(taken from Lewis Hertslet [ed.], A Complete Collection of the Treaties and Conventions and Reciprocal Regulations, at Present Subsisting Between Britain and Foreign Powers etc., vol. 9, Butterworths 1856)

Required reading:

Susan Zimmermann, The Long-term Trajectory of Antislavery in International Politics. From the expansion of the European international system to unequal international development. Forthcoming in: Marcel van der Linden (ed.), Title TBA, 2010

Unit 3

Christian mission, temperance et.al. – (anti-)colonial internationalisms?

Documents:

DAVID LIVINGSTONE, MISSION AND COLONIALISM (1860) and RUFUS ANDERSON, PLANT CHURCHES (1870) and J. HUDSON TAYLOR, MISSION AND THE MILLENIUM (1875) (extracts)

(all taken from Norman E. Thomas [ed], Classic Texts in Mission and World Christianity. Maryknoll etc.: Orbis Books, 1995)

Required reading:

Andrew Porter, Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700-1914, Manchester University Press 2004, 163-190.

Unit 4

Peace – activist idealism and international realism?

Document:

SECOND PEACE CONFERENCE AT THE HAGUE 1907: HAGUE CONVENTION I -- THE PACIFIC SETTLEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES

(taken from http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/pacific.htm, 06/01/2007)

Required reading:

Sandi E. Cooper, Pacifism in France, 1889-1914: International Peace as a Human Right. In: French Historical Studies, 17 (1991) 2, pp. 359-386.

Unit 5

“Professionals and reformers unite!” – surveying, controlling, and shaping the social

Document:

PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SANITARY CONFERENCE … 1881, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1881: FINAL ACT and ANNEX I

(taken from http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/6342085?n=155&imagesize=1200&jp2)

Required reading:

David P. Fidler, From International Sanitary Conventions to Global Health Security. The New International Health Regulations. In: Chinese Journal for International Law (2005), 1-31.

Unit 6

Women on their own – “race,” class, and nation in women’s internationalisms

Document:

THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE: REPORT OF FIFTH CONFERENCE AND FIRST QUINQUENNIAL, LONDON, ENGLAND, APRIL 26 – MAY 1 1909: ADDRESS BY CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, PRESIDENT (EXTRACT)

(taken from: IWSA Congress Report 1913)

Required reading:

Leila J. Rupp, Challenging Imperialism in International Women’s Organizations, 188-1945. In: NWSA Journal 8 (1996), 9-27.

Aili Mari Tripp, Challenges in Transnational Feminist Mobilization. In: Myra Marx Ferree, Aili Mari Tripp (Hg.), Global Feminism. Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing and Human Rights, New York University Press 2006, 296-312.

Unit 7

Socialists – Oriental, Colonial, Eastern European, and other “questions”

Document:

THE STUTTGART RESOLUTION ON „MILITARISM AND INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS“

(taken from: James Joll, The Second International 1889-1914, Harper & Row 1966)

Required reading:

G. D. H. Cole, The Second International, 1889-1914, Macmillan 1956, 55-90.

Unit 8

The International Labour Organization – internationalizing labour standards and labour policy in a deeply divided world

Documents:

CONSTITUTION OF THE ILO = THE VERSAILLES TREATY, PART XIII “LABOUR”: Articles 405, 427 (Remark: The ILO Constitution originally formed a part of the Paris Peace Treaties of 1919)

(taken from: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/partxiii.asp, 14/11/2009)

CONSTITUTION OF THE ILO: PREAMBLE, AND ANNEX (DECLARATION CONCERNING THE AIMS AND PURPOSE OF THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION) 1944

(taken from: http://http://www.ilo.org/global/lang--en/index.htm, 29/12/2005)

Required reading:

Luis Rodríguez-Pinero, Indigenous Peoples, Postcolonialism, and International Law. The ILO Regime (1919-1989), Oxford University Press 2005, ch. 1: “The Colonial Code: the ILO and ‘Native Labour’ (1919-56),” extract: 17-38

Daniel Roger Maul, The International Labour Organization and the Struggle against Forced Labour from 1919 to the Present, in: Labor History 48 (2007) 4, 477-500

Unit 9

Internationalisms decentralized – the example of Black internationalism

Document:

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS OF THE NEGRO PEOPLES OF THE WORLD

(taken from: www.unia-acl.org/archive/declare.htm, 03/01/2006)

Required reading:

Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora. Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism, Harvard University Press 2003, extracts: 241-305, 369-383.

Unit 10

The League of Nations and the United Nations – and the globalization of the “family of nations”

Document:

DECLARATION ON THE GRANTING OF INDEPENDENCE TO COLONIAL COUNTRIES AND PEOPLES (1960)

(taken from: I. Brownlie, G. S. Goodwin-Gill (eds), Basic Documents on Human Rights, Oxford University Press 2002)

Required Reading:

Antony Anghie, Colonialism and the Birth of International Institutions: Sovereignty, Economy, and the Mandate System of the League of Nations. In: Journal of International Law and Poli¬tics 34 (2002) 3, 513-633, extracts: 513-549, 622-633.

Unit 11

Human Rights as a political battleground – European/colonial origins and global outreach

Document:

MADRE: POLICING THE MILLENNIUM: US INTERVENTION IN THE AGE OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1999)

(taken from: http://www.madre.org/print-/articles/int/policingmillenium.html)

Required reading:

Anne Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention. Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law, Cambridge University Press 2003, 38-71

Unit 12

Challenging global hierarchy in the study of internationalisms