Institutes, scholars, and transnational dynamics: a disciplinary history of international relations in Germany and France

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INSTITUTES, SCHOLARS, AND TRANSNATIONAL DYNAMICS:
A DISCIPLINARY HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
IN GERMANY AND FRANCE
by
Deniz Kuru
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS)
May 2013
Copyright 2013 Deniz Kuru
DEDICATION

To my mother, Dorotea Kuru (Paver) and my father Avni Kuru, for all their love.
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation is a realization of my long-time wish to study the developmental
trajectory of the International Relations (IR) discipline in non-American contexts. When I
was admitted to USC's doctoral program, I was lucky to have a short conversation with
Prof. Hayward Alker, and looked forward to working with him on my research topic:
difference and plurality as inherent features of IR. His sudden death in the summer of
2007 was a source of great sadness. It was in these difficult times that Prof. Ann Tickner
showed her kindness and agreed to become my advisor. Her constant support to me
meant that I could continue to focus on my initial interests in my research. When working
with a professor who has such a distinct position in our discipline, one could expect to
face difficulties with regard to time, commitment, and accessibility. However, Prof.
Tickner never made me feel that she was a leading name in the ISA, a committed feminist
scholar who was engaged in various research and book projects. Whenever I needed her
advise or help, she was there. I want to share my limitless gratitude. Prof. Robert English
was my second committee member. His intellectual breadth helped me to make this
dissertation better. At the same time, he was kind to speak with me Croatian when I
wanted to talk in my mother tongue. Prof. Paul Lerner was my third committee member.
One of the best courses I took at USC was his seminar on 20
th
century European history
that showed me history's broader frames which go beyond the politico-diplomatical. I am
indebted to all my committee members for having made my dissertation a better study.
iii
I had the support of a number of scholars and institutes in writing this dissertation
that deals with scholars and institutes who contributed to the establishment of IR in
Germany and France. In this long process, the path to my doctoral program was opened
by the Fulbright fellowship that I received in 2005. This enabled me to become a student
at George Washington University's International Affairs MA program where I found a
perfect environment to study IR, with the late James Rosenau, Martha Finnemore, and
Henry Nau as my professors. Prof. Sharon Wolchik's kindness provided me with an
unforgettable year in Takoma Park. I also want to thank Prof. Baskın Oran from the
Faculty of Political Sciences (Ankara University) for his help at various stages of my
post-undergraduate applications. At USC, I found not only a doctoral program but a
family of scholars, students and staff. I am thankful to all the professors who taught me to
ask more questions, to our friendly and helpful staff members of the School of
International Relations, and of the political science department. Finally, all my POIR
friends who hosted me (at their homes, at their parties, at their weddings), I hope that our
friendship lasts forever, in its growingly international context.
Research and study does not take place in a free-floating environment. I was lucky to
have a very good scholarship from the USC. This package was further extended by the
School of International Relations' continuing support for summer research (including the
Bannerman fellowship), Center of International Studies research fellowships, Graduate
School dissertation completion fellowship, and the German department's Hovel research
grant. For more extensive field research, the DAAD research grant enabled me to spend
iv
the September 2011-January 2012 period in Berlin. I am thankful to Prof. Thomas Risse
and Dr. Ingo Peters for their help in affiliating me with the Otto Suhr Institut of the Freie
Universität Berlin. Also Prof. Ekkehart Krippendorff and Prof. Helga Haftendorn were
kind to share their comments with me. Working there on the institute's own history was a
great way to discover new insights. The Chateaubriand Fellowship of the French Ministry
of Foreign Affairs (the Washington embassy) allowed me to finish my research on French
IR in Paris in the October 2012-January 2013 period. I am thankful to Prof. Bertrand
Badie and Elodie Luquet for their help in affiliating me with Sciences Po. Again, being at
the very school whose history explained important stages of French IR was a great way to
finish my research in France. My thanks extend to Arlene Tickner, Ludovic Tournès, and
Thomas Biersteker for sharing their knowledge, comments, and/or sources.
My family is the biggest source of my happiness and advancement in life. Growing
up in a house where both parents are academics is a nice experience. The days when all
three of us sat around the table (grading exams, preparing lectures, writing homework)
are among my fondest memories. My mother, Dorotea Kuru passed away when I was a
freshman. Her love marks my life. Her knowledge, integrity, and dedication to work is a
constant inspiration for me. My father, Avni Kuru has continued to provide all these
virtues. His support during the different stages of my university studies made it easier to
keep my work. His retirement, after 45 years in the university, coincides with my own
small “retirement” from the doctoral program. I dedicate this dissertation to my parents.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION...............................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................ iii
ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................ix
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION................................................................................ 1
I.1. A Turn to Revisionism: A Broader Disciplinary History for IR...........................6
I.2. Beyond Categorical Separations: Transnational Perspectives...........................12
I.3. Disciplinary Structures, Disciplinary Traditions................................................18
I.4. Methodological Choices and Case Selection.....................................................25
I.5. Outline of the Chapters...................................................................................... 32
CHAPTER II: EUROPEANIZING IR'S DISCIPLINARY HISTORY................38
II.1. A Framework for Disciplinary History ............................................................39
II.2. Space and IR: Geo-epistemologies, Geo-ontologies........................................51
II.3. IR's Political Dimensions..................................................................................65
II.4. Plurality of IR: Difference and Dissent in the Discipline.................................74
II.5. Europeanizing IR: The Discipline and its European Dimensions....................79
CHAPTER III. IR IN EUROPE: DISCIPLINARY ORIGINS,
THE INTERNATIONAL STUDIES CONFERENCE AND
US FOUNDATIONS.......................................................................... 93
III.1. Does IR Have an Origin?................................................................................ 95
III.2. IR's Forgotten Past: The International Studies Conference (ISC) ................100
III.2.a. An Internationalists' International: The origins and features of ISC......101
III.2.b. The 1938 ISC Prague Conference......................................................... 105
III.2.c. The 1950 ISC Windsor Conference....................................................... 116
III.2.d. Post-Second World War: UNESCO's birth and the demise of ISC........127
III.3. IR and the US Philanthropies: Foundations and IR's Founding....................133
CHAPTER IV: THE DISCIPLINE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN
GERMANY ......................................................................................144
IV .1. 19th Century German Political Science: A Period of Failure........................148
IV .2. Weimar and IR: DHfP and German Approaches to the Study of
World Politics................................................................................................. 152
IV .2.a. German interest in the world and its politics..........................................155
IV .2.b. DHfP in the Weimar years ..................................................................157
IV .2.c. The Institute in Hamburg: Far from Berlin, close to the world..............167
vi
IV .2.d. US foundations and German studies of world politics during
the interwar period..................................................................................169
IV .3. Post-1945 Paths of West German International Relations ............................172
IV .3.a. The emergence of a West German DHfP: from school to university.....177
IV .3.b. A chair for studying the international: Eugen Fischer-Bailing and
his work................................................................................................. 181
IV .3.c. Founding a discipline: conferences, decisions, implementation ...........184
IV .3.d. Organizing for and fighting over political science: West Germans'
political science association (DVPW) and critics of West German
political science .................................................................................... 190
IV .3.e. A brief look at academic journals: from ZfP to PVS..............................196
IV .3.f. “Generations”, “schools”, “(r)emigrants”...............................................198
IV .4. The Curious Case of Arnold Bergstraesser: World Politics from Weimar
to West Germany........................................................................................... 202
IV .4.a. Bergstraesser in Weimar: from DHfP to Heidelberg, the ideas and
work of a conservative German nationalist...........................................204
IV .4.b. Bergstraesser in the US: difficulties and changes.................................. 206
IV .4.c. Bergstraesser in West Germany: institutional weight.............................211
IV .4.d. Bergstraesser's international thought in the context of
West Germany........................................................................................214
IV .5. Meeting for IR: Thinking about the World and the Discipline in 1963 ........232
IV .6. Origins of IR: The West German Contribution to Disciplinary History........243
IV .7. A Different IR: The Tutzing Theses and a West German IR Community
in Disarray...................................................................................................... 256
IV .8. Changes in the Discipline: Numbers, Reports, Positions..............................265
IV .9. (West) German IR: Analyzing the Past, Looking to the Future.....................274
CHAPTER V: THE DISCIPLINE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN
FRANCE............................................................................................ 291
V .1. From the 19th to the 20th Century: The Origins of French Political
Sciences and the ELSP Years......................................................................... 295
V .1.a. Before Boutmy: Earlier developments in 19th century French
political science ...................................................................................... 295
V .1.b. A Boutmy project: ELSP from 1872 until 1945...................................... 301
V .1.c. Self-Perceptions – I: The 1937 Report on Social Sciences in France.....312
V .2. Americans in Paris – I: Interwar US Influence on French Political
Science and IR.................................................................................................318
V .3. Creating the New out of the Old: The Founding of Institut d'Etudes
Politiques (IEP) Paris and Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques
(FNSP).............................................................................................................325
V .4. Americans in Paris – II: Post-1945 US Influence on French Political
Science and IR ................................................................................................337
vii
V .5. The Founding Fathers: Conceptual and institutional developers for a
new discipline ................................................................................................347
V .5.a. Pierre Renouvin....................................................................................... 348
V .5.b. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle...........................................................................359
V .5.c. Renouvin and Duroselle: A joint scholarly enterprise ...........................373
V .5.d. Inside, but still outside: Raymond Aron and IR...................................... 377
V .6. Political Science and IR in post-1945 France.................................................383
V .6.a. Post-1945: Early developments in French political science and IR........384
V .6.b. From organizations to journals: The establishment of Association
Française de Science Politique and Revue Française de
Science Politique..................................................................................... 390
V .6.c. Self-Perceptions – II: Reports on French political science and IR
in the early post-Second World War era.................................................395
V .6.d. Examining French interests: The agrégation exam as an indicator
of the scholarly agenda........................................................................... 404
V .6.e. The French exception: Geopolitics instead of IR?...................................407
V .7. American IR in the Eyes of French Scholars: Analyses, Explanations,
Speculations.................................................................................................... 410
V .8. Theorizing à la French: French IR and the Inexistence of The Theory
of IR.................................................................................................................420
CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSION.............................................................................. 430
VI.1. Closing a Century – I: Post-1990 German IR............................................... 434
VI.2. Closing a Century – II: Post-1990 French IR...............................................446
VI.3. Comparisons: Germans, French, Americans – The Internationality
of International Relations............................................................................. 456
VI.4. Beyond the National, Above the International: A Transnational
Perspective for IR's Disciplinary History......................................................462
BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................... 469
viii
ABSTRACT
This dissertation aims to analyze the developmental trajectories of the International
Relations (IR) discipline by going beyond the usual narratives that focus only on the
American (and to a lesser extent the British) IR community. While explaining the role of
scholars and institutes in establishing IR as an academic discipline in (West) Germany
and France, the impact of transnational dynamics plays an important role. The most
important actors that lie at the origins of transnationality are American foundations, the
American government and military officials, German and French scholars with US
educational backgrounds, refugee-scholars who returned to Europe or stayed in the US
(both in the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries), German and French political decision-makers, their
academic communities and national university structures, and international scholarly
organizations. I show how the combined impact of these forces paved the way for the
establishment of a hybrid IR in these two continental European countries.
In order to clarify the conditions that marked IR's different trajectories, I highlight
the International Studies Conference (ISC), an interwar international association that
brought together scholars who were interested in the study of the international. By
covering both the interwar years and providing an analysis of the post-1945 pathways of
the discipline in Europe, the dissertation expands the temporal and the geographic scope
of IR's disciplinary historiography. I analyze the role of Arnold Bergstraesser and the
Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (DHfP) in the German case, and of Pierre Renouvin and
ix
Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, as well as Sciences Po Paris, in the French case because these
scholarly and institutional actors made the most important contributions to IR's
development in these countries. The dissertation shows how IR is a discipline whose past
cannot be explained merely in terms of its American development. Understanding IR's
different trajectories in Europe helps to gain a better understanding of its present plurality
that is being shaped by a less Western-centric world.
x
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
Does the discipline of International Relations (IR)
1
have a single history? Stated
differently, can one provide a history of this discipline by focusing only on its American,
or perhaps on its Anglo-American trajectory?
2
The present study starts from a position
that questions this broadly accepted understanding as a way of dealing with IR's
disciplinary history.
3
By presenting an alternative approach which shifts the focus to a
continental European perspective, I aim to pave the way for overcoming the dominant
self-perception prevailing among members of its scholarly community that sees IR's
historical narrative more or less as consisting of one American (or Anglo-American)
disciplinary trajectory.
4
My research shows that there are multiple histories of IR's
development and that the establishment of European IR studies was a result of
transnational dynamics that brought together scholarly and governmental agents as well
as academic institutions from both sides of the Atlantic.
Throughout the following chapters, I will present a disciplinary history of IR in terms
of its development in continental Europe. In this context, I will first shift the focus to a
1 When talking about International Relations as a discipline, in the sense of an academic enterprise, I will
use the shorter version of “IR.” Even the fact that German or French scholars tend to use much less
frequently the shorter version of “IB” (from Internationale Beziehungen) or “RI” (from Relations
Internationales) in their languages can be interpreted as a sign of discipline's much more settled status in
the American and British scholarly communities.
2 For most definitive studies dealing with IR's disciplinary history see Schmidt, 1998, Dunne, 1998,
Guilhot, 2010. Their common point is a focus on the American or British IR, without coverage of other
disciplinary trajectories in the 20
th
century.
3 For an early example of rejecting a single American IR-based narrative of IR's disciplinary history see
Gareau, 1981.
4 While I note the problematic way in which the adjective “American” is used, for purposes of clarity, I
will still refer to US-American IR as American IR, or as US IR.
1
much ignored aspect of IR in the interwar (post-1918) and early post-Second World War
period, the International Studies Conference (ISC) that brought together scholars from
around the globe, but where a dominance of European institutions and scholars was
visible. The ISC was the first institute to create a forum for scholars interested in world
politics. After the analysis of this important international organ through its structure and
scientific conferences, I will turn to two continental European countries: Germany and
France. In this regard, I will look into the developmental trajectory of IR in these two
cases, starting, in a more detailed way, with the interwar period. Special attention will be
paid to the post-World War II era in which one notes the convergence of multiple factors
in giving the discipline a decisive form in its German and French versions.
5
When analyzing the forces shaping the formation of the study of world politics, I will
deal with a multiplicity of actors, while basing the general framework on two important
dimensions. These are institutions and individuals, with the former referring to major
scholarly establishments that played a significant role in the creation and advancement of
IR studies in Germany and France: Deutsche Hochschule für Politik ( DHfP, German
School of Politics) in Berlin with its interwar existence and post-Second World War re-
founding, and Sciences Po in its Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques version (ELSP, Free
School of Political Sciences) as well as its post-1945 transformation into Institut d'Etudes
Politiques Paris (IEP Paris)
6
and Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (National
Foundation of Political Sciences). These institutions deserve a special attention in order
5 All the translations from German and French into English are mine.
6 Both the pre-1945 ELSP and the post-1945 IEP Paris are known and referred to as Sciences Po.
Therefore, when I use the name Sciences Po it can refer to either or both of these periods.
2
to understand the framework upon which newly emerging disciplines of IR, and more
broadly political science, were built. The cadres and decisions of these schools paved the
way for generations of students more knowledgeable about international politics. For
many, the history of US IR is the only history available, thus creating a distorted picture
of IR's reality.
The second dimension, individuals, covers the formative role of certain scholarly
agents. This refers to certain prominent scholars' capacity to act as agents who managed
to affect the broader frames of their disciplinary community, both in institutional terms by
contributing to IR's establishment, and also in the direct sense of academic-scholarly
positions they develop in IR studies. Hence, scholarly-agential aspects have to be
understood in this context of individual professors' roles as actors shaping, and being
shaped by the larger transnational dynamics. My analysis covers the role and
contributions of Arnold Bergstraesser in the case of Germany and turns to Pierre
Renouvin, Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, and in a more questioning way to Raymond Aron in
the French case. The contributions of these professors to the discipline had a dual feature.
First, they were positioned at significant intersections of the academic world, connecting
their areas of study to outside actors. Such positions enabled them to bring in actors
interested in supporting the further development of the discipline or to defend the still
weakly advanced area of world political studies against competitors.
The actors to be dealt with include not only state educational organs, but also
American foundations helping the advancement of social sciences, and American officials
3
directly interacting with their local counterparts (in the specific case of post-1945 West
Germany). Furthermore, representatives from within the university system, coming from
other academic disciplines such as law, history, or sociology, have to be made a part of
analysis as these presented heavy opposition to IR's independent development. The
second contribution of early IR specialists came through their conceptual and sometimes
theoretical work which provided initial inputs for the newly emerging discipline.
With this disciplinary history, I want to highlight the plurality that exists within the
discipline. This will not be done by an extensive analysis of the theoretical dimensions
that emerged from within the German or French IR scholarship but more by underlining
the contingencies that shaped the developmental trajectory of IR's establishment as a
separate area of study in this continental European context. While referring to the
influence of American and sometimes British dynamics that played an important role in
shaping the features of German and French IR, I will also demonstrate that there has not
been a standardization of the discipline in the sense of all other national IR communities
carrying the stamp of American IR scholarship. To the contrary, the emerging discipline
was marked both by the weight of national politico-historical legacies and the influence
of transnational dynamics.
The development of IR in Germany and France reflects, on the one hand, the specific
legacies of these two countries' domestic and world political paths. Politico-historical as
well as socio-cultural events specific to their national contexts have marked the way IR
emerged in these two countries. At the same time, the trajectory is one that shows the
4
effects of various foreign and domestic actors whose actions resulted in the emergence of
IR as an area of academic study and research that did not meet the original expectations
carried by these players. This means that the rather unexpected combination of domestic
traditions and foreign influences generated a new kind of IR whose features point to a
non-American disciplinary structure. Through the two detailed case studies of German
and French IR scholarship, I will demonstrate what one could call the contingent
developmental trajectories of disciplinary development, shaped by the dynamics of
transnational forces that generated a hybrid disciplinary structure. Such a picture enables
us to speak of a veritable plurality of and in IR, as the discipline's much emphasized
American character becomes just one of its broad features, but not its main one.
American IR's positivism and theory-focused approaches are not found to the same extent
in the German and French cases, and IR scholars only rarely become policy advisers in
these cases.
Analyzing in a detailed manner the pathways of German and French IR, as well
interwar IR's disciplinary organization, namely the ISC, makes it possible to understand
that the mid- and late 20
th
century emphasis on IR as an “American social science”
7
is one
that has only served to narrow our scholarly understanding of world political studies.
Instead of providing a framework of analysis that explains the current shape of IR's
global structure, the singular focus on its American trajectory has created a false image
7 For the most famous (but as will become clear in this study not earliest) exploration on IR's specifically
American features see Hoffmann, 1977.
5
that is far from reflecting the different pathways of the discipline around the world,
hindering us from perceiving the discipline in all its diversity and plurality.
The main goal of this study is to pluralize the disciplinary history of International
Relations by carrying it beyond a mere textual analysis of US theoretical developments,
and analyzing key continental European institutional and scholarly pathways. In so doing
it provides the first Europe-focused study that examines the developmental trajectory of
IR in such a broad temporal framework, with its focus being in the middle third of the
20
th
century (1930s-1970s). It does this by considering simultaneously two important
continental European countries and their IR communities. In the remainder of this
introduction, I turn to the general framework that lies behind this reasoning in order to
provide the broader context that makes it not only useful but also necessary to undertake
this research. The later sections build on these explanations and deal with the
methodological aspects as well as the reasons for choosing Germany and France as my
cases. Lastly, the structure of the study is presented, and the nature and key findings of its
chapters explained.

I.1. A Turn to Revisionism: A Broader Disciplinary History for IR
That there has been a significant increase in the number of studies dealing with IR's
history, providing new interpretations of the way it developed, seems to be shared by
many scholars.
8
This new wave of disciplinary history has been quite broad in its
interests, ranging from analyses looking at the late 19
th
century US studies of world
8 Bell, 2001; Holden, 2002.
6
politics to the questionable nature of the supposed debate between the idealists and
realists of the interwar years, from the moral aspects of Morgenthau's understanding of
world politics to the impact of political developments on the very processes of scholarly
theorizing.
9
I start from these new revisionist approaches, but advance them by focusing
on the rather neglected aspect of IR's European trajectories.
The starting point is marked by the fact that the non-US developmental pathways of
the discipline have not been much emphasized. It is only a recent feature of the
discipline's turn towards more self-reflexivity that IR's European, and in fact even more
intensively its non-Western dimensions, have become points of interest for scholarly
analyses. A recent volume edited by Arlene Tickner and Ole Wæver testifies to this more
inclusive look at IR as a discipline.
10
By using the concept of geocultural epistemologies
Tickner and Wæver have managed to present a solid alternative to a usual US-centric
understanding of IR. Other works that more closely deal with the Asian approaches to
IR
11
further testify to the growing uneasiness felt about the rather narrow limits of an
American IR that has become for many the only IR that in fact exists. In this study, I want
to challenge that assumption while still remaining in the context of the Western
approaches to IR. By focusing on the way the discipline developed in Germany and
France, it will be possible both to underline the plurality that exists in IR as well as the
contingent forces that gave birth to varying developmental trajectories, which prevented a
9 Osiander, 1998; Bain, 2000; Thies, 2002a; Schmidt, 2002; Quirk and Vigneswaran, 2005; Ashwort, 2006;
Scheuerman, 2008; Kuklick, 2006; Parmar, 2002.
10 Tickner and Wæver, 2009.
11 Acharya and Buzan, 2010.
7
monotype emergence of modern IR. Emphasizing the transnational dynamics that shaped
the emergence and development of IR in continental Europe, I offer a broader framework
for appreciating IR's rich disciplinary history.
The focus on IR in the context of continental Europe also serves as a useful
counterweight to the dominant Anglo-American aspects of the discipline. As Miles
Kahler has written in his analysis of IR's history, the decline of the old Western powers'
global significance “reinforced postwar [post-1945] austerity in assigning low priority to
the new field” of IR, a weakness only furthered by the relatively undeveloped nature of
social sciences in European universities. Even when it comes to the later decades of the
20
th
century, Kahler sees a general progress in the discipline's European position that still
lacks sufficient theoretical advance. According to him, the “removal of responsibility”
from the “old continent” to the two peripheral superpowers could explain Europeans'
lesser demand for theory.
12
These points are highly relevant, as they provide this study
with a useful basis. It will not be limited to the exploration of theoretical developments in
order to consider the generation of an IR discipline with its institutes and scholars. It is
important to stress that the forms and approaches of these units were shaped not only by
national socio-cultural divergences but also by influences of transnational dynamics.
It is also important to note the trans-Atlantic character IR took on, especially in the
second half of the 20
th
century. As Kahler correctly states, “[w]hat had been in Europe a
collection of guides to statecraft melded to the 'science' of geopolitics had become a
12 Kahler, 1993: 400-403.
8
respectable academic discipline” in the US.
13
The role of German-Jewish emigrants, and
other scholars who had to flee from the Nazi occupation, is of utmost importance in US
IR's developmental history. As Ned Lebow makes clear in his analysis of realist IR's
advances in American scholarship, it was these refugee scholars who provided a very rich
amalgam of worldviews that created a certain synthesis of continental European
philosophies with the contemporary character of the US world political position.
14
Such
an engagement also meant that these emigrants had to change their earlier disciplinary
interests, with dozens of them becoming IR scholars in their US emigration years, co-
developing a discipline in which they were prominent new comers.
15
These conditions
make it important to turn one's attention more carefully to IR's developmental pathways
in interwar and post-Second World War continental Europe, also providing explanations
on American IR's own developmental trajectory.
Furthermore, a focus on the two continental European communities, those in
Germany and France, can help us to broaden the discipline's cognitive tools in general.
Hence the emerging picture can, by opening space for different epistemic communities,
pave the way for an analysis of world politics that is enriched by other means of doing IR
beyond the confines of an Anglo-American dominance that has stood since the
discipline's foundational years. However, by still remaining tied to a Western-centered
approach, this study automatically narrows its focus to Europe. Such an approach is
13 Kahler, 1993: 405.
14 Lebow, 2011.
15 See on this transformation of German-Jewish emigrants, leading their paths from international law
toward IR, Söllner, 1988, especially p. 165.
9
useful not only in order to analyze interactions within the Western IR scholarly
community, but also because of the rather limited nature of non-Western IR until the late
20
th
century. Similarly, this choice includes another difficulty with regard to the possible
overlaps between German and French IR on the one hand, and the disciplinary godfather,
the US IR community. Thus, I will not only underline differences and divergences but
also emphasize the intermittent convergences that are a result of the latter community's
dominance. As an important part of these processes, the role US philanthropic
foundations played in continental Europe will be elaborated in order to understand how a
“standardization” of IR was undertaken not only in the colonial world but also among the
Western countries.
One of the aims of this disciplinary history is to challenge the widespread impact of
myths in IR. By shifting the perspective to two continental European cases, it becomes
possible to witness the rather different pathways of the discipline that lead us to question
the standard explanations emanating from the US context.
16
As Marten Valbjørn has
stated, such approaches have created “an idealized version of the past where attention is
diverted from the actual academic practices and individuals who have contributed to the
development and current identity of the field.”
17
It is for this reason that a shift to
16 These explanations focus on the supposed “great debates” between idealists and realists, traditionalists
and behavioralists, neorealists and neoliberals. The main scholars whose works are cited as the main
axes of these debates are all American (including a few British). This means not only that IR's
disciplinary history is reduced to a few waves of “confrontations.” Such an approach also neglects the
non-American developmental trajectories the existence of which cannot be rejected by any serious
analysis. It is for this reason that I turn to continental European context, as it is an early example of IR's
different past, one in which such debates were not at all the decisive points (even if taking the debates'
relevance for American IR as something serious).
17 Valbjørn, 2008: 72.
10
continental European cases, and to a special focus on the scholarly-institutional frames,
can present an alternative means of understanding IR's development in non-US contexts.
Furthermore, such an approach can challenge the assumptions regarding the “culture-
neutral theories of world politics.” In this sense, it becomes possible to suggest that a
meta-study of the discipline can simultaneously serve “as a re-mapping of the cognitive
status of a changing discipline.”
18
One possible explanation for the IR community's overlooking, if not ignoring, the
discipline's earlier history can be located in the post-World War II scholars' tendency to
see in their own contributions a major factor for IR's development. Many members of
post-1945 IR were new to the discipline, witnessing its rise in the aftermath of the Second
World War, especially in the US which was the new superpower of the era. It was with
regard to these conditions that John Herz was able to assert many years later that there
was no pre-World War II IR (in Germany). However, while he was actively following
Hans Kelsen's studies on international law in those interwar years , a direct engagement
with the work of ISC and its conferences does not seem to have existed, and similarly no
connection with German professors dealing with world political issues is visible.
19
The
present study aims to overcome these perceptions by illuminating important institutional
and scholarly activities that demonstrate the existence of world politics as a subject of
study, even if of a more limited capacity, in the interwar years. Thus, it is helpful to
understand that the usual protests against the discipline's presentism have to be thought of
18 Valbjørn, 2008: 59, 56.
19 See Herz, 1986: passim.
11
within the framework of scholars who came to IR from other disciplines. Many
contributors to the early post-1945 scholarship lacked direct connections to its interwar
development due to their newness and their consequent ignorance of earlier trends.
I.2. Beyond Categorical Separations: Transnational Perspectives
When looking at certain factors that have (had) an impact on the emergence and
development of the discipline of International Relations, and which are usually perceived
as internally coherent and distinct factors, one approach would be to divide these as
science-internal vs. science-external as well as domestic vs. international.
20
This means
that one would divide different factors according to their features. On the one hand, there
would be factors that are supposedly purely connected to the scientific sphere. On the
other hand, factors with non-scientific features that are tied to political or societal spheres
would build a separate category. Similar divisions would be established between factors
whose essential features are said to lie in the domestic level and factors whose origins are
assumed to be in the international dimension.
However, the cases I discuss in this study point to a different situation, one in which
these analytical frames lose their initial separateness. How could one, otherwise, try to
explain the role played by US philanthropies or by German-Jewish scholars who returned
to a post-war West Germany, or clarify the position of Sciences Po scholars looking to
American practices while making use of US foundational support and still keeping their
French scholarly traditions to a large extent unchanged? These developments, which one
20 For such an approach see Breitenbauch, 2008.
12
cannot analyze via an exclusively national perspective, point to the contingent pathways
of the IR discipline, one that was shaped by these transnational dynamics rather than
direct implementation of US models or the legacies of national academic structures and
traditions alone. In this section, therefore, it is important to explain the perspective I
employ in the present study: transnationality.
The picture that emerges from the phenomena described above testifies to the
existence of transnational dynamics. The perspective of transnationality provides a
framework that goes beyond a nation-bounded analytical dimension even when analyzing
the nation-level development of a discipline. However, this same perspective should also
be understood as contributing to an approach that questions the specificities of a
mainstream idea of science. In many instances, science is juxtaposed to politics and thus
assumed to present a hermetically sealed dimension. Such propositions are also visible in
more critical studies that use matrices, which demonstrate the nature of many scholars'
inherent assumptions about a clear separation between science and non-scientific
elements like politics or society.
21
My analysis, on the other hand, derives from an
alternative viewpoint that takes the interwovenness of science with politics as an
important part of the former's actual development. This means that many of the factors in
the origins of a discipline and its consequent development are themselves instances of
political intervention or societal influence.
When advancing the dimension of transnational forces, a more detailed explanation
becomes necessary. According to a framework suggested by Johan Heilbron and his
21 For a recent example of that see Breitenbauch, 2008.
13
colleagues Nicolas Guilhot and Laurent Jeanpierre, transnational dynamics can function
in three ways. The first one pertains to the international scholarly institutions, while a
second impact can result from the mobility of scholars on a global level. Their last point
is also highly relevant, as it looks at non-academic institutions in the context of their role
in transnational exchange.
22
Thus, the three points refer, respectively, to the establishment
of international associations that brought scholars and interested people together and
worked for the organization of regular conferences that went beyond a national character,
whereas the other two areas refer to the influence of scholarly mobility, and international
exchange, for broadening one's worldview and academic outlook.
These points provide a useful toolkit when turning to the developmental trajectories
of European IR. In chapter III, I focus directly on the role of ISC, the international
organization for IR scholars of the early 20
th
century. and US foundations in general, so
that a framework can be presented upon which to build the developmental history of IR
studies in Germany and France. In line with my emphasis on transnational dynamics, it
becomes possible to explain all three dimensions also highlighted by Heilbron and his
colleagues, when I turn in the case studies to a detailed analysis of the impact of
transnational forces. This includes also the way German and French scholars as well as
their American counterparts made use of their mutual (study and research) visits in order
to shape the newly emerging discipline of IR (and on a more general level political
science), which resulted in a contingent outcome not in line with American or continental
European trajectories, but providing a new hybrid disciplinary structure.
22 Heilbron et al., 2008.
14
Under these conditions, it is important to perceive transnationality as more than a
one-way street. The above examples serve as instances of this multi-path nature of
scientific-political interconnections that produces an alternative understanding of science.
In this light, science emerges as something that is no longer to be analyzed as a separated
domain of research. Clear distinctions between science and non-science, the domestic and
the international lose their assumed clarity as well as the explanatory functions they were
expected to carry as analytical categories. What should be the exact category for the
returning scholars, many of whom have become more at home in American political
science, or for foundations that are distinct entities with international activities,
notwithstanding certain ties to US government policies? As will be seen in the discussion
of US philanthropies, they have positioned themselves into distinct spaces so that they
could be seen as both part of the establishment and as alternatives to dominant isolationist
US foreign policy ideas of the interwar period. While they pointed to the possibility of
more internationalist approaches at home, many of their policies for developing social
sciences were actual reflections of an American way of doing science. Therefore,
propagating further research and study in political science, even if of an implicit nature,
was simultaneously a quest to broaden the impact of American values and ideas of
science. However, due to their nature as non-governmental organizations focusing on
scientific undertakings, a strict categorization with its science vs. non-science and
domestic vs. international groupings fails to provide us with concrete possibilities of
locating the foundations in such hermetic matrices.
15
For this reason, it is necessary to go beyond these problematic distinctions that reify
certain perspectives, thereby decreasing our possibilities for gaining broader analytical
insights. In the case of a US foundation and the policies it carries, one sees the actual
merger of scientific expectations and political and social goals that are at the roots of their
activities. A transnational perspective that goes both beyond and beneath the national as
well as the international can overcome boundaries between the scientific and the political,
and provide therefore a more helpful means for dealing with the general picture. A more
comprehensive analysis is the result, which includes aspects that would be left out of
analysis in a study that approaches the issue from a perspective that is based on these
categorical divisions between the national and the international as well as the scientific
and the political. At the same time, this approach enables us to reject claims of path-
dependency. The weight of transnational scientific cooperation, with its long history
discussed earlier, as well as the importance of socio-political developments point to the
role of contingent factors that cannot be easily foreseen and the impact of which only
becomes visible in their aftermath.
23

In this regard, no categorical statements should be made about certain factors'
predominance in shaping a discipline. In the (West) German case, it is possible to assert
that the newly established political science, and specifically IR, took shape under
23 For an example from the history discipline see Peter Novick's book That Noble Dream: The
"Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988) in which he analyzes the problematic ways in which German historiography debates were
carried to the American profession, with mistranslations leading to important conceptual
misunderstandings in American understandings of German historians. On this aspect of problematic
knowledge transfers and modifications across different cultural settings see also Bourdieu, 2002.
16
conditions not of their choosing. Focusing on the role of US military government's
educational policies would be a consequence of such an assumption. However, this would
under-emphasize the role played by German politicians and scientists (including both the
returning and visiting emigrants, as well as the ones who spent the war years in Germany
in a largely isolated way) and the quite long history of German pre-World War II and pre-
1933 studies in politics and international affairs. It is only by taking a broader approach
that we could bring these various dynamics together whereby it becomes possible to
understand the formative impact of transnational factors and to question assumptions of
sealed-off scientific undertakings.
A significant aspect of IR's features that stands in the way of a global IR – but one
that paves the way for the long-term existence of a plurality of IRs – is the fact that as a
social science it not only is open to global influences but also determined by national
scholarly frames. As Gerard Holden stated at one point, it is important “to incorporate the
fact that IR's various intellectual communities are themselves manifestations of the
cultures and contexts in which they exist and develop over time.”
24
However, by pointing
to the transnational dynamics that disabled a one-way full implementation of earlier
national university structures and scholarly practices, I aim to demonstrate that the
consequent development of IR (and more generally, political science) in the 20
th
century
German and French contexts was an example of hybridization. National and foreign
forces, and their joint impact in a transnational form, modified the developmental
trajectories of the IR discipline in its long journey in 20
th
century continental Europe.
24 Holden, 2001: 29.
17
While the actual result was not always a totally independent IR discipline, there emerged
still a notable community of scholars whose distinct positions were a reflection of these
broader dynamics.
I.3. Disciplinary Structures, Disciplinary Traditions
As I will use transnational dynamics as one of the major connecting points for forces
shaping the development of the International Relations discipline in Germany and France,
it is important to understand the way disciplines emerged on a level that was not tied
merely to the national dimension. My usage of International Relations is based on an
understanding of it as a separate discipline, which in many instances, however, ends up as
one subdiscipline of political science as a consequence of institutional and scholarly
constraints and practices. In this regard, I focus in this section on how these disciplinary
processes of change were marked by national and international actors. It is as a
consequence of these that IR has reached its modern version as a more political scientific
approach of studying the international domain.
According to Johan Heilbron, an important scholar in the history of social sciences,
the aspect of national traditions has been much ignored when one deals with social
sciences as a subject of study. While some of this ignorance can be explained by many
scholars' wish to detach social sciences from “nationalist politicization” (like
Schumpeter's attack in early 1930s against the idea of national schools), for Heilbron
these sciences were in fact influenced from early on by their national context. It is clear
18
that earlier forms of the social and political sciences were developed as “sciences of
government” since the era of Renaissance, providing concomitantly the newly emerging
nation-states with useful support. In the French case, for instance, the very concept of
“science sociale” was proposed by names like Sieyès and Condorcet, themselves active
within the political realm, pointing to the close connections between science and the
state.
25

In this context, it was not surprising that newly developing disciplines would be
associated with their national location. It was Emile Durkheim himself who saw in
sociology a “French science” that would be in the service of the Third Republic. The
significant role played by organizations that brought together people interested in the new
social sciences became visible when the French established in 1832 the Académie des
Sciences Morales et Politiques (ASMP) that included members in good connection with
the establishment, supporting the cause of liberalism. Thus was born a “semi-official
social science.” In the case of their Western neighbor, the British created the National
Association for the Promotion of Social Science in 1857. This was similarly following a
reformist liberal line. Later associations founded in the US (American Social Science
Association in 1867) and in the unified Germany (Verein für Socialpolitik in 1873)
imitated the British model, not the academy structure found in France.
26

As Robert Adcock and Mark Bevir have claimed in another context, political
science's history is “one of the contingent transnational exchanges in which ideas are
25 Heilbron, 2008: 3-5.
26 Heilbron, 2008: 6-7.
19
appropriated, modified, and transformed.”
27
While their focus is more upon ideas, the
preceding discussion shows that institutional developments can have similar transnational
dynamics that influence their future shape. In the specific case of political science, it is
possible to underline US leadership, with its flagship association, the American Political
Science Association (APSA) founded in 1903, and its journal the American Political
Science Review (APSR) launched in 1906. In this frame, the two authors are able to assert
that “the existence of an autonomous discipline of political science was a North American
anomaly” for a long time. In their analysis, the later institutionalization of the discipline
in Europe was “a process of Americanization.” However, they are quick to add that “the
intellectual trajectories were different,” pointing to the varying outcomes of actual
institutions in Europe.
28
This is an important statement because it makes clear that
continental developments were not indeed mere imitations of prevailing American
structures. This aspect will be underlined in the specific cases of German and French IR
with regard to the contingent dynamics that arose during the processes of IR's
establishment as a separate discipline within their respective social science communities.
A discipline is foremost “the primary frame of reference in scholarship and science.”
As a consequence, it is understandable that the disciplines have the function of
“form[ing] the institutional regime which has come to dominate modern systems of
27 Adcock and Bevir, 2010: 71. At one point, one could interpret this as an instance of Anglo-American
entrepreneurial skills facing French state intervention. However, when it comes to the development of
social sciences, the ELSP case, which I analyze in detail in chapter V , showed that private initiatives
played an important role in France, too.
28 Adcock and Bevir, 2010: 72-73.
20
higher learning.”
29
This means that disciplines are the actual centers of academic
institutionalization, with each new discipline's gradual empowerment that leads to its
separate department within the university structure. However, this disciplinary
independence is not a result of linear processes. As I demonstrate in the case studies of
the German and French IR disciplines, Heilbron's assumption about “the formation and
functioning of disciplines as being embedded in historically changing structures of
academic power relations” carries much weight. If, following him, one defines a
discipline as “a domain of knowledge with a certain degree of specialization and definite
forms of control over the production and diffusion of knowledge,” and if modern
disciplines are about “organiz[ing] teaching, research, and professional organization
within the same kind of institutional unit,” then it becomes useful to take a shorter path
back to IR's origins.
30
It was only with the early 20
th
century that institutionalized courses
were offered and its textbooks came into being. Hence, IR becomes indeed a science of
late modernity, being born in the 20
th
century.
A separate existence for the discipline can only be defended when separate university
departments (or at least departments of “politics/political science and IR”) do exist. While
the UK with its chairs and then departments of IR has been prominent in the post-First
World War period, the US was successful in establishing a great number of courses
throughout the country that dealt with IR. Extending the case to non-US IR would mean,
on the other hand, a narrower temporal frame that goes back in the continental European
29 Heilbron, 2004a: 23.
30 Heilbron, 2004a: 24, 26.
21
cases only to the mid-20
th
century, with a much less developed status in the interwar
years. Therefore, understanding a discipline as a structure of processes dealing with
scientific knowledge provides a useful means for choosing the early and mid-20
th
century
as a main point of emphasis for this study's temporal starting point. Interwar and early
post-World War II periods in both the German and French cases will be dealt with in line
with this position.
According to Heilbron, the process of a discipline's coming into being can be
approached by recognizing its three distinct stages. This long process starts with “the
formation of a new intellectual practice accompanied by some sort of disciplinary
ambition,” thus paving the way to the second step in which “the formation of a university
discipline” takes center stage. This means that the discipline gets its own chairs, journals
and association. Lastly, the final element pertains to the “establishment of a fully fledged
discipline in which autonomous degrees are the key element.”
31
Taking these three stages
into account, it becomes possible to turn to IR with a different perception. Choosing such
a basis for approaching processes of disciplinary establishment enables one to note some
significant points in the specific case of IR.
In this regard, it should be clear that the three examples of chairs, journals, and
associations mentioned by Heilbron as specific markers of disciplinary independence
were late-comers when one looks to the developmental trajectory not only of IR but also
31 Heilbron, 2004a: 30-31. It is important to understand these three criteria as open to temporal shifts
among themselves. For instance, the case studies of German IR make clear that journals come in the last
stage, whereas in the France, autonomous degrees preceded the IR-specific academic journals that only
flourished in the last two decades.
22
of political science, which to a large extent was its “supra-disciplinary” ground. Lastly,
when it comes to the issue of autonomous degrees, one would need to take a much later
starting period in the case of continental European IR. The German and French
independent undergraduate and graduate degrees in IR and even the more general area of
political science emerged much later compared to their Anglo-American counterparts.
While I will specify the details of this process in the case studies, it is important at this
juncture to state that a PhD in IR was a recent addition to the Franco-German university
structures. As a consequence, it is possible to assert that an actual discipline of IR is
rather a new element within the French and German social sciences.
When it comes to the starting points of a discipline, at least in the case of political
science, scholars are now able to assert this discipline “is no longer a reflection of the
intellectual interests of isolated individuals.” Such suggestions are developed by
reference to certain criteria a professional discipline has to contain, and that have been
fulfilled by political science: the existence of trained academics, a disciplinary degree,
professional associations, related working areas (like university departments).
32
The
stated features are not so different from Heilbron's explanations. Their joint existence
seems to coincide with Heilbron's third stage. The case studies will provide an answer to
the disciplinary status of IR in the German and French contexts, dealing in a detailed
manner with the features that pave the way for giving a positive reply to the question
whether IR is a discipline.
32 Rose, 1990: 581.
23
An important point that needs to be clarified at this juncture pertains to the
differentiation between IR and political science as well as the various labels used in place
of IR, including world politics, international affairs, and international politics. While
chapters III, IV , and V provide detailed analyses that explain the developments affecting
IR's journey towards a disciplinary structure, it is important to stress that no teleological
understanding should prejudice the explanations provided in this study. Therefore, my
emphasis is always on the different pathways that marked the development of the IR
discipline in Germany and France, explaining in this context also the structural
weaknesses it faced. However, if one follows the criteria proposed by Heilbron in order
to evaluate IR's disciplinary status in these two European cases, then it becomes visible
(as will be illustrated in the case studies) that the late 20
th
and early 21
st
century
conditions of German and French IR reflected this area of study as a viable discipline.
That the relevant criteria were fulfilled does not mean, on the other hand, that the
discipline enjoys the same interest as it does in the US. At the same time, the relatively
new and weak state of political science in continental Europe also posed a challenge to IR
as no American-like conditions of a sub-disciplinary development were possible, with no
dominating but also protective political science guaranteeing the prospects of IR as an
academic research area. IR's interdisciplinary origins as well as the living legacy of that
period which is embodied in British scholarship's openness to non-political science
approaches shows that there is no unique way of interpreting IR's disciplinary history.
Based on these factors, it is necessary to not present a very narrow definition of IR.
24
Doing otherwise would be to ignore its historical richness and developmental plurality.
As a result, I use world politics or international politics for IR's earlier (non institutionally
established) periods, while explaining the 20
th
century pathways of it at times in harmony
with the developments marking political science. This choice makes it possible to engage
with the interwoven nature of these two areas of study without leaving out of analysis
their separate features. When it comes to the post-1945 period, I use IR in the sense of an
emerging discipline (in its continental European setting), taking note of its more
developed standing in the Anglo-American universities.
I.4. Methodological Choices and Case Selection
In the framework of a disciplinary history, my primary concern has been to reflect as
broadly as possible on the developmental trajectories of German and French IR studies.
As I have dealt with the question of why Germany and France were selected as the cases,
it is useful to underline their scope. As the present focus necessitates setting temporal and
spatial limits for providing a coherent study, I decided to deal with the cases of Germany
(which means interwar Weimar Republic and the post-Second World War West Germany
– or in its official name Federal Republic of Germany) and France (which means interwar
France in its Third Republic, as well as the post-Second World War France, in this case
the Fourth and Fifth Republics) in the context of their democratic periods.
Time-wise, this general framework includes also shorter explanations about 19
th

century developments and the period of the Second World War in order to not disconnect
25
the discipline's distinct pathways from the relevant overall analytical framework. As
dictatorial regimes meant (quasi-)complete destruction of the free (social) scientific
enterprise, I have left out the cases of Nazi Germany as well as Vichy France, as well as
the separate case of East Germany (German Democratic Republic). They are only
mentioned to the extent of their relevance for clarifying certain aspects of the cases
discussed, especially in the context of the scholarly actors and institutional settings whose
developmental trajectories were marked by these periods.
As I discussed above, the two institutions deserving special emphasis were DHfP in
Berlin and ELSP in Paris, two schools located in their respective countries' capitals (or in
the case of West German a former and future capital city). They are chosen as the
scholarly establishments to be analyzed in a detailed manner, taking into consideration
their origins and structure as well as their role in bringing together scholars working in
the area of IR (as well as the broader political science).
In the case of individuals that provide another axis in studying the developmental
trajectory of IR in the two continental European countries, I employ certain positions
developed by Efraim Podoksik. According to him, a certain person can be chosen so that
he/she is seen as an intellectually advanced example of his/her age. Therefore, it is his/her
position that provides a useful connection point for the intellectual history that deals with
that era. According to Podoksik, choosing an erudite person as a stellar nodal point
around whom to shape one's research brings multiple benefits. One of these concerns an
easier way of reaching an “organised and organising whole”; another advantage pertains
26
to the mind itself being “an historical event.”
33
His argument is thus based on a hero-
derived explanation of the past that can be of much use if adapted in a coherent manner.
My own approach will follow a similar path in the (West) German and French cases.
In the case of West German IR, with regard to the influence he had in the process of
its gradual establishment, taking also into account his interwar ties to DHfP, his work in
the area of studying foreign countries and later international politics, and also importantly
his close connections with US foundations and American officials, Arnold Bergstraesser
emerges as a scholar in whose personal history it becomes possible to trace the
developmental trajectory of West German IR.
In the case of French IR, three names come to the fore, with Raymond Aron being
the most natural candidate due to his internationally recognized status as a scholar with
contributions to IR. However, I focus more on two other scholars who were able to more
influentially affect the developmental trajectory of the French IR community,
notwithstanding their background as historians of international relations (in the sense of
history of world politics, a modern version of diplomatic history; not to be confused with
the history of IR): Pierre Renouvin and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle. While it is difficult to
put Renouvin into the camp of IR specialists, as he perceived himself as a historian, it is
in his capacity as the president of FNSP that he contributed to the post-1945 development
of political science and IR in France. A concept he developed, the idea of forces
profondes, presented a new way of engaging with world political developments, at least
in its historical context. His collaboration with his assistant and colleague Duroselle also
33 Podoksik, 2010: 313-314.
27
has to be taken into account. This latter scholar would also play an active part in IR's
development, as his study and research experiences in the US and connections to
American foundations make him an important name in discussing the transnational
dynamics shaping post-1945 French IR in its gradual institutionalization phase. His
presidency at FNSP's important IR-related center, CERI, explains another reason to
consider him as a focal figure when looking at the IR community in France.
This study providing a disciplinary history of International Relations in continental
Europe, I differentiated my research from similar undertakings that apply sociology of
science and cultural studies of science perspective.
34
In line with the emphasis on
institutional and scholarly (agential) dimensions, the present study is not a complete
intellectual history. The general framework I offer is one that takes into consideration the
developmental trajectories of IR in two continental European countries, while pointing to
the important role of transnational dynamics and emerging contingencies. This means
assumptions for path-dependency will be shown to fail in explaining the directions IR
scholarship in Germany and France has taken.
In order to fulfill the expectations of a study with a disciplinary historical
understanding, my decision was to allow for a multiplicity of factors instead of focusing
on a single dimension. Therefore, the inclusion of institutions such as schools for political
34 See respectively Wæver, 1998 and Büger, 2007. While for Wæver's sociology of IR, journals and
scholars' academic contributions provide main tools of a global comparative analysis (and his later work
in the area remains tied to sociology of science perspectives in studying the present of the discipline),
my approach looks to IR's past in the continental European context. Unlike Büger's use of sociology of
science, and, more specifically, of cultural studies of science, I track the historical conditions that
changed IR, and consider the transnational dynamics and their role in this process.
28
science and IR studies, academic organizations, scientific journals as well as American
foundations and government officials does not constitute a decisive move in favor of
sociology of science. Similarly, the detailed investigations into the emergence of
scholarly practices, themselves results of transnational processes of interaction, should
not be taken as a choice for cultural studies of science. In many instances, the conceptual
and theoretical tendencies that reflect the academic mood as well as the ideological
fashion will be presented while tying them to scholars' changing attitudes in the domain
of IR. These, too, do not make this study an intellectual history, as their function is more
one of setting a contextual framework for the broader disciplinary history.
As should be clear by now, I see disciplinary history as a broader approach that paves
the way for engaging with an academic study area's developmental pathways. This
signifies that it carries multiple factors within its analytical gaze. In this regard, the
present study employs disciplinary history as a means of pointing both to institutional
and scholarly (agential) dimensions while not overlooking the ideational context in the
shape of theoretical and conceptual developments. Furthermore, a multiplicity of actors
that includes the above mentioned organizational dimensions and academic features play
a major role in the advancement of the positions I develop. Behind all these, the idea of
transnationality and the contingent outcomes of the discipline's pathways build the
general structure upon which the argumentation and exemplification follow.
With regard to methodology, I use secondary literature from various research
agendas in order to bring this multiplicity of actors together in the disciplinary history
29
that emerges. Of importance in this regard is an approach that does not limit itself to a
certain viewpoint's perceptual capacity. In this context, works on the trans-Atlantic
features of broader social scientific developments, American foundations and emigrant-
scholars are used in order to expand the specific studies providing analyses of German
and French IR.
35
I turn to different fields of study so that their often separate results can
be brought together to provide a fuller picture about the emergence and advancement of a
discipline in a specific spatio-temporal context. I also turn to original documents, mainly
in the form of conference records and scholarly reports.
36
These sources provide together
not only direct insights on and from earlier periods of IR, but also on the transnational
dynamics generated by activities of US foundations, the post-1945 American
involvement in West Germany, the university structures and academic infighting in both
Germany and France, theoretical debates in IR, the American dominance in the
discipline, institutional developments in the case of German and French academic
institutions as well as general policies that influenced scholarly-governmental-(and
American) connections. A joint analysis of these studies provides a much needed
clarification about the developmental trajectories of IR studies in Germany and France.
With regard to the main level of texts (articles, reports, books, etc.), I focus directly
on documents that provide viewpoints by contemporaries in order to reach the ideational
world of their respective authors. For this reason, when I analyze major debates taking
place in West German and French political science and IR studies, two academic journals,
35 With works such as Rausch, 2007 and 2010, Fleck, 2011, Tournès, 2010 and 2011 on the one hand, and
Burges, 2004, Breitenbauch, 2008 on the other.
36 Such as Bergstraesser, 1965's rich sources, or Duroselle's and Renouvin's IR and non-IR texts.
30
West German Politische Vierteljahresschrift (PVS) and French Revue Française de
Science Politique (RFSP) are the most frequently used sources. This is both due to their
number one status as their country's political scientific publications as well as their
capacity to reflect most effectively the nature of various positions being developed within
their respective scholarly communities. I especially engage with articles from the 1960 to
late 1970s in the West German case, and 1950 to early 1970s in the French case.
Secondly, in both country cases I pay special attention to reports published in the post-
World War II period (as well as more limitedly the interwar period) so that the self-
perception of the relevant actors can be more clearly stated.
At the same time, I use the American IR community as a case of comparison. This
serves not only to deal extensively with claims of US superiority in the discipline but also
to question this widely accepted idea. By juxtaposing German and French developments
in IR to developments in the US, this study aims to extend the scope of IR's disciplinary
history, while qualifying the degree of supposed American primacy in this area of study.
The emphasis on published scholarly reports and debates held at various conferences are
a useful tool for inquiring further about the actual significance of many “idées reçues,”
IR's received wisdom about its past. The use of Scandinavian, and to a lesser extent, of
British scholarship in IR serves a similar function in using the broader context for
discussing the forces shaping German and French disciplinary trajectories.
For making clear the circumstances under which institutions emerged, and scholars
developed their ideas (with both of them engaged in promoting, respectively, their
31
positions or ideas), it becomes important to take certain indicators into consideration. It is
such a starting point that makes it useful to turn one's attention also to changes in the size
and scope of disciplinary communities. Hence, making use of a large body of
disconnected scholarly sources, I emphasize the dynamic nature of IR scholarship by
pointing to advances in quantitative as well as qualitative dimensions. Transformations
affecting scholarly institutions, bigger numbers of students and professors, modifications
in the university setting all become part of this way of approaching the subject in a more
comprehensive fashion.
I.5. Outline of the Chapters
In chapter II, my first engagement concerns the debates and analyses arising from
recent scholarship focusing on IR's disciplinary history and its features as a relatively
new social scientific undertaking. I use the relevant studies to advance this study's
distinct position, offering thereby the general frame of the German and French country
cases. The second section turns its attention in a detailed fashion to the relevance of space
in IR scholarship. I discuss recent works by Arlene Tickner and Ole Wæver, and John
Hobson, using their studies to clarify the reasons for my focus on the European
dimensions of IR's disciplinary trajectories. The concepts of geo-epistemology and geo-
ontology are shown to be of much relevance in this context. At the same time, these
analyses help to explain the functions of disciplinary history as a critical enterprise that
could weaken the usual claims about US IR's historical uniqueness. There follows a
32
separate section on the political dimensions of IR scholarship, which shows how IR can
mean more than IR, simultaneously questioning assumptions that equalize IR to its
theoretical dimensions. Thus it becomes possible to turn to the significance of difference
and capacities for dissent within IR scholarship. I employ two studies from outside IR
scholarship that discuss the function of these two aspects in enriching a society's chances
for advancement. A similar possibility could emerge as a consequence if IR communities
take into consideration the developmental trajectories analyzed by its disciplinary
histories. I conclude the chapter by reviewing studies of relevance to my specific research
area, recognizing the important insights they have provided. However, the insignificant
number of such studies as well as their separate analysis of the dynamics influencing the
pathways of IR in its European context of emergence testifies to the contributions the
present study can offer.
In chapter III, I focus on the disciplinary origins of IR, and after a brief look at its
late 19
th
century origins, I turn to the interwar period as an era of its more decisive
emergence. The International Studies Conference (ISC) as an international organization
of IR specialists, founded in 1928, and terminated in the early 1950s, provides a useful
stage for pointing to the discipline's non-American (as well as non-British) participants,
emphasizing the role of continental Europeans in these years. I conclude this introductory
chapter into IR's disciplinary history by analyzing the features of American foundations
whose support for the development of IR (and more broadly political science) in
33
continental Europe was a major dynamic of transnationality that shaped the future paths
of this newly emergent discipline.
Chapter IV provides the first of the two country cases, looking at the case of
Germany in its Weimar and West German periods. After an initial explanation of the 19
th

century context of German political studies, I turn to German interest in world political
studies and to the role of DHfP in this framework. In the third section, the emphasis is on
the broader features of post-1945 West German IR. The function of American
foundations is dealt with throughout the chapter, while a separate subsection explains
their engagement in interwar years. The “founding father” of West German IR studies,
Arnold Bergstraesser is the subject of section 4, which covers both his institutional
involvement as well as his ideational contributions to West German IR under the impact
of American interactions. In the following section, the focus is on German political
scientists' 1963 meeting in which for the first time the general dimension of world
politics became a topic of discussion. Next, I present a West German debate on IR's
origins, underlining in this specific case the usefulness of looking at different IR
communities' disciplinary histories, as these provide the means for broadening one's
understanding of IR's general features, too. The sixth section serves a similar function,
analyzing alternative scholarly projects in West Germany that aimed to generate a
different kind of IR studies, open to more critical approaches. Before concluding the
chapter by providing a broader picture of IR's West German features in a more
comparative way, I offer a detailed presentation of West Germany's post-1945
34
developments in IR (and political science) with regard to the structural changes and
institutional advances made, and the transformations generated by the overall impact of
transnational dynamics.
In chapter V , the opening section covers the 19
th
and early 20
th
century developments
marking the conditions of the emergence of IR and political science in France, with an
emphasis on the founding of ELSP. Sections 2 and 4 deal in a detailed manner with the
American foundations in the context of their influence on the developmental trajectories
of French social sciences, and more specifically in this case, of political science and IR.
Between these two analyses stands the continuing story of Sciences Po, in its post-1945
rebirth in the shape of IEP Paris and FNSP. The fifth section explains the role of IR's
“founding fathers” in France, explaining the contributions of Pierre Renouvin and Jean-
Baptiste Duroselle and more critically that of Raymond Aron. After that, I engage with
the general features of post-1945 French IR (and also political science in general due to
their often interwoven nature). This section includes a presentation of important scholarly
associations and journals, offering thus a means of evaluating the disciplinary status of
French IR (as well as political science) in the post-Second World war period. French
scholarly differences are underlined with regard to their academic advancement exam
agrégation, which also shows the broader features of issue areas and research interests in
the French community of IR and political science. I conclude this section by explaining
the reasons for French scholars' (and public's) focus on geopolitics and the way IR and
geopolitics merge. Following this, I shift the perspective to French perceptions of
35
American IR, enabling also a discussion of French IR scholarship's status. The
concluding section deals with aspects of theory in the context of IR studies in France,
analyzing the background of a general French disinterest in coming forward with the
theory of IR.
The sixth and final chapter serves not only to revisit the main arguments of this
dissertation, but also to look at the developmental trajectories of German and French IR
in the post-1990 era. The first two sections explain the late 20
th
and early 21
st
century
pathways of these two IR communities after their institutional and scholarly development
had been shaped by the earlier decades of the 20
th
century, mainly in the period between
the 1930s and 1970s. In the penultimate section, I turn to a more inclusive analysis of
German and French IR studies, taking into consideration the discipline's biggest
community, American IR. Finally, I conclude by explaining the results of this study. Here,
the emphasis is on transnational dynamics affecting the development of IR in the two
continental European cases. At the same time, I show how the European-centered nature
of my analysis can serve for preparing the discipline for its post-Western future, as a
broader and more inclusive study of IR's developmental trajectories helps to understand
the inherent plurality and difference that it carries.
Before starting a more detailed analysis and debate of IR's disciplinary history, it is
useful to return to the main points I presented in this introduction. I highlighted the need
for an alternative approach to IR's origins and suggested that German and French IR's
developmental trajectories could offer an ideal means to broaden one's understanding of
36
differing paths 20
th
century IR has taken. By using the two axes of scholars (academic
agents) and schools (academic institutions) as my main bases of analysis, I aim to
challenge the mainstream narratives that take American IR as the model of the discipline.
Without neglecting the significant role US scholarship has carried, I turn to transnational
dynamics that shaped the discipline's emergence and establishment in Germany and
France throughout the 20
th
century. I use the concept of hybridity in order to explain that
path-dependent explanations would fail to consider the broad range of actors that came
together in the processes leading to IR's development in continental Europe. The role of
American foundations and government officials, emigrant scholars, US-educated
academicians, international academic organizations, national scholarly cultures, scientific
associations, and university structures as well as policy decisions can only be taken into
account when strict categorizations of science vs. politics, domestic vs. international are
overcome. The joint impact (following various levels and degrees of interaction) of these
actors takes shape under conditions of transnationality and leads to hybridity, as
American IR is not recreated in Germany and France while still being different from
traditional nationally determined social sciences in the two countries.
37
CHAPTER II: EUROPEANIZING IR'S DISCIPLINARY HISTORY
This chapter lays the framework for understanding the approach that will be
employed in analyzing German and French IR's 20
th
century developmental trajectories in
the context of the transnational dynamics shaping IR's emergence. By discussing the most
important scholarly debates of IR's disciplinary features and its existence as an academic
enterprise, I advance my position that prioritizes the larger historical dimension of the
discipline in its non-American pathways. After the first section that provides the most
useful tools for the general structure of this study, there follows a focused analysis of
space's relevance for IR. This includes engaging with two concepts, geo-epistemology
and geo-ontology, which I analyze in the context of two recent works on the discipline's
origins in the West and the features of its development in non-Western settings. I defend a
turn to IR's history in the European context as a means for a broader self-understanding
of its scholarly community, going beyond a mere equalization of American narratives of
disciplinary history to IR's overall development. The third and fourth sections explain the
more than scientific dimensions of the discipline, pointing both to its political co-
constitution and the advantages a more pluralistic IR can provide in terms of difference
and dissent. I conclude by dealing with the more specific studies of European IR,
pointing to their positive contributions as well as the lacks in the literature that the
present study aims to overcome.

38
II.1. A Framework for Disciplinary History
In this section, I discuss important contributions by IR scholars dealing with the
nature of the discipline itself. These include not only disciplinary histories, but also
studies of its sociology. While emphasizing the main features of this broad range of
works, I also underline my starting points, thus reiterating the general features of this
study and setting them into a general framework upon which a European disciplinary
history can be built. At the same time, the various studies discussed in this section serve
to demonstrate the overall relevance of disciplinary history for understanding the actual
structure of IR's nature in terms of its past and present functions, thus providing a picture
that goes beyond a narrow focus on IR scholarship in the US.
Brian Schmidt, a scholar whose contributions to IR's history have played an
important role in paving the way for studies in this area, provided a distinction between
analytical and historical traditions. He sees in the former a more instrumentalized version
that mainly serves to help the promotion of present frameworks, whereas the latter is
turned more towards the past for the past's sake. In his 1998 book that opened the door
for further historical studies of IR's disciplinary background, he focused on the
development of the concept of anarchy throughout the works of the late 19
th
and early 20
th
century US scholars, claiming to find the origins of IR's birth in that era.
By opposing not only studies that follow the classical traditions and which interpret
the development of IR in terms of contributions made by great thinkers, but also rejecting
works that see in the realm of international politics the actual forces that generated the
39
discipline as such, Schmidt came forward with an alternative method, one connected to
the idea of a critical internal discursive approach.
37
In this context, he interpreted the
concept of anarchy as a shaper of the discipline by the way it was used as a political
discourse. Such an implementation of anarchy served, in his opinion, as an uninterrupted
discursive thread.
38
However, even if one accepts Schmidt's use of anarchy in that role, it
becomes questionable to what extent a one-concept approach can succeed in providing a
transversal account. This means that a decreased relevance of anarchy as a concept at an
earlier or later historical period would necessarily post a challenge to Schmidt's analysis,
or at least limit his temporal dimension.
One of Schmidt's important claims for disciplinary history in general concerns the
usages to which historical studies are put. According to him, it is projects of legitimation
or critique that arise as the main reasons for looking at the discipline's history. For some,
including many realist IR scholars, the discipline's history is quite self-evident.
39
The
general perception about the realist victory in IR's first supposed great debate has for a
long time been the single narrative about the interwar era, challenged only recently by a
significant number of revisionist studies.
40
Schmidt's main attack on contextual (that is
37 For an approach based on the idea of classical traditions see Kenneth Thompson who developed in his
Fathers of International Thought: The Legacy of Political Theory what he called a “companion piece”
to his other important book Masters of International Thought: Major Twentieth-Century Theorists and
the World Crisis. In his approach, IR could not be thought of without Plato and Kant because these
scholars, among others, gave the ideational tools necessary for IR's 20
th
century scholars such as
Morgenthau and Wight. On the other hand, Ian Clark offers a work in which classical theories of IR are
analyzed in a more critical fashion, serving not as tools of status quo but as a means for revising current
understandings prevailing in the discipline. See his introduction chapter in Clark and Neumann, 1996.
38 Schmidt, 1998: 15-16.
39 Schmidt, 1998: 21ff.
40 See fn. 9 in chapter I as well as Schmidt, 2012 for sources discussing the issue of great debates in IR.
40
more or less externalist approaches) derives from their perceived presentism as well as
the role they play in reinforcing the well-known ideas regarding the discipline's various
debates, waves, or phases.
41
Rightly, he asserts that “the external context is never
sufficient by itself to account for what is taking place in an academic field.” Then he goes
on to suggest that “[i]t would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain changes in key
concepts such as the state, sovereignty, anarchy, and power by reference to contextual
factors.”
42
This conclusion, however, has to be reevaluated in the face of forces that have,
for instance, completely reshaped the German approaches to world politics in the
aftermath of 1945. While I will point to this aspect in the relevant chapter on post-World
War II German IR, it needs to be said at this point that conceptual changes have a certain
dependence on world political developments. When Schmidt mentions that it is the
university context that needs our attention as IR's birth place, he is correct only to a
certain degree, because his preference is once again to ignore the impact of outside
dynamics. However, as will be shown in my case studies, the university structure itself
was a result of the state's policy choices, its most clear illustration being the Nazification
of German universities after 1933. In the French case, I will show how the Sciences Po
leadership engaged in detailed negotiations with the French government to protect its
status or narrow down the extent of state's intervention in its restructuring after the
Second World War.
41 Schmidt, 1998: 28-29.
42 Schmidt, 1998: 35, 38.
41
As Renée Jeffery has rightly pointed out, Schmidt's approaches were shaped by John
Gunnell, the author of a history of political science in the US. In that framework, certain
disciplinary trajectories can also be interpreted as being part of a long tradition of doing
things in a certain way. What is a useful means for counteracting such “traditionalizing”
is to remember that traditions are mostly things of invention and derive from today's
perspective.
43
The distinction between an externalist and internalist account is important
for disciplinary history. For instance, the work of Schmidt has largely been associated
with an internalist approach, an analysis that limits itself more to the ideational
developments within the field, excluding socio-political events outside the discipline.
Externalist approaches are known to be more contextualist as they widen their outlook in
order to prioritize the influence of facts and processes that take their roots outside of IR.
However, some scholars see even in the work of Schmidt a certain level of contextualism.
According to Gerard Holden, even the anti-contextualists are not always successful at
“exclud[ing] references to context.”
44
As I explain below, these distinctions lose their
initial sealed-offness once the dimension of transnational dynamics is taken into account.
A recent exploration of IR's disciplinary history came from Duncan Bell who
criticized the mainstream influence of IR's progressivist narrative, which provides a
history of linear advancement toward the present conditions (prevalent in US IR). It is
only thanks to the “revisionist historical scholarship” that “the inadequacy of the
progressivist narrative” has been made visible. For Bell, the relevance of disciplinary
43 Jeffery, 2005: 74, 81; Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983.
44 Holden, 2002: 259.
42
history should go beyond being a useful endogenous feature. This signifies that it is not
there only for its own historical sake. It should rather serve an exogenous function
because this enables one to simultaneously perceive “the interweaving of knowledge,
power, and institutions.”
45
Furthermore, he proposes to remain agnostic in the face of an
internalist-externalist dichotomy. What is underlined in his alternative pertains to the
“transversal nature” of social science developments. In Bell's proposed framework,
concepts and institutions as well as the (scholarly) agents of their interconnection deserve
a place in the emerging disciplinary histories.
With regard to internalist vs. externalist explanations of IR's history, it is useful to
take into consideration four factors summarized by Miles Kahler. He provides for each
type of approach two relevant dimensions. In the case of internalist explanations, the
issue of professional standing is of significance. There is also the hardening of its
disciplinary boundaries, while IR as a scientific project was simultaneously framed in an
interdisciplinary nature. With regard to the externalist analyses, the two important factors
on which Kahler focuses are the influence of (world political) events and the demand-
driven as well as policy-related nature of the discipline. For Kahler, it is the external
context that carries more relevance, due to its focus on the “social and political context of
the intellectual production,” differing thus from internalism with its prioritization of the
“internal logic of scholarship.”
46
In regard to these dimensions, I follow the more critical
approach of Bell in the sense of merging these effects when analyzing the developmental
45 Bell, 2009: 6, 9.
46 Kahler, 1997: 22-23, 21.
43
trajectories of IR in Germany and France. The reasoning here derives from rejecting a
strict categorization of these factors, not a mere agnosticism, as this study pursues a
transnational perspective in which such divisions lose their initial features.
Another important clarification of disciplinary historiography comes from David
Long and Brian Schmidt's volume on IR scholarship's two concentrated dimensions of
imperialism and internationalism, in which they focus on these two positions as hub
points of disciplinary engagement, enriching the disciplinary history to a significant
extent. What matters at this juncture is the way they defend the relevance of such
approaches that focus on IR's past. According to Long and Schmidt, disciplinary history
“has been regarded as something akin to an intellectual hobby; as something to do after
the more serious and important research is completed.” Such views have also prevented
doing research that deals with “the actual institutional history of the field.” Defending the
need for such historical studies, they point that a general agreement among scholars of
disciplinary history exists according to which “there is an intimate link between the
present-day identity of the field and the manner by which a field chronicles and
understands its older identities.”
47
In line with other references to this aspect of
discipline's self-understanding and the role of its history therein, it is important to note
that additional work on the historical dimension can provide more advanced levels of
reflexivity in the discipline. By means of both spatially and temporally more inclusive
analyses, a broader disciplinary history can pave the way for challenging the usual
narratives of IR as just an American social science. The statements of Long and Schmidt
47 Long and Schmidt, 2005: 4, 6, 20.
44
connect to the reasons that lie at the origins of the present study, one that aims to
Europeanize IR's disciplinary history in order to demonstrate its transnational dimensions
and its inherent plurality that gets ignored in American-centric studies of the discipline's
historical trajectory.
A similar contribution is found in an article of Darshan Vigneswaran and Joel Quirk.
They suggest that “classificatory schemes from the 1950s and 1960s have served as
privileged starting points for historiographical inquiry.”
48
Thus, a certain point in the
discipline's history, one closer to its post-1945 regeneration under the US aegis, seems to
have captured in time IR's then prevailing perceptions and turned them into historical
perceptions that are supposedly of a timeless nature. For Vigneswaran and Quirk, the list
of problems inherent to this constrained way of undertaking disciplinary history includes
retroactive attributions, assumptions of enduring essences, ahistorical understandings as
well as presentism. Obviously, many of these items relate more to studies that focus on
the theoretical development of the discipline. However, even research into IR's trajectory
with regard to its institutional structure and scholarly community can face similar
difficulties. If one is not familiar with the way its scholarly institutes developed in
various contexts, or if one ignores the stages through which diverging ways of doing
world political studies emerged, then it becomes impossible to reach a clear
understanding of the disciplinary plurality that is a result of these contingent dynamics of
heterogeneous pathways marked by transnational dynamics.
48 Vigneswaran and Quirk, 2010: 127.
45
On a different, but not unrelated level, Vigneswaran and Quirk underline the
problematic aspects of “efforts to cumulatively, retroactively forge genealogical links
with earlier intellectual figures.”
49
This warning should in turn be extended to the area of
institutional as well as individual scholarly dimensions, questioning those analyses that
tend to approach the conditions of past periods while keeping the perspectives of today. It
is in this context that the case studies will engage intensively with contemporary
documents in the form of reports and conference debates so that the viewpoints of
individuals and institutions can be analyzed in their own context.
One approach to disciplinary history that takes its roots from Peter Galison's work in
the history of science has been recently exemplified in Lucian M. Ashworth's study of
liberal socialism in interwar Great Britain.
50
The importance of his article is that he
follows the earlier advice of Duncan Bell
51
to take into consideration the work coming
from history of science. Consequently Ashworth implemented Galison's microhistories-
based method by using his “subcultures” approach in order to overcome the narrower
explanations derived from a paradigms-focused analysis. Subcultures are shown to
consist of four major features: a common language, a common narrative, a community of
scholars, as well as links to the outside world. Such studies can extend “beyond just the
published texts,” including documents on “conferences, funding agencies and the
interaction between scholars and professionals both inside and outside of IR,” the recent
study by Nicolas Guilhot on the 1954 IR conference organized by the Rockefeller
49 Vigneswaran and Quirk, 2010: 110
50 Ashworth, 2011.
51 See Bell, 2009.
46
Foundation (RF) being an example.
52
It is also useful to see in subcultures a general tool
in pointing the IR community towards the actual sources of its plurality. If following
Ashworth, one could differentiate between Thomas Kuhn's paradigms and Galison's
microhistories with their subcultures, then it becomes possible to see in the latter the
impact of “non-rational prior social context,” whereas the paradigms would be “defined
by common outcomes from theorising the international.” It is based on these differences
that Ashworth suggests the possibility of IR’s realist Hans Morgenthau and neo-realist
Kenneth Waltz sharing the same subculture, but not the same views on human nature.
53

Taking a step further from these positions, I propose to think of subcultures in terms
of a broadened national culture, notwithstanding the difficulties of such a conceptual
stretching. The major contribution of such a shift is to enable one to have a better grasp of
the dominant national-cultural settings that influence a discipline's developmental
pathways without necessarily suggesting that within that domain there are no theoretical
divergences and disciplinary infighting. In that regard, Ashworth's assertion that
microhistories provide a helpful means of analyzing the origins and development of
scholarly communities points to a helpful direction. This means that I use the
transnational perspective while still employing the idea of microcultures in the specific
context of German and French IR communities when presenting their separate
developmental trajectories in the form of a disciplinary history. Therefore, the two
continental European IR communities are to be seen as microcultures with many distinct
52 Ashworth, 2011: 40.
53 Ashworth, 2011: 44.
47
but also certain common features, which will be shown to be the contingent outcomes of
transnational dynamics.
A significant article that helped to make the discipline and its features a subject of
scholarly analysis is the much cited 1998 article of Ole Wæver, published in the
prestigious American IR journal International Organization (IO). This study looked at the
sociology of IR, being to a large extent concomitant with the then growing interest in
disciplinary history (shown not least by the publication of Schmidt's disciplinary history
of American IR in the same year). Its place of publication provided Wæver's study with
much attention, making it a starting point for future research for similar research agendas.
His approach, developed by making use of works dealing with the sociology of science
for the case of IR, reached the conclusion that American IR's socio-cultural background
would lead to more divergence in the discipline, as its “not easily exportable” ontological
and methodological baggage would pave the way for actual de-Americanization of IR in
other parts of the world. Making use of Robert Merton's famous CUDOS model
(featuring communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, originality, skepticism as parts
of a scientific understanding and undertaking) and Peter Wagner's work on social
sciences in general, Wæver presented his own model as a sociological analysis of the
discipline per se.
As he acknowledges, this is a model that provides “a nonreductionist combination of
social and cognitive explanations.”
54
It consists of three layers, the first one including the
aspects of society and polity. Four separate dimensions are found within this layer:
54 Wæver, 1998: 694.
48
cultural-linguistic factors, political ideology, political institutions, and foreign policy.
While referring to Johan Galtung's analysis of various intellectual styles associated with
certain national academic approaches in the cultural-linguistic area (which I discuss in the
German case study), Wæver also sees ideologies and traditions of political thought, as
well as state-society relations and the actual foreign policy as relevant aspects. His
second layer concerns the area of social sciences, in the sense of both looking at the way
they developed in different contexts and the shape they took with regard to the structure
of their disciplinary and subdisciplinary formatting. A final layer pertains to the
intellectual activities in IR. The two features of this layer deal with IR's discipline-
specific developments, first by focusing on its social and intellectual structure, and
second by analyzing the theoretical traditions therein.
55
After having laid out this explanatory model, Wæver deals with four different
national scholarly communities: Germany, France, the UK, and the US. These are highly
relevant for purposes of the present study, making a short summary of his explanations
useful. In the (West) German case, he notes the post-World War II dismissal of
geopolitical and even realist approaches. This point will be dealt with when analyzing the
development of German IR in a more historical approach. However, while Wæver
provides a short overall narrative of German IR, it is the trajectories of contingency upon
which the present study will be built. He rightly claims the lack of a direct American-
imitated field, but it is the direct and indirect impact of American actors that has to be
taken into account due their influence on the developmental pathways of German IR (and
55 Wæver, 1998: 694-695.
49
political science more broadly). With regard to the French case, his explanation is of a
bigger frame. After pointing to the more extensive power of economics and sociology
compared to political science in the university structure there, he positions political
science “between administration and the humanities.”
56
This part of Wæver's analysis
concludes by pointing to a much repeated claim on the willing detachment of the French
IR community.
57
This assumption will be important in the chapter analyzing the discipline
of IR in France. I approach this issue differently, and highlight the structural challenges
that were only partially overcome by the impact of transnational forces. The result was a
contingent developmental pathway for French IR that failed to reach its American
counterpart, but still managed to establish itself, even if to a limited extent, in the much
competitive French academic scene.
At this juncture, it is useful once again to clarify the aspects that are of relevance for
this study. As its major approach is one based on the nature of contingent dynamics that
have affected the processes of disciplinary formation and development in two continental
European IR communities, it is certain features of Wæver's model that I rely on in
choosing which aspects to look at. In order to keep the two basic foci, the institutional
and the scholarly, it is the social sciences layer and the IR-internal intellectual layer put
forward by him that provide useful guide lines for this study. However, the first layer that
includes society and the polity is also important to the degree that it plays a primary role
in shaping the other two layers. On the other hand, a major aspect that I aim to add as an
56 Wæver, 1998: 705, 707.
57 For a similar view see Giesen, 2006, which itself is a much cited study in this regard.
50
additional layer concerns the role of transnational interactions. It is rather difficult to find
an appropriate space for these types of factors within Wæver's model with its three layers,
as these influences originating from the outside go beyond the discipline-specific features
of political science or IR as well as extend beyond our usual ideas concerning foreign
policy processes. Transnational interactions should be understood as the processes that
connect various forces, the origins of which go beyond the national IR community as
well as contain actors of both governmental and non-governmental levels. This signifies
that US foundations' work in Europe for the development of social sciences or American
military occupation authorities' actions in (West) Germany as well as the possibilities
present for their wide-reaching influence have to be taken into consideration. This layer
can be interpreted as the one that surrounds the other three dimensions framed by Wæver.
It is within this broader framework that the developmental trajectories of German and
French IR disciplines will be analyzed.
II.2. Space and IR: Geo-epistemologies, Geo-ontologies
In this section, I use the role of space as an element of geographical diversity that
serves a helpful function in explaining the reasons for intra-Western diversity. Geography
and history will function as the two main elements in pointing to the impossibility of a
single IR discipline, with a plurality of IR scholarship communities arising as the actual
alternative. In this context, two recent studies providing alternative perspectives to the
Western dominance in IR are discussed. I employ their conceptual tools and explanations
51
in order to defend a Europeanized disciplinary history for the discipline. Such a still-
Western approach necessitates a detailed clarification, which this section provides. It is
only after such a discussion that the general feasibility of the present study and its
contributions for a future post-Western IR become visible.
In the context of IR, it is important to distinguish between two concepts in order to
further our understanding of the discipline's knowledge generating practices. Arlene
Tickner and Ole Wæver's recent study that looks at different ways of doing IR across the
world is structured around the idea of geocultural epistemologies. In this approach, the
focus is on the relevance of a given country or region's contributions to IR and the way
scholars around the world are shaped by their national/regional context, the conditions of
which range from the university structure to the dominant understanding of IR in their
locality. This means that various non-US and mainly non-Western ideas of world politics
become relevant. The authors start their studies from a general acceptance of the plurality
of IR while not denying the current dominance of US IR. Still, the main influence comes
from two sources, sociology of knowledge and post-colonial theory.
58
This position does
not necessarily prioritize national contexts, but underlines the cultural divergences
influential in the development of a plural IR discipline.
Such a starting point does not directly overlap with a second type of analysis that can
be found in John M. Hobson's major contribution to the debate on IR's Western nature. In
The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics, subtitled Western International Theory,
1760-2010, he directly confronts the issue of Western dominance in IR. This can be seen
58 Tickner and Wæver, 2009.
52
as a continuation of his earlier work that has challenged the idea of a Western-led world
by pointing to the Oriental roots of many techno-scientific advances nowadays associated
with the West.
59

Hobson's more recent book asserts that international theory in general (and its later
disciplinary version, namely IR) has been “a Eurocentric construct” that keeps serving “a
series of Eurocentric conceptions of world politics.”
60
Continuing with the analytical
framework used in earlier work,
61
he sees all of this Western international theory
categorizable within pro- or anti-imperialist, as well as institutionalist or scientific racist
versions, thus generating a 2x2 table of four versions. Leaving aside the huge intellectual
challenges posed by such a generalizing work that tries to deal with multiple aspects of
Western international theory,
62
a significant point arises from his statement that “various
Eurocentric metanarratives, all of which … defend or celebrate the West as the highest
normative referent in world politics” are at the basis of international theory.
63
The
problem with this analysis lies in the question of a given agent's power and capabilities. If
from a historical point one can accept the rise and influence of Western powers that was
even accepted by Hobson's earlier work for the period of the 19
th
century onwards, then
one can continue this path of thinking by asking whether it is not indeed natural that
global power with material advantages is followed by certain levels of ideational
domination. Stated differently, why should one be critical of metanarratives and even
59 See Hobson, 2004.
60 Hobson, 2012: 1.
61 See Hall and Hobson, 2010.
62 Hobson himself acknowledges the inherent difficulties, see for instance, Hobson, 2012: 14.
63 Hobson, 2012: 15.
53
theories that have a certain material connection, in fact a basis of power that derives from
the Western world and its imperial-colonial policies that tragically changed the world?
64
As a concept that can serve in critically engaging with Hobson's approach, one can
turn to the idea of geo-ontologies. Here, a major difference arises from the geo-
epistemologies of the Tickner and Wæver volume. It is no longer a question whether
local differences give birth to varying paths of knowledge. Hence, the question is no
longer about the knowledge that is being shaped, but it concerns one's actual and
preferred knowledge of certain historical and geographic developments. By these, I mean
a given person's worldview and whether he/she sees the modern world system of the last
500 years as a period in which a Western-led world was born. If the question is answered
affirmatively, then the selected geo-ontology is a Western one. What differs in this
conceptualization from Hobson's approach is that one can accept, in line with the idea of
IRs' plurality, a plurality of geo-ontologies. However, within the discipline of IR, it
becomes necessary for any scholarly undertaking to point to its own geo-ontological
preferences and to develop the study in line with that basic choice. Hobson's critique of
Western international theory is not so difficult to overcome once IR scholars add the idea
of Western hegemony within the modern world system or the very rejection of this
supposition to their ontological preferences. Therefore, when an IR scholar sees the role
played by the Western powers as a world-transforming effect via colonization and
imperialism in general, then it is only a natural consequence for this scholar to accept the
64 For a critical approach in the case of the “discovery” of Americas see Todorov, 1991.
54
interwovenness between the development of Western global ideas and the West's global
power.
Based on these assumptions, I can now employ these two ideas within the focus of
this work. The idea of a separate continental European IR serves not only to leave non-
Western IR communities out, but it is also detached from the US as well as British IR.
Thus, it can be formulated as Western IR without the Anglo-American scholarly
community. This is an important exclusion, and its background reasoning can be
understood in light of the preceding discussion. While post-colonial IR asserts the
relevance of non-Western IR(s), I follow an approach that starts by considering both geo-
ontological and geo-epistemological concerns. The first assumption is that the Western
powers have played an undeniably significant role in the construction of the modern
world in the period following the geographical “discoveries.” Therefore, without
necessarily denying the importance of non-Western contributions to International
Relations, I assert that from a geo-ontological point, it becomes not only less problematic
but even obligatory to see Western study of the international as the most relevant aspect
of International Relations.
The assumption that lies behind this emphasis on Western ways of studying world
politics, and in turn institutionalizing the IR discipline, is again located in the interaction
between material and ideational power. At first sight, such a position can be interpreted as
providing a reinverted version of Robert Cox' critique of modern IR, about his
suggestions that one's position determines one's thinking and action, as well as that each
55
theory has a purpose, serving the interests of various groups.
65
In fact, I accept the main
features of his criticism while asserting that it is important to see the connection between
international power and IR studies as well as theories of the international. If there was a
British dominance in the 19
th
century, then it is not surprising to see that it was primarily
British thinkers who spent time on developing tools to better understand future
possibilities and dangers for the UK. Similarly, thinkers from another group of countries,
namely the ones who were facing the British challenge or were themselves challenging
the British dominance were actors whom one could expect to have developed ideas on
world politics and to have established scholarly institutions focusing on these aspects. In
this regard, it should come as no surprise that it was the British who were the first to
create independent IR chairs at their universities in the post-First World War era, with
their continental European colleagues following with much enthusiasm but in less
institutionally empowered ways.
What comes to mind in this context is also the ideational space of the ones who were
not only challenged but furthermore occupied, oppressed and exploited. The position of
the colonized was an integral part of Western international theory as suggested by
Hobson. The problematic nature of its imperialist and racist dimensions plays an
important role in his analysis of the Eurocentric conception of world politics. However,
what he ignores is the rather limited scope of non-Western thought on, and more
specifically, of non-Western studies of world politics in the earlier periods of the modern
world system. The reasons for this weakness are easy to see. The forceful integration of
65 Cox, 1981.
56
the non-Western world into the emerging international system led to a reactive “other”
that could not come forward with its own challenging tools on the international ideational
front. On the other hand, the global reach of certain great powers provided these Western
nations with the capacity for engendering new ideas about the world and its politics as
well as for creating institutions in which these international phenomena would be studied.
These initiatives followed from their broad and global interactions with the “others.”
Even a declining power such as the UK had scholars who worked, in the period of the
empire's final years, on a whole range of IR concepts and positions later to be put
together under the name of the English School. This approach was to meet its share of
attacks from post-colonial IR scholars in the end of the 20
th
century, as the colonial
connections and conceptualizations inherent to this IR school became more visible.
66

Similar concerns would be directed at the features of American IR with regard to its rise
in the Cold War period, and the ideological-epistemological premises immanent to its
content.
Based on these premises, it follows that by choosing a certain geo-ontology, a scholar
of IR is able to build his/her ontological basis on an actual historical-geographical
knowledge. The only feature not to be ignored is the need to follow a coherent line of
historiographical understanding that does not lead to conflicting interpretations within a
given study.
67
By tying the origins of IR studies to a historical context and the
concomitant preferences made on the basis of varying and conflicting interpretations of
66 See Jones, 2006.
67 For the problematic way historical studies are used by IR specialist who ignore the various
interpretations/schools within the historical scholarship, see Thies, 2002b.
57
it, one can create a valid starting point for further world political analysis and theorizing
as well as focus directly on the transnational dynamics that shaped the emergence of IR
itself as a disciplinary structure under conditions of contingency. While the new
discipline was being affected by institutional and scholarly dimensions, which were
themselves co-constituted by national legacies and the larger forces of transnationality,
the way was paved for hybrid communities of IR scholarship that did not resemble their
traditional and older national academic competitors or their American IR counterparts.
Following these steps, it becomes easier to reach back to the geo-epistemological
dimension. Herein, while acknowledging the Anglo-American dominance in the modern
world system and their simultaneous hegemony in the realm of ideas, I focus on the role
played by the continental powers, namely Germany and France. Keeping note of their
non-Anglo-American, and sometimes even anti-Anglo-American positions, I base my
analysis on the geo-ontological acceptance of Western material and ideational primacy in
the modern world system that was effectively challenged only in the 20
th
century, namely
by the 1905 Russian-Japanese War. After the two world wars (that can be seen to a
significant extent as intra-Western civil wars), the later decolonization as well as the start
and end of the Cold War that paved the way for the complex world of the 21
st
century, it
is now possible to think and talk of a pluralistic IR due to the effective existence of
powers beyond the West. In this regard, the approach of Tickner and Wæver seems to be
more valid for this era of later modernity rather than the pre-World War II period that was
marked by intra-Western ideological and material rivalries. As the present study looks at
58
the birth and development of the discipline of International Relations, it becomes
indispensable to build the analysis by critically accepting Western Eurocentric
international theory and the institutionalized dimension of world political study as a
natural instantiation of the Western great powers' global dominance in the end of the 19
th

and through the first two thirds of the 20
th
century.
Other scholars can ask whether “a field of study which is deeply Western-centric in
its language and worldview explain[s] a world which is now less and less Western-
centric.” While this is a legitimate critique to be developed given the conditions of the
21
st
century, I argue nonetheless that such an assertion would have been less relevant in
the early 20
th
century – an assumption that is in fact also inherent to the author's question.
This is a position openly deriving its legitimacy from the rise of non-Western powers, as
Pierre Lizée sees the necessity for the discipline's change as a consequence of the world
political impact these newly rising powers have.
68
One should not forget, though, that the
Western powers are themselves familiar with the non-Western actors from their earlier
imperial-colonial engagements, an element that can even be interpreted as being at the
basis of the discipline's birth.
69
The author's call for new approaches, on the other hand,
paves the way for a real change and challenge compared to Western IR. Lizée's defense
of a via media that results from the acceptance of universal IR and the threat of another
particularism in the form of non-Western IR leads him to ask for a beyond-the-non-
Western IR that could succeed in an eventual new universalism for the discipline.
70

68 Lizée, 2011: 3-4.
69 On the imperialist ideas impact on the formation of IR see Vitalis, 2005.
70 Lizée, 2011: 10ff.
59
These arguments are valid for the late modernity of the 21
st
century, but returning to
my analysis of Hobson's approach, I want to reiterate the need to look for varying paths
not among the non-Western centers but within the West itself, at least when the temporal
focus pertains to greater parts of the 20
th
century. That provides the starting point of this
study. My approach will also be able to counter the general criticism directed at
disciplinary histories of political science and IR. It is asserted that these narratives aim
only to further empower the prevailing position of Western ideas of IR.
71
While such
assertions cannot be ignored, as mainstream IR scholarship has been indeed well-known
for its taken-for-granted assumptions of Western-centrism, it is important to distinguish
here between the unsubstantiated suggestion of a continuous focus on the West and its IR
on one hand, and the spatio-temporal ruptures and continuities in the world political and
socio-economic areas that enable scholars to start their analysis from a certain point of
departure. This signifies that one cannot but not write a Western-centric history of IR as a
social scientific discipline, the exception being the period that started with the
decolonization in the post-World War II era. It is interesting, to note, in this regard, that
even a major study that focuses on non-Western thought and IR turns its gazes more
towards the 20
th
century, in general not dealing with non-Western ideas on the
international of the pre-modern times.
72
Therefore, a disciplinary history looking at IR's earlier developmental trajectories
will be mostly one of the West. It is of importance to note the difference here between an
71 For a recent such analysis see Savigny, 2010: 101.
72 See Shilliam, 2011, especially the introduction by Robbie Shilliam.
60
ideological critique and a perspective of scientific development. For instance, when Steve
Smith gave his ISA (the [North American] scholarly organization International Studies
Association) presidential speech in 2003 he made the following observation: “Just as the
discipline in the 1930s reflected British self-interest, so since the end of the Second
World War it has reflected US interests. In the name of explanation it has recreated the
hegemony of US power and US interests.”
73
In Smith's understanding, there exists no
social science that can be interpreted as being value-free, there is no view from nowhere;
and IR is criticized for having ignored most important ethical questions because of its
pre-given assumptions, due to its positivism and empiricist methodology. The discipline
“has effectively served as a handmaiden to Western power and interests.”
74
These
statements by an important critical IR scholar are essential to my argument, because it is
by going beyond the very critique provided by Smith that I propose to extend our
understanding of the discipline's role and position. It is in this regard that looking at
German and French IR actually paves the way for a more informed critique of IR as a
discipline. Focusing on the divergences that exist even within the Western structure of
this discipline, as well as on the ways in which transnational dynamics formed the current
shape of its continental European scholarly communities helps one to perceive the
developmental trajectories of IR in a broader perspective. Therefore, critics of the
discipline's Western-centric nature would more easily widen their influence when actually
turning their gazes to the processes of intra-Western diversification, taking into
73 Smith, 2004: 507.
74 Smith, 2004: 513-514.
61
consideration how divergent scholarly practices in IR took shape in the continental
European context, which was in turn decisively influenced by these transnational forces
combining the impact of national, American and other international actors.
John Agnew, one of the most influential scholars whose work lies at the intersection
of geography and politics, provided an important contribution for understanding the
spatial dimension of IR. In a short article that also presented a review of the relevant
scholarship, Agnew developed his analysis around the idea of “geographies of knowledge
of world politics.” His main call was to go beyond “a universalist epistemology” (which
was anyway not interested in the spatial dimensions) and “a totalistic cultural relativism”
(which paved the way for “mutually ununderstandable Weltanschauung”).
75

Like Smith, Agnew sees in IR (in its theory) “the projection onto the world at large
of United States-oriented academic ideas” about national and international factors like the
state or the economy. However, Agnew is cautious to distinguish the theoretical level,
which “reflects the application of criteria about how best to model a presumably hostile
world drawn from selected aspects of U.S. experience and a U.S. reading of world
history” from the way “actual U.S. policies are constituted.” He does not necessarily see
a connection between the scholarly and the political, at least not in the arena of practical
implications. This means that the impact of scholarship is seen as rather distinct from the
realm of political decisions.
76
Agnew's approach with regard to the concept of
“geographies of knowledge” derives from his quest to deal with the “ontological bases of
75 Agnew, 2007: 146.
76 Agnew, 2007: 138.
62
knowing” while not getting tied to “a singular history of knowledge associated with a
specific world region” and without “presum[ing] conceptions of knowledge” which
“assume their own self-evident universality.” Based on this, Agnew criticizes positivism
for being “agnostic about the social-geographic sources of its knowledge.”
An important aspect that he discusses concerns the issue of “hegemonic thinking.” In
this instance, various processes lead to spatial diffusion, when specific ways of doing and
seeing things become for others models to follow. In this regard, it is important to
understand how this happens. It can take place through imitation, or by intellectual
conversion. To analyze this phenomenon, Agnew presents a more general concept,
developed by Antonio Gramsci, i.e. hegemony.
77
He underlines the successful American
policies in “enrolling” others into its own models, but also the fact that the US “adapts as
it enrolls by adjusting to local norms and practices.” In this case of “hegemonic
thinking,” the example of American enrollment has to be specifically noted. However,
while he sees in enrollment a process leading “others into American practices of
consumption and a market mentality,”
78
I propose to broaden it so that the influence of
US foundations and governmental authorities in the specific case of developing a
discipline of political science and IR in continental Europe can be perceived in a similar
fashion.
77 In his influential texts, mainly written during his imprisonment by Mussolini's fascist regime, and
published as The Prison Notebooks this influential Marxist politician and thinker developed the idea of
hegemony as a means of controlling the society also through the impact of ideas. Intellectuals would
serve as useful means for convincing wider masses instead of using violent coercion. It would be such
hegemonic power that would ensure consent.
78 Agnew, 2007: 145.
63
Such a usage of “enrollment” would not necessarily provide a complete success, and
it will also show certain lacks in the other level pointed to by Agnew. Namely, American
IR has been interpreted in general as being rather unwilling to be influenced by outside
ideas. While one can assume this to be the case for the present period, I will also focus
(within the limits of its relevance to German and French developments) on the ways in
which continental European effects shaped American scholarship when a reverse
“adjusting to local norms and practices” (to use Agnew's words) took place. Thus, the
American developments in the discipline were themselves the consequence of previous
influences from the continent, be it the late 19
th
or the mid-20
th
century – a point that will
become clear in the case studies where the emerging picture demonstrates that one cannot
speak of a one-way American influence. While the structure of the present study does not
allow for a detailed analysis of this other aspect of the US-European interaction, it is
important to note that the actual limits to American involvement in the development of
IR's European trajectories, discussed in the two individual country cases, will make clear
the extent of US hegemonic thinking with regard to its narrower capacity for
implementing an American-modeled IR there. The contingent outcome would be one that
was neither American nor German or French, but a hybrid and gradually institutionalized
IR discipline in the continental European context.
64
II.3. IR's Political Dimensions
An important dimension that needs to be taken into account when dealing with the
discipline's developmental history concerns the nature of its ontological and
epistemological but also methodological preferences in the context of a potential
connection to prevailing ideological choices among its scholars or within its institutional
structure. An early analysis of this problematique can be found in the 1984 study of
Hayward Alker and Thomas Biersteker in which they look at the advanced courses on IR
theory in order to see whether the existing disciplinary plurality is in fact reflected in the
readings offered by the relevant syllabi in the leading US graduate programs.
The two American scholars provide in their analysis an interesting matrix that results
from the combination of three different levels of political orientation with three positions
of scientific epistemology. The first group includes conservative, radical Marxist, and
liberal internationalist orientations, whereas the latter comprises traditional historical,
modern dialectical and analytical/empirical preferences for epistemology. For Alker and
Biersteker, it is through the joint impact of these two triads that “major ongoing research
approaches in international relations can be more fully understood.” While their major
call is for a (self-)reflexive discipline of IR, it is the pathways they point to in the context
of epistemological-ideological combinations that is of much relevance in approaching IR
as a social science whose development cannot be separated from real world political
events and processes. As a consequence, it is only natural that they renounce “timeless
universal concepts” and advocate the need to take the socio-political context into account.
65
While they underline certain close connections between traditional approaches and
conservatism, or dialectical positions and Marxism, the authors are also careful to point
to differing amalgamations, for instance the non-Marxist dialectic approaches that are
influenced by a liberal internationalist orientation – as an example of which they refer to
their own situation.
79
The point about the interrelationship between epistemological choices and
ideological positions was further developed in an article by Jennifer M. Welsh that looked
at the role of conservative ideology in the area of IR. While being careful in not equating
realist approaches with conservatism, she nonetheless suggested that a quest for order,
supported by a preference for tradition and a skeptical outlook, has been the marker both
of conservatism and IR's realism.
80
A similar critique was raised by Piki Ish-Shalom when
he located in the discipline an interwovenness between realism, elitism, and
conservatism. This triptych existed, in his opinion, in both the classical realism of
Morgenthau and in Waltzian neo-realism. Again, skepticism regarding human nature was
an eminent feature of their common position. According to Ish-Shalom, “[t]heorizing
arises from ideological convictions that affect the process of determining which data are
relevant, which are less so, and which have no relevance at all.”
81
In that framework
however, continuing on the basis of the ideological-epistemological duality presented by
Alker and Biersteker provides a better way of overcoming the necessarily one-way
outlook which would originate from an exclusive focus on politics or epistemology alone.
79 Alker and Biersteker, 1984: 137-139.
80 Welsh, 2003.
81 Ish-Shalom, 2006: 441.
66
It is in this context that the present study's focus on transnational dynamics through an
analytical framework beyond scientific-political differentiations and “science-internal”
vs. ”science external” accounts offers an alternative that aims to advance this scholarship
by employing it in the German and French cases. This approach rejects the separation of
these factors.
Based on these assumptions, another essential dimension is not to constrain oneself
exclusively to the theoretical realm. The discipline has to be perceived in broader aspects
than merely its production of theories. For this reason, extending the ideological-
epistemological effects of their joint dynamics to the general structure of IR scholarship
provides a convenient tool for dealing with its disciplinary history in a more perceptive
fashion. Such an approach also goes beyond the exclusivity claims of discipline-internal
narratives that see in “outside” events and processes forces that do not have much of an
impact on IR. Contrary to these positions, thus, implementing an accepted duality of
dynamics, in the form of both ideological and epistemological origins, gives the
possibility of dealing with the discipline's history without turning to just one aspect.
82
It
will be in this regard that the case studies of German and French IR are developed with
an analytical framework that shows the co-constitutive interaction of the political and
scientific fields without a hermetically sealed separation between them. Such an approach
82 An interesting work on the history of IR theory is found in Knutsen, 1997. By providing an extensive
history of IR's theoretical trajectory that starts with an analysis of Western political theorizing, Knutsen
ties IR to earlier periods marked by Renaissance thought. In the 20
th
century, he connects realist IR to
conservatism, rationalism to liberalism, and revolutionism to radicalism, thus presenting a framework
that resembles proposals of Ish-Shalom and Welsh. Another study (Kleinschmidt, 2000) offers a more
thematic analysis, talking about the mechanicist, biologist, functionalist, and realist periods that marked
IR's theoretical trajectory. My approach differs from these works in its focus on institutions and scholar-
agents, in line with my approach that does not prioritize the role of theories in IR's development.
67
also serves to overcome the “inside” and “outside” distinctions that dominate the
disciplinary history frames.
The most significant suggestion of Alker and Biersteker for further advances in the
discipline relates to the necessity of an “international savoir faire that incorporates a
broader and deeper kind of political and epistemological self-consciousness” through
which the way for “real knowledge cumulation” in IR can be opened.
83
This demand for
disciplinary plurality as well as for more interest in approaches different from one's own
provides a call for turning IR into a more effective social science in the sense of leaving
behind its parochialisms. While their article deals with the problems of the discipline in
its American IR context, later works testified to the continuation of this problem in other
parts of the world. Either there has been too much imitation of the US (as discussed in the
last section of this chapter, the Italian case can come to mind), or there is a tendency to
undertake one's own studies without considering what is happening in the discipline's
global position, for which the French IR community is given, in my opinion incorrectly
(and which I explain in the relevant chapter) as an example thereof (also see this chapter's
last section below). This is not necessarily a problem limited to the West. An article by a
Chinese scholar, for example, suggests that a Chinese School of IR would “set the
sustainable and harmonious relations” between nations, states, and non-state actors. By
calling current IR theories vulgar, Yiwei Wang asserts that the new Chinese School would
occupy the center in the pedigree of IR theories, surrounded by and challenging neo-
Gramscian Marxism, realisms, liberalisms, and English School, world society
83 Alker and Biersteker, 1984: 138.
68
approaches, postmodernism, and feminism. This provides a rather exaggerated claim that
shows the dangers of overimposing one's own worldview on the whole disciplinary
structure, something IR is already familiar with through its American-centeredness.
84

Steve Smith's various analyses regarding US hegemony in the discipline extend the
focus to IR's geography in the context of its disciplinary development. The danger of a
US-centered IR could also weaken the American scholarship, as “the U.S study of
international relations, by adopting an essentially rational-choice account of the
relationship between interests and identity, runs the risk of failing to understand other
cultures and identities and thereby become more and more a U.S. discipline far removed
from the agendas and concerns of other parts of the world.”
85
Smith sees US domination
mainly as a result of its great size in terms of scholars and the American primacy in
theory production, in addition to the consequent leadership in the discipline's journals,
86

aspects that one sees repeated by European IR scholars when explaining the scholarly
state of their American counterparts.
When thinking about what should count as part of IR, his approach supplies a
broader perspective by asking for more inclusion. Smith's critique derives from US IR's
assumptions of disciplinary core status that in turn pave the way for “engag[ing] in the
politics of forgetting its own role in the practices of international relations.” This leads to
“objectifying and reifying some aspects of the social world,” accusing “some approaches
and methodologies as not being 'serious social science.'” On a more general level, Smith
84 For European cases see Friedrichs, 2004; for China see Wang, 2007.
85 Smith, 2002: 68.
86 Smith, 2002: 81ff.
69
recognizes the problem as one being of IR's self-perception, as it is interpreted to have
“focused on politics as a realm of social activity separate from economics.”
87
Following
this premise, it could be more appropriate to understand the problem of this suggested
distinction between the “outside” reality and the discipline itself as something that goes
beyond the current fashion of rational choice or even the way US scholarship deals with
the challenges of being an IR community that lives in a country with superpower status.
The sources of the imposed duality have to be sought within the broader frame of the
discipline. One way of locating them would be to look back at the origins of the study of
world politics, as discussed above. In that context, IR as a way of studying the
international was in the eyes of many a social scientific solution to the challenges of
modern international society in the later stages of its emergence. Therefore, a quest for
solving the problem of war, or of international order, resulted in the later institutionalized
version of world politics which later generations would know under the name of
International Relations/IR. The historical analyses in chapter III as well as the case
studies of 20
th
century German and French IR in chapters IV and V point to the influence
of such thinking in non-US contexts also, showing the relevance of disciplinary history
for carrying critical studies beyond the usual American framework.
When one approaches the social sciences as an area influenced by their national
context, this is not only due to the way their development was connected to the
empowerment of nation-states and the emerging quest for societal knowledge, but also
because of the consequent connections that resulted from world political events. In the
87 Smith, 2002: 83.
70
later context of the Cold War, Bruce Kuklick asserted that many scholars would just
provide an ex post facto justification for the political choices made by the government or
the military.
88
Others used a more cautious approach. According to David Engerman, for
instance, analyses should give scholars more agency, and not see them as mere analysts
paid for their expected services. The reason for this alternative understanding is explained
by the fact that a significant amount of studies in that era reached conclusions diverging
from (or even opposing) the original expectations of units that had initially requested
these studies.
89
However, this study presents a frame of analysis in which such national
contexts are shown not to be disconnected from the more influential forces interacting in
the form of transnational dynamics. For this reasons, it is more difficult to approach
German or French IR as mere reflections of their national political authorities. The case
studies offer an alternative picture that arises from the hybrid IR communities in these
two countries, ones shaped by the intervention of American foundations (and officials),
the domestic scholarly and political actors as well as the historical legacy of their
university structures and disciplinary traditions.
An important point that needs clarification when undertaking a disciplinary history of
IR is to state the degree to which the more recent understanding of the discipline will
shape one's approach. At this juncture, the role and weight of theory plays a distinct role.
In line with other social sciences, IR has witnessed a major theorization effort taking
place mainly in the post-World War II period. The well-researched volume edited by
88 See Kuklick, 2006.
89 Engerman, 2010.
71
Guilhot, for instance, took it more or less for granted that the general idea of IR has to be
concomitant with (the) IR theory/theories. It is based upon such a promise that he and his
colleagues look at the way Rockefeller Foundation co-supported the birth of a
“scientifically manageable” theory of IR. Whereas the initial results of that Rockefeller-
sponsored project were seen as lacking major success, with no single view dominating
the meeting,
90
its consequences become obvious when one extends the perspective to the
later decades that witnessed the rise of theoretical approaches. It is even possible to
interpret the classical approach defended by the members of the English School in the
mid-1960s as a last barrier against the general quest for theoretical-scientific forms of
IR.
91
However, it is also important to add that the Rockefeller-supported meeting was a
means of creating an IR that would provide an answer to calls for more scientific
approaches in the discipline. In this context, Kenneth Thompson, a leading foundation
official would contact the British professor Herbert Butterfield so that a similar project on
IR studies would take place in the UK, establishing in this process the British Committee
on the Theory of International Politics.
92
Therefore, the foundation's main aim was not
creating a strictly scientific IR but one that could face the more behavioralist tendencies
in the US.
As a prominent member of this school, Hedley Bull would write in 1972 that “the
term 'theory of international relations' became fashionable only in the mid-1950s, and
90 See the appendix of the volume with all the varying reports presented by the meeting's participants like
Morgenthau, as well as individual chapters discussing the meeting's importance in Guilhot, 2010.
91 See the articles-based debate between Hedley Bull and Morton Kaplan reprinted in Knorr and Rosenau,
1969.
92 See Dunne, 1998.
72
then only in the US: even now the term often provokes puzzlement and incomprehension
elsewhere in the world.”
93
His explanation underlines the US-related nature of this quest
for theory in the discipline, the reasons for which one could find in Stanley Hoffmann's
exploration into IR's nature as an American social science. In this context, the quest for
applied science has not only been an important part of the American society, but also of
US governments that started to perceive themselves, and were also perceived, as a
superpower in the post-1945 era. Therefore, a theoretical social science was something
that could fulfill all these goals.
94
The classical position against desires for scientificity
was the English School approach with its skepticism toward assumptions of “scientific
progress,” as its representatives reminded their colleagues that one was in fact dealing
with “a field in which progress of a strictly scientific sort does not take place.”
95
A similar
critique is found in Martin Wight's famous 1966 article, titled “Why is there no
international theory?” While he explicitly stated that his usage of international theory
does not refer to “the theory of international relations,” his general conclusions showing a
preference for philosophy of history over international theory actually pointed to a similar
understanding of theory's role.
96
For Wight, theorization was not a possibility for the
sphere of the international, but only for the national framework.
Starting from these positions, this study does not limit itself to perceiving the IR
discipline as a project that takes its shape merely on the basis of its theoretical features.
93 Bull, 1995 [1972]: 184.
94 Hoffmann, 1977.
95 Bull, 1995 [1972]: 204.
96 Wight, 1995 [1966]: 15.
73
Thus, theoretical fashions, paradigm discussions, or for that matter, the supposed
existence of “great debates” are not the focus of this study.
97
When looking to the German
and French IR and the way the disciplinary communities in these countries progressed
towards an institutionalized form within the given university structures (themselves
undergoing constant change), the focus will go beyond the reproduction of theoretical
debates. I aim to underline how individual scholarly and institutional academic
interactions shaped their respective IR communities under conditions of general
contingency and transnational dynamics. Theories' role in explaining these processes of
gradual development will be limited to the extent of their relevance in the respective
dimensions of scholarly and institutional preferences. At the same time, my goal is to use
the elaboration of German and French disciplinary formation processes as a means for
pointing to the inherent divergences that have a continuous impact on their respective IR
communities, creating variations that cannot easily be overcome so that a global or even
Americanized IR discipline could arise.
II.4. Plurality of IR: Difference and Dissent in the Discipline
What is the relevance of different types of IR? Even if one accepts the plurality of
IR, it is still questionable whether going beyond a US-American IR provides any
benefits. In this regard, I use an approach that is derived from two recent works focusing
on the necessity and functions of dissent and difference. While the two books underline
97 For the most comprehensive analysis of IR's supposed first great debate between realist and idealist
scholars see the contributions in Schmidt, 2012.
74
the significance of these two features for societies, it is possible to use these ideas also
when looking at IR's scholarly community. This section provides a short explanation of
the advantages of focusing on difference, and implicitly on the benefits of having
different ways of “doing IR.” Following from the previous section's explorations of the
necessities and advantages of a Europe-focused disciplinary history, it becomes possible
here to extend this frame to the more comprehensive structure of difference's significance
for IR, whereby not only ideational-theoretical, but more important for the present study,
the institutional and scholarly trajectories are emphasized.
In his book Why Societies Need Dissent Cass Sunstein offers a helpful argument that
underlines the importance of dissent in groups and societies. Although his arguments are
used primarily in the context of American society, a small shift enables one to understand
the useful role that dissent plays in academic communities also. This function of dissent
was a point acknowledged by the Kuhnian understanding of paradigms according to
which a new generation was supposed to distinguish itself by disapproving of earlier
ways of scholarly undertaking and presenting its new tools for research and study.
In the context of Sunstein's book, one of the most relevant points concerns the idea of
conformity and its comfortable position for a group or the society at large. However, it is
only via dissent that these very units can broaden and revise their initial perspectives.
Furthermore, the way social cascades – that is “large-scale social movements in which
many people end up thinking something or doing something because of the beliefs or
actions of a few 'early movers,' who greatly influence those who follow”
98
– function
98 Sunstein, 2003: 54.
75
shows us the dangers of remaining fixed to a given scholarly point, be it a certain
theoretical approach or a definite way of undertaking research or determining methods to
be employed. Connected to this is the idea of reputational cascades in which people
follow a group's generally shared idea even if they individually understand the problems
with the position. Joining the crowd is just a means of protecting one's reputation among
the peers.
99

In The Difference (subtitled How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups,
Firms, Schools, and Societies), Scott Page provides a similar argument based on the
assumption that diversity can be more significant than ability. Here, cognitive differences
are put together under the label of diversity where they include not only diversity in
perspectives but also in interpretations as well as in heuristics and predictive models.
100

The general conclusion reached by Page is that “cognitively diverse” groups “perform
better than more homogenous ones,” while “collections of people with diverse cognitive
toolboxes and diverse fundamental preferences … locate better outcomes and produce
more conflict.”
101
Therefore, the very existence of diversity can help in reaching better
outcomes, if the simultaneously inherent conflict potential can be subdued.
Both authors mention the concept of groupthink as a significant threat that stands in
the way of reaching better outcomes.
102
While IR as a discipline has been quite familiar
with this latter concept,
103
it could make good use of the two approaches discussed here in
99 Sunstein, 2003: 74.
100 Page, 2007: 7.
101 Page, 2007: 299.
102 More broadly in Sunstein, 2003: 140ff and Page, 2007: 50.
103 For IR's groupthink see Janis, 1974.
76
analyzing its own conditions. First, if we carry the explanations of Sunstein and Page into
the realm of IR scholarship, it becomes possible to more clearly witness the immanent
threats of an IR dominated by US scholarship. If, for instance, we take into consideration
the conditions prevalent in US universities, then it means the financial situation of the
scholar, tied with his/her wish for tenure-track positions, can easily pave the way for
reputational cascades. This signifies these scholars would prefer not to be seen standing
in opposition to powerful scholarly fashions, accepting mainstream theories or popular
research methods in spite of potential alternative ideas they may hold. Such a preference
obviously precludes any effective change, leaving only a limited playing field delimited
by the gatekeepers to an imagined range between the rationalists and the reflectivists.
104

A second point relates to the actual capacities of US IR due to its power arising from
financial resources, academic size, think tank and government connections, features that
were always prominent in the American context.
105
In this regard, Page's focus on
diversity's advantages over ability comes to mind. All the stated benefits of the US IR
structure could be challenged once one considers the lack of diversity, notwithstanding
the role non-US scholars played and continue to play as participants in the American IR
epistemic community.
104 For just such a call of limited options see (American) International Studies Association (ISA)
presidential speech by Keohane, 1988. In this speech Robert Keohane presented a widely accepted
framework according to which scholars following the general “guidelines” of positivists social sciences
were rationalists (including mainstream realists and liberals), whereas scholars with more critical
approaches who distanced themselves from a too positivist understanding of science were called
reflectivists (including feminists, Critical Theory scholars, post modernists).
105 Hoffmann, 1977.
77
Under these conditions, it becomes essential to acknowledge the need for a discipline
that is open to diversity and difference. If the conditions for its realization cannot be
provided in the US alone, then it is evident that a global opening shaped by the various
geocultural epistemologies around the world has to contribute to the discipline.
Parochialism and self-perpetuating positions can only be challenged if one does not
ignore IR's non-US communities. It this in this framework that I propose to turn to two
cases of continental European IR. Understanding how the discipline was born and
developed in its German and French versions can contribute to contextualizing IR as a
discipline within the modern social sciences and to comprehend its functions, while going
beyond the boundaries prevailing in US scholarship.
A focus on institutional and scholarly (agential) aspects of IR's continental European
developmental trajectory can serve as a means for rejecting the American disciplinary
position's taken-for-granted status. Different practices and varying historical pathways
can illustrate directions in which non-American worldviews and distinct choices have
been making an impact. At the same time, a broader perspective based on the inclusion of
transnational dynamics paves the way for understanding how different pathways and the
hybrid outcomes of these contingent developments demonstrate the relevance of non-
singularity in the discipline of IR, rejecting analyses that interpret the overall discipline of
IR as an American enterprise.
78
II.5. Europeanizing IR: The Discipline and its European Dimensions
In the next three chapters, I turn to the disciplinary history of IR in its European
context, starting with the interwar and early post-Second World War role of the
International Studies Conference (ISC) and then focusing on German and French IR's
trajectories, mainly in the temporal frame emphasizing the 1930s-1970s period in
consideration of discipline's gradual establishment during these years. First, it is
important to take note of relevant scholarship in IR which has provided significant
contributions in this area of research. I discuss here recent studies which have given birth
to important insights about IR's developmental trajectory in Europe. Underlining their
most useful propositions and the analyses they developed, I also explain how this study
differs from these earlier works in regard of its scope and the framework upon which it is
developed.
Looking to the state of scholarship that deals with European IR, one notices that it is
a quite narrow one. Although the post-Cold War period has witnessed a rise in relevant
studies, it is still possible to assert that this aspect has been rather neglected. Certain
reports have provided useful insights thanks to their ability to capture the conditions that
prevailed in the discipline at given times. Recently, monographic research on German and
French IR has become available to a more detailed extent.
A general and country-specific view for the 1970s came from a work commissioned
by the Ford Foundation, pointing thus to the interests of US philanthropies in advancing
the discipline in line with its American position.
106
The report looked at the case of
106 See Ford Foundation, 1976.
79
International Relations studies in six European countries, including France and Germany,
and is a helpful source for the case studies. However, these reports were rather
heterogeneous as they tried both to list all IR-relevant institutions in these countries,
discussing their research areas and to summarize all contemporary research done in these
European IR communities, including non-university think-tank structures.
Before the Ford reports the UNESCO had also initiated state of the art surveys, such
as the 1954 report prepared by Charles A. W. Manning who brought together the answers
to a general survey sent to scholars from different countries.
107
In the interwar period, the
IIIC, the predecessor to UNESCO, was engaged in similar projects that presented general
overviews of IR studies which were undertaken by its organ for IR studies, that is the
International Studies Conference (ISC). Its two conferences and their consequent reports
will be discussed in the next chapter, providing direct insights about scholars' self-
perceptions regarding IR's status as an emerging (candidacy for a) discipline.
An intense scholarly engagement with IR's European developments begins only in
the 1990s. It was in that period the European Consortium for Political Research's (ECPR)
Standing Group on International Relations (SGIR) was able to organize continental
conferences which generated a meeting point for European scholars of IR. A possible
reason for this late blossoming can be found in the atmosphere of the post-Cold War era,
a point in time that was supposed to inaugurate another global relevance for the “old
continent.” Following half a century of relative isolation or ignorance, the idea was that
107 See Manning, 1954.
80
the hour of Europe has come again. These initial awakenings paved the way for studies
that turned their gaze on the state of IR in Europe.
At the start of the century, Knud Erik Jørgensen's article that saw in “continental IR
theory ... the best kept secret” of the discipline provided an important reference point in
terms of IR's self-reflexivity in the European context. By providing a model that based
itself on a cultural-institutional context, he aimed to go beyond the externalist/internalist
dichotomies prevalent in IR. His alternative model includes three major parts: political
culture of a region or country, the organizational culture of science bureaucracy and
university system in that locality, and the habits, attitudes, professional discourses within
social sciences there. I take these features into consideration in the German and French
cases, engaging them into the two specific axes of institutional and scholarly-agential
dimensions.
While presenting a useful frame for understanding the various theoretical approaches
that had dominated European IR in the earlier decades, Jørgensen's focus also clarified
the lack of the much emphasized “great debates” in European IR, if one allows for its
very existence suggested by the older traditional historiographical mainstream.
108
For
him, the possibility of an Anglo-American vs. continental European divergence was
there, and one of the main reasons for this was rooted in the fact that continental debates
differed from the IR mainstream in the US and the UK. Not to be forgotten was the role
of the English language for the Anglo-American sphere as American and British scholars
108 Jørgensen, 2000: 13-18.
81
ignored non-English scholarship, which was a common linguistic difference (up until
recently) of their continental counterparts.
109
In 2003, Jørgensen would extend his search for a richer IR community onto the
global stage. His call for a “six continents social science” of IR came in the context of
ongoing preparations for the World International Studies Committee's first conference,
which took place two years later in Istanbul. It was important that he did not overlook the
1938 Prague conference, which had been organized by ISC – an organization which is the
subject of analysis in the following chapter. Jørgensen dealt with the trajectory of the
discipline by pointing to its complicated relationship with politics. He referred to British
liberals, who (as members of the Pax Britannica) were interpreted as having led to the
founding of IR. In the post-1945 era, in line with the Hoffmann analysis, it could be said
it was the US turn for global and disciplinary leadership. However, he also showed that
“systematic studies analyzing the deeds (and vices) of relations between IR and different
disciplinary environments are very rare.” It is useful to recognize that law, sociology,
history or philosophy can be disciplines inclusive of IR. While political science
incorporated it in the US case, in the UK one could more easily speak of a separation, or
at least the failure of political science to turn IR into a subdiscipline.
110
Such differing
degrees of political science and IR interaction also influence the present study, which
starts by focusing on International Relations as a distinct discipline, but allows for its
merger into political science as a subdiscipline at certain phases of its developmental
109 Jorgensen, 2000: 26-28, 31.
110 Jørgensen, 2003: 333.
82
trajectory in continental Europe. This explains why I provide at the same time detailed
analyses of German and French political science in order to explain simultaneous
developments in the case of IR.
In 2006, Jørgensen, joined by his colleague Tonny Brems Knudsen edited an
important volume. Titled International Relations in Europe, this book brought together
various scholars with chapters on national and regional IR communities in Europe,
expanded by more general analyses that included a conclusion written by Brian Schmidt.
In their joint introduction to this work, Jørgensen and Knudsen kept a model that
resembles the cultural-institutional framework provided by Jørgensen's 2000 article.
Thus, the political culture, the organizational culture and the “internal” elements of habits
and professional discourse are of relevance. In the German and French cases, I will
consider the academic-institutional dimension and scholars' (agential) contributions under
the general socio-political conditions that were all open to interaction with transnational
dynamics triggered by non-French and non-German actors' active engagement, that is the
American foundations as well US government officials and scholars with American
experiences.
In the present study, I will deal with these factors without necessarily following the
proposed tripartite division of these scholars. As will become more visible in the case
study chapters, on many levels such pre-set analytical categorizations lose their clarity.
The dimension of transnationality provides an important challenge in this context , as its
dynamics can weaken the hermetic boundaries provided by the political, organizational,
83
and scholarly-level divisions. If the influence from abroad and the nationally determined
forces interact, and if their diversified impact in turn shapes the disciplinary structure,
then the question arises to what extent the specific elements are distinct from each other.
In the case of their third dimension, the habits and professional discourse, Jørgensen and
Knudsen state their model continues on the frames provided by Brian Schmidt's approach
of looking at the academic discourse. The reason for this following is that “political
culture seems unable to explain very much of the tendency in some places to treat theory
as a fetish, representing the highest and most valuable form of knowledge.”
111
However, a
turn to the US case would make it possible to counter this claim by pointing to the
ideational connections that shaped American IR. Stanley Hoffmann's explanations for the
American tendency for applied science that can be reached via coherent theoretical
developments on the one hand, the Cold War-affected scholarly work for the
governmental and military establishment on the other, testify to the weakness of isolated
internalist narratives about the discipline's advancement. These studies highlight the
political and scientific interwovenness, which also plays a decisive role in continental
Europe under conditions of transnationality.
112
The authors provide a rather skeptical approach with regard to the question of IR's
origins, as they think “that the search for origin is essentially futile business, although
very functional in terms of identity-building.”
113
As I will point to when discussing the
111 Jørgensen and Knudsen, 2006: 6.
112 See Hoffmann, 1977; for examples of such Cold War works see again Kuklick, 2006 and Solovey,
2001.
113 Jørgensen and Knudsen, 2006: 7.
84
more historically intended approach of Torbjørn Knutsen at the start of the next chapter,
for practical purposes, origins carry a significant weight. It is only after these are
determined (according to clearly defined criteria) that one can turn to presenting the
developmental trajectory of the discipline in various national or regional contexts. It is in
this regard that the following chapter (chapter III) can be approached, taking into account
the historical framework it provides.
In 2004, a book completely devoted to European IR provided another contribution.
Jörg Friedrichs' European Approaches to International Relations Theory had a narrower
focus. While his analysis built upon the nature of IR in three continental European cases,
French, Italian and Scandinavian ones, his general approach did not originate from
research on disciplinary history. Rather, he chose to find certain characteristics of these
three countries/regions and then turn his attention to recent theorizing taking place in
these localities. A direct engagement with the broader developmental trajectories with
detailed analyses of their specific features was not provided.
His major analysis concerned the relationship of these cases towards the US model of
IR, which was (set as) more or less the ideal model. Whereas the French were interpreted
to ignore the Americans and just go on with their isolated and perhaps introverted
research (what Friedrichs categorizes as academic self-reliance), the Italians were, in
their turn, just imitating their US counterparts (representing, in his terms, a resigned
marginality). The praise was left for the Scandinavian IR community which was shown to
have succeeded in establishing a viable cooperation with American IR scholarship,
85
without necessarily becoming mere reflectors of approaches generated by the former. It
was in this framework that the Nordic semi-periphery (in his analysis, the European IR
communities in general are in that position with regard to the US center) had managed to
reach the global market of ideas and concepts in the discipline via their capacity, in his
terms, for multilateral research cooperation.
The continuing American impact on IR scholarship is due to the role of English
language as a modern lingua franca, the editorial selection policies that prefer American
style texts, and the overall size of the US community. For Friedrichs, “the prevailing self-
image of International Relations as an American social science is itself an important
stabilizer of American hegemony.”
114
Important also are his assertions that the main
disciplinary histories of IR are not correctly reflecting the development of the discipline
in its Western European context. Such a picture is not disconnected from the useful way
in which “the standard account of disciplinary history works as a powerful social
construction.” It is in this regard that US IR reaches its predominant position by daily
reproductions of its power. Interestingly, Friedrichs asserts that there is no need for
Europeans to challenge the US dominance in the discipline because “hegemony is not
necessarily and always a bad thing.”
115
However, such a suggestion overlooks the fact that
a hegemonic position also serves to narrow the existing confines of the discipline, thus
weakening the possibility of an IR with a viable plurality. As shown when discussing two
significant works focusing on the important contributions of dissidence and difference
114 Friedrichs, 2004: 1-2.
115 Friedrichs, 2004: 14-16.
86
(by Sunstein and Page), it is thanks to constant innovation and divergence of ideas that
not only societies but also scholarly communities can manage to stay up-to-date and to
undergo intermittent processes of widening their perspectives.
Friedrichs asserts that “there is a fit between the intellectual hegemony of American
IR and the realities of power politics. The USA is the one and only country with the
capacity to project power on a truly global scale; it seems natural for American IR to set
the intellectual agenda about international power as well.”
116
While this suggestion about
the connection between the ideational and political dimensions of world politics and IR
points to issues raised in this study, Friedrichs also speculates about the possibility of a
Eurodiscipline of IR. He approaches this concept cautiously, seeing no unified model that
could be generated from individual national levels, as “it is problematic to aggregate the
different intellectual environments within which European IR scholars operate into a joint
IR community.” The chance for an alternative, nonetheless, still exists. An emerging
Eurodiscipline would need, in his opinion, “a revised account of disciplinary history.” It
is at this juncture that Friedrichs sees possibilities to face the American hegemony in the
discipline, as disciplinary history can have a certain function in challenging the usual
accounts of IR as a more-or-less American social science.
117
In the light of this, the
present study's case studies of German and French IR can be understood as an effort to
establish such a separate focus on IR in continental Europe.
116 Friedrichs, 2004: 17.
117 Friedrichs, 2004: 19-21.
87
An engagement with the idea of Eurodiscipline also emerges in a study by Osmo
Apunen, in which he discusses the European focus on IR and more broadly world politics
(and its study) in a larger 20
th
century context. For him, it is in the aftermath of the
Second World War that “American professional practices entered into different European
countries,” meeting not necessarily a warm reception in these localities. However, he also
refers to Finland or Sweden that had already started to offer courses on International
Politics in the 1920s, closely following the British lead that derived from the
establishment of a chair at Aberystwyth.
118
Thus, it becomes clear that the pre-1945 years
witnessed European scholarship in this area. An important point that is left out of his
analysis, and which is of relevance for the present study, concerns the role of interwar
developments shaped by the intensive engagement of US foundations for advancing IR
studies in Europe. This aspect as well as the post-war continuation of their involvement
has to be understood within the broader framework upon which I develop my analyses,
that of transnationality. Such an extended analytical tool paves the way for presenting a
more comprehensive disciplinary history of IR's European history.
Last but not least, two works deserve special note for the way they turned their
attention to IR's disciplinary structure in continental Europe. One of them, a 2008
dissertation written by Henrik Breitenbauch at the University of Copenhagen, concerns
the French case. To paraphrase Shakespeare, one could say – in a positive manner this
time – that “something is fresh in the state of Denmark,” at least when it comes to new
analyses of IR's disciplinary history in Europe. From Wæver to Jørgensen, and in turn to
118 Opunen, 1993: 2-3.
88
a PhD thesis on French IR, it seems that the Danish community is showing its active
participation in IR scholarship in this realm of sociology and history of the IR discipline.
While Breitenbauch presents a very detailed study, dealing with the reasons for
French distinction in IR, it is mainly through analyzing the linguistic, especially
rhetorical, skills and differences therein between the French and the US/UK/English-
writing IR that he approaches the issue. For this reason, his work, which I will refer to
more broadly in the French chapter, only focuses on the disciplinary structure as a side
issue. His perspective is one that underlines the way the French writing style of
dissertation (not to confuse with dissertation as thesis) generates a lesser degree of
adaption to international US-dominant IR scholarship. The reason is that American ways
of essay writing (that is, papers) present an obstacle to French authors’ international
access to (American-dominated) academic journals because their articles are developed
and written with a different purpose in mind, not considering the more influential global-
US standards based on American styles of writing articles.
119

This different focal point of Breitenbauch's approach is made clear when he
explicitly writes that “[t]he question on how to account for the origins of French IR
cannot be answered comprehensively,” as his dissertation deals mainly with the way such
form- and style-related differences of French scholarly world have shaped the discipline
there. In this regard, it is looking at various stylistic elements like the French way of
writing essays/articles, that is dissertation, and at differences between French and
American social science paradigmatic variations that constitute his research subject. As a
119 Breitenbauch, 2008.
89
consequence, the present study distinguishes itself by providing the first detailed study of
French IR's developmental trajectory by focusing on its institutional and scholarly-
agential dimensions.
The other important contribution comes from Katharina Burges who wrote a history
of German IR's developmental trajectory that covers the period until the early 1960s,
starting from the early 20
th
century.
120
She supplies a broad narrative that deals with the
way German institutes took shape, and clarifies various scholars' involvement in the
process, contributing in important ways to the scholarship. Burges' study is indeed a very
detailed one, and provides a useful source for my own research. However, it differs from
my analysis of German IR's historical pathways in not combining the institutional and
scholarly (agential) dimensions of the discipline and by not focusing as directly on the
impact of the transnational dynamics that have led the newly emerging (West) German IR
to a contingent path. In addition, I employ a disciplinary history approach that includes an
intensive textual analysis turning in many instances to the debates that shaped German IR
which distinguished it from the American and other IR communities. My position that
acknowledges the relevance of transnational dynamics and the emerging hybridity, in
addition to offering a comparative setting for understanding German IR's 20
th
century
trajectory, aims to present new explanations in a broader analytical framework. An
intensive engagement with divisions emerging within the West German scholarly
community also clarifies my focus that is based on the wide-ranging influence of
transnational dynamics in this process.
120 Burges, 2004.
90
Burges offers an interesting conclusion, as she mentions the significance of
democracy for IR's development in the US and UK cases. She tries to explain the reasons
of German IR's weaker status as a field of study by suggesting the existence of a possible
German Sonderweg also in the case of the discipline,
121
while also pointing to the limited
sovereignty of the West German state as another cause of IR's less developed state in
Germany.
122
With regard to her claims, I want to emphasize an alternative perspective. In
this context, the French comparison will play an important role, as IR scholarship in
France can be similarly interpreted to be part of a rather weak discipline. Such a
comparison enables one in turn to reject the democracy, special circumstances and
sovereignty claims to a considerable extent. The reasons for the discipline's late-comer
status in France and Germany and their concomitant delay in becoming academically
established disciplines have to be sought elsewhere. This will be the subject of the case
study chapters, which underline the effects of transnational dynamics in generating
contingent pathways for IR's developmental trajectory. In this context, it is the emergence
of unforeseen hybrid IR communities that determines the shape of the general picture.
Before analyzing the developments that marked interwar IR, and the general
functions of American foundations supportive of IR's advancement, it is useful to
emphasize the main points presented in this chapter. I discussed the most important
studies of IR's disciplinary history and stressed the lack of works in the continental
121 The concept of Sonderweg (special path) refers in a historiographical context to the idea that Germany
had a distinct process of modernization that differentiated it historically from its Western neighbors
such as Britain and France. Nowadays much contested, this idea was a broadly used means of
explaining the German history leading to the Wilhelmine authoritarianism and the Nazi dictatorship.
122 Burges, 2004: 183-191.
91
European framework. A critical study of IR's European developmental trajectory emerges
as an important means of expanding scholars' self-perceptions by demonstrating the
interwoven nature of political and historical processes that mark the discipline's
emergence and institutionalization and by pointing to the divergent pathways IR has
taken in various contexts. The general claim is that disciplinary history of European IR
communities is relevant as it questions the mainstream narratives of IR's American
uniqueness. I stress that the dissent and difference immanent to the discipline can be
better clarified by understanding IR's diversity even within its Western context. For this
reason, the present study aims to connect critical disciplinary histories of IR to a study of
European IR, using this framework to explain the discipline's transnationally shaped
nature and the factors that generated its hybridity in German and French cases.
92
CHAPTER III. IR IN EUROPE: DISCIPLINARY ORIGINS, THE
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES CONFERENCE AND US FOUNDATIONS
In this chapter, I provide explanations that set the context in which to discuss the
separate developmental trajectories of IR studies in Germany and France in the 20
th

century. By pointing to broader aspects of the discipline's historical development, and
emphasizing the role played by a much neglected interwar organization, the International
Studies Conference (ISC), as well as clarifying the general features of American
philanthropies (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Ford Foundation) with regard to their support for the development of
social sciences, in this case more specifically of (political science and) IR, it becomes
possible to gain a better understanding of transnational dynamics whose impact shaped
the discipline in continental Europe.
The present chapter aims to highlight three points. First, it shows that IR had roots in
the late 19
th
century as an intellectual project, although this did not mean that its academic
institutionalization and disciplinary standing were settled until the mid-20
th
century. This
becomes most clearly visible in the case of the ISC. The debates during ISC conferences
in the interwar years illustrate the lack of IR as an established discipline, as its
interdisciplinary character and non-departmentalized university structure weakened calls
for greater advances. Second, a general analysis of American foundations explains the
reasons of their interest in IR as an emerging area of research (and study). The three big
93
philanthropies aimed to generate conditions favorable for (global) reform while
continuing to support a world dominated by Western powers. Such a project necessitated
a significant intellectual investment that included knowledge production in related areas.
IR was an ideal candidate for this, as advancing this subject meant at the same time
creating new interconnected elites. This connection between Americans and Europeans is
important because such conditions allowed scholars and foundations to cooperate for
longer periods. This ties to the third point which concerns the role of international
scholarly associations in the interwar and post-1945 period. The ISC and post-1945
international scholarly associations and organizations made it possible for scholars to
interact, and served as multipliers for the expansion of dominant ideas of IR. Even in the
interwar years, the numerical power of continental European participants at ISC
conferences would be balanced by American and British scholars' impact thanks to more
advanced institutionalization of IR studies in the US and UK. The post-1945 period
witnessed the standardization of political science and IR through the American-directed
International Political Science Association (IPSA) and, more broadly, through UNESCO.
Transnational dynamics are visible in this context as national and international
associations interacted with governments and scholars in drawing the future path of these
new social sciences in Europe (and beyond).
I first discuss an important analysis by the Norwegian IR scholar Torbjørn Knutsen
who refers to the late 19
th
century as IR's actual birth point. While discussions in the
German and French chapters show the greater relevance of the 20
th
century, it is still
94
useful to take into consideration the position developed by Knutsen in order to
understand that IR was not an area of study that came onto the academic stage in a deus
ex machina fashion. Later, I turn to the history of the ISC and its two conferences, 1938
in Prague and 1950 in Windsor. The meeting in the UK was also its last gathering in the
form of a general conference. Both conferences had a shared topic of discussion: the
teaching of IR. Thus, they provide a helpful setting from which to develop the later
analyses in the two country chapters as they provide early insights about IR's disciplinary
capacities as debated by its own scholars. I conclude this chapter by underlining in a
separate section the general characteristics of US philanthropies, referring to their global
interactions so that their German and French involvements (which I discuss in the
country cases) can be understood from a broader perspective.
III.1. Does IR Have an Origin?
A recent case for a chronologically earlier beginning for the discipline was put
forward by Torbjørn Knutsen who spoke of “a lost generation” of IR scholars whose
contributions to the discipline are largely ignored by the later disciplinary self-
understanding prevalent among the members of today's IR community. Similar to earlier
critiques, Knutsen sees the demise of the (until now) dominant myth of IR's origins, with
its major focus on the great debates because it is not able to face revisionist historical
research. In this context, mainstream explanations that see IR's development only in the
mid-20
th
century's idealists vs. realists confrontations are overcome.
123
Instead, he
123 According to the usual narrative of IR's historical development, the discipline took shape via a number
95
advocates the use of a different approach, namely a method of regress, which mainly
consists of tracing the references of earlier major works in the discipline. Obviously,
there should be a point in time at which one has to stop. In Knutsen's opinion, this is the
period around the 1890s because it is marked by a greater number of texts that also
contain an analytical approach, differing from the more descriptive works of earlier
decades.
124

While I will deal with this issue of actual origins of IR, especially when looking at
the relevant German scholarly debates on the origins of the discipline, it is important to
explain why this aspect of foundational specificity plays an essential role. These choices
determine what periods a disciplinary history of IR has to cover. Even if it is based on
only one of the multiple factors such as scholars, literature, concepts, institutions or state
connections, the era one identifies as the formative period shapes profoundly the way the
emerging narrative is presented. As I tried to clarify in the discussion of Hobson's recent
revisionist account of IR's Western origins, it is always important to note the places in
which first trials for a structured study of world politics – the outcome of which would be
the IR discipline – could be witnessed. In this regard, Knutsen's assertion that the early
authors focusing on world politics were mainly from the contemporary great powers like
Great Britain, France, and Germany testifies to the significance of such an understanding.
This reiterates my earlier point about the ties between actual world political power and
of formative waves/debates. The first one is located by many scholars in the 1930s-1940s, and had the
less scholarly inclined idealists who faced their realist colleagues who were prone for more scientific
research (at interested in power instead of values). On the other hand, the sources mentioned in fn. 2
(chapter I) provide a successful rejection of these narratives.
124 Knutsen, 2008: 652.
96
the way this power is substantiated via scholarly studies, in a simultaneous or even ex
post facto way.
Knutsen points to the fact that the early authors were not only academicians from
separate fields such as history, law, and the newly emerging social sciences, but also
journalists, diplomats, and activists, concentrating their research and thought in the areas
of war, wealth, peace, and power.
125
It is therefore possible to perceive these areas as
loosely connected to the ongoing transformation of the era, ranging from the colonial
expansion of the late 19
th
century to questions of sharing world capital. For Knutsen,
security is a common thread of studies undertaken in that period.
With regard to country-specific developments in the area of world political
scholarship, Knutsen mentions the French Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques (ELSP,
founded in 1872) in Paris, whose role will be discussed in detail in the chapter on French
IR. He sees this institute's weight in world political studies decreasing in the later 19
th

century, with a similar comment concerning the social sciences in
Germany in the case of their concept of Staatswissenschaften (sciences of state).
126
The
more relevant studies on world politics derived, according to Knutsen, more from
German historians of the period, including famous names like Leopold von Ranke and
Heinrich von Treitschke. However, as I will demonstrate in both cases, the 20
th
century
witnessed a gradual concentration of world political studies in the domain of IR
125 Knutsen, 2008: 653-654.
126 It is important to underline the broader meaning of the German concept of Wissenschaft. While I
translate it as science or knowledge, it is useful to bear in mind that this word refers to an intensive
scholarly engagement that aims to bring about more knowledge through research.
97
specialists. It is in this regard that my focus on German and French institutions and
scholars of the period will analyze the extent to which IR became a more independent
scholarly enterprise. In the American case, Knutsen sees in the large number of
universities a possibility for more discussion, paving the way for the relevant sections
within the American Political Science Association (founded in 1903) that dealt with
world politics, be it the aspects of international law or politics and colonial affairs. Paul
Reinsch and his early books on world politics are mentioned, as well as the fact that
classes on world politics were taught by him at the University of Wisconsin in the
1900s.
127
This points to the early influence of an independently structured IR discipline in
the US case, explaining also the reasons for its more developed nature.
A general proposition concerning the more advanced state of Anglo-American
scholarship in IR relates to the existence of private sponsorship for debates on world
politics, a reflection of the powerful civil society in these two countries. However, as will
be shown in the case studies, non-governmental influences also played a significant role
in the European IR communities. While it is undeniable that the Garton Foundation
(founded by the rich English businessman Sir Richard Garton in order to promote the
views of Norman Angell following his book The Great Illusion) or Round Table (a group
bringing together elites across the British Empire) contributed much to debates on the
nature of world politics, such undertakings cannot be seen as exclusive Anglo-American
127 Knutsen, 2008: 659-660.
98
enterprises, as the analysis of their European counterparts in consequent chapters will
show.
128

In line with more general historical analyses of IR, Knutsen concludes by accepting
the bigger impact of the First World War in triggering advanced studies of world politics.
Many things written during the war can be counted among the first textbooks of the new
discipline. Nevertheless, he still insists on the earlier impact of the late 19
th
century socio-
economic and political changes on the creation of IR as a distinct area of interest, and
contrasts the issue-wise broader literature of the pre-war period with the interests of the
post-1918 period that were more narrowly limited to war and peace.
129

Knutsen's approach provides a helpful guide in the sense of making the IR
community aware of the fact that earlier studies on world politics were not necessarily of
an academic character; they had a broader field of engagement that aimed to reach the
public opinion, political movements, earlier NGOs, and to connect to newly emerging
institutes of social – and political – sciences. I turn to the issue of disciplinary origins
again during the German IR, by pointing to German scholars' interpretations and analyses
of this issue. First, it is important to discuss the special role played by the International
Studies Conference (ISC), an influential organization that served mainly in the interwar
period as a meeting place for scholars with different backgrounds showing a common
interest in IR studies.
128 Knutsen, 2008: 662-666.
129 Knutsen, 2008: 668.
99
III.2. IR's Forgotten Past: The International Studies Conference (ISC)
In 1938, the International Studies Conference (ISC), the most important organization
bringing together experts on international relations in the interwar period, held its annual
meeting in Prague. The records of this Eleventh Session were published the next year, on
the eve of the Second World War. I will focus on the discussions and presentations held in
Prague in order to underline how European debates extensively shaped the development
of IR. Afterwards, I will engage similarly with the last ISC conference held in Windsor in
1950 and point to important points highlighted throughout the meeting.
These two meetings will provide a useful revision to the prevailing wisdom in IR that
sees the discipline as limited to – using a label proposed by Kalevi Holsti in his study of
the discipline's scholarly publications and impact – an American-British condominium.
130

Debates from the late 1930s and early 1950s show that indeed American and British, or to
use a much favored French expression, Anglo-Saxon approaches have been at the
forefront of efforts to generate a certain way of doing IR. The very fact that both
meetings had British scholars as their rapporteurs can be interpreted as a sign of the
contemporary eminence of UK scholars in the newly emerging study of IR. At that time,
the British IR community had a privileged position due to their already established IR
chairs and their bridging function between the two sides of the North Atlantic. However,
the discussions in these two meetings also demonstrate that continental Europeans were,
in turn, busy coming up with their different explanations and expectations with regard to
130 See Holsti, 1985.
100
a newly emerging scientific undertaking, demonstrating their commitment even in the
earlier phases of IR's disciplinary history.
III.2.a. An Internationalists' International: The origins and features of ISC
The League of Nations' main body on scholarly collaboration was the International
Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC). It included among its members world-
renowned scholars such as Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, and Marie Curie.
131
According
to Daniel Laqua, the main aim of this League of Nations organ was to promote
intellectuals' social relevance by aiming at the creation of a functioning order that could
furthermore help in stabilizing the world of the interwar years.
This organ made an important decision about the relevance of world political studies
in its Fifth Assembly, the resolution underlining “the fundamental importance of
familiarising young people throughout the world with the principles and work of the
League of Nations, and of training the younger generation to regard international
cooperation as the normal method of conducting world affairs.” Following this, a later
establishment, the Paris-based International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC)
was given the secretarial task of realizing just such cooperation by bringing together
various organizations focused on world politics and the study thereof.
132
Alfred Zimmern,
famous as the first professor of International Politics at the Aberystwyth and later
Montague Burton Professor of IR at Oxford, was the deputy director of IIIC,
133
a point of
131 Laqua, 2011: 224.
132 Riemens, 2011: 916.
133 Laqua, 2011: 224 and Riemens, 2011: 921.
101
relevance when thinking of his role as a personal coordinator between this mechanism for
world-wide intellectual cooperation and the co-operation processes of IR scholars.
Initially called the Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International
Relations and founded in 1928 in Berlin, this international organization for collaboration
between IR experts would change its name to International Studies Conference (ISC) in
1933. Members were not governments but national committees that were representing
various organs, mostly scholarly institutes, of their individual countries. In addition to
these direct ISC memberships, individual institutes were to become affiliated members.
For instance, the UK had a British Co-ordinating Committee that included representatives
from the LSE and the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
134
The number of countries
whose institutes were part of the ISC structure was 37 by the late 1930s; the US was also
represented, although being outside the League of Nations structure in general.
The function of the ISC was recognized by the League of Nations which reported
that “permanent and autonomous bodies, like the International Studies Conference,
involve frequent meetings of technical committees of professors of political economy,
sociology, history, international law, and racial geography [sic!], and of writers
specialising in the study of international relations.”
135
From Germany, not only the DHfP, but also the Hamburg-based Institut für
Auswärtige Politik (Foreign Policy Institute) as well as an institute for international law
were participating in the ISC, while Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques (ELSP), Ecole
134 Long, 2006: 604 and Riemens, 2011: 920.
135 Long, 2006: 605.
102
des Hautes Etudes Sociales and Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, all three of them
in Paris, were the French participants, joined by the University of Paris' Law and Letters
faculties. The Geneva School of International Studies (IHEI), founded with the support of
US foundations, was another member institute. ISC's first meeting took place in Berlin in
1928, at Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (DHfP, the German institute that introduced
major political and international studies in the interwar era, which I analyze in the
German IR chapter). It was a means for providing IR scholars with a platform through
which they could interact, thus filling a gap in the area of academic cooperation. In the
1930s, the decision was made to deal with contemporary issues, choosing topics of
policy-relevance that would be studied by scholars in order to prepare joint reports. At the
twelfth conference, convened in August 1939, “international organization” was chosen as
the next topic of study. Interestingly, in the crisis-laden years of 1935-1937 the subject of
study was “peaceful change.” In this regard, it is important to note that the ISC was
interested not in individual assessments of scholars, but more in the reflections of a
particular country that would be carried over into the scholarly reports. This can be seen
as a means of providing useable “guidebooks” that would clarify various differences
between national positions at a time of significant conflicts in the world political arena.
136
In addition to these biannual studies, the reports written for the annual meetings
provide useful sources for the history of the discipline. For instance, it was Zimmern's
ISC report that mentioned the idea of an idealist vs. realist setting in debates on world
affairs. Even earlier, in 1934 and 1935 meetings, delegates from fascist Italy had rejected
136 Riemens, 2011: 917-919 and Parmar, 2011: 290, fn. 189.
103
notions of collective security while emphasizing the utmost significance of national
interests.
137
Among all these ISC meetings, the 1938 Prague meeting deserves special emphasis.
As also acknowledged by Knud Erik Jørgensen, the debates in Prague, the city itself in
the focus of world attention in those months, were finally about the very nature of the
discipline's definition.
138
It was in that meeting that the participants were given copies of
a recent study by S. H. Bailey from LSE. Its title, International Studies in Modern
Education made clear the topic, its general conclusion underlining the rather advanced
nature of IR in the US and the UK due to the stronger position of social scientific studies
in the Anglo-American countries. In his study, Bailey went on to emphasize the less
flexible nature of continental European universities, seeing the French as the model
example with their more conservative approach to new departments, thus disabling
advances similar to the ones made in the US by the establishment of political science as a
separate discipline. The French focus on law apparently prevented such an approach. As a
consequence, he categorized four types of countries, also using the 1932-1933
international inquiry that had resulted from the wishes of the League of Nations, the ICIC
as well as the ISC. This interest for IR had made surveys of this scholarly area possible
across the world, providing useful information on the differences of studying world
politics in various countries. His first category consisted of the US and the UK where
there existed not only perfect access to resources but also a good institutional setting.
137 Riemens, 2011: 921.
138 Jørgensen, 2003: 330.
104
Countries like Australia, Canada, France, Italy and Japan formed the second group, the
common feature of which was the local institutions' willingness to advance IR studies.
Countries with less advanced institutionalized structures for scholars marked the third
group, Belgium, India, and Czechoslovakia being some examples. The last group
included all the remaining countries which lacked both the resources and the scholars
necessary for the study of international affairs.
139
With some generalizations, it should be
possible to assert the existence of a similar 4-layered IR hierarchy even in the early 21
st

century.
III.2.b. The 1938 ISC Prague Conference
In the 1935 London and 1936 Madrid meetings, ISC members decided to focus more
directly on “the nature and scope of international relations as an academic subject” as
well as how it can be taught at universities. Thus the way was paved for the 1938 Prague
debates that focused not on IR's various study objects, but on this emerging area of study
as such. One has to note that this enterprise was completed at a time when similar efforts
were underway in various national contexts. The US had its 1937 reports of IR, French
scholars prepared their own assessments about social sciences in France that included IR
as a separate subject (which I discuss in the chapter dealing with French IR's disciplinary
history), in 1938 Oxford University Press published a British overview of IR's place in
modern education for the UK context. Contributions came from the Rockefeller
139 Riemens, 2011: 922-925.
105
Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, showing the important support from
American philanthropies for the development of IR's scientific establishment.
140
In the 1939 volume titled University Teaching of International Relations – A Record
of the Eleventh Session of the International Studies Conference Prague 1938 included its
editor's, Oxford IR professor Alfred Zimmern's earlier introduction report presented to
the 1935 London ISC meeting. There he pointed to the way that the study of International
Relations was described at the University of Oxford's examination statutes and
regulations: “includes the study of the relations both between governments and between
peoples, and of the principles underlying their development.” While Zimmern sees in this
definition a case of “British vagueness,” it provides a useful starting point for
understanding the broad nature of dealing with world political phenomena and processes,
as both states and peoples are seen as constitutive bodies, thus providing an implicit core
of future British ideas on international society. This aspect of the discipline, what one
might call the “broad-ability” of IR, led to Zimmern's half-sarcastic remarks: “Thus, in
the interests of the Conference itself we might well inscribe on our banner the words:
Nihil humania alienum a nobis petamus.” Influenced by the contemporary concept used
by Mussolini, Zimmern talked about IR as “not a single subject but a bundle of subjects,”
that is “a fascio.” For him, the study of International Relations provided in the end “a
point of view.”
141
140 Zimmern, 1939: 3, 6. As the rapporteur was Zimmern, his name is used when referring to the report
and the written and spoken contributions provided by other scholars, although their specific
names/positions are mentioned directly when I refer to them in the main text.
141 Zimmern, 1939: 7-9. Of course, this famous Latin expression is most closely associated with Karl
Marx, who used a similar expression to summarize his general interest in the human being and the
106
Definitional differences already marked ISC meetings as a French professor would
note in 1935 meeting that English used to call it international relations, while in France
one tended to speak of international politics. At the 1938 Prague meeting, Alfred von
Verdross, from the Austrian Coordinating Committee for International Studies, presented
a similar differentiation when he asserted that international relations was an “Anglo-
Saxon expression” with “multifarious meanings.”
142
However, as will be seen later, the
French were also using the label of international relations, as their 1937 report on social
sciences would show.
At the 1938 conference, Zimmern presented a preliminary memorandum in his
capacity as the rapporteur, defending IR as “a distinguishable body of material which
lends itself to separate study under the name of International Relations” which deserves
to become a subject for university teaching. Now, it was time for him to start a detailed
discussion on how to implement IR as a subject of study, including the actual locations at
which to provide IR teaching.
143
From one perspective, it becomes possible to recognize
in the 1938 meeting the origins of IR's final academization. While chairs of International
Relations already existed by that time, the real explosion was to take place in the mid- to
late 20
th
century because only then did the discipline become truly global in terms of its
academic teaching. Therefore, one could see in this whole process the realization of a
project that was based on establishing IR as a separate academic discipline.
humanity. Its English translation would be “Nothing human is foreign to me.”
142 Zimmern, 1939: 13, 23.
143 Zimmern, 1939: 16.
107
The discipline's interwovenness with contemporary events, with ongoing
developments in world politics can be most usefully demonstrated by pointing to the
opening of the Prague meeting in May 1938 by the Czechoslovak minister of social
welfare and his opening speech at the inaugural meeting. There, a minister of this small
Central European democracy, already threatened by Hitler's Germany would refer to
ISC's previous work on the issue of collective security: “When the whole world was once
more confronted with the question of war, with the threat to the existence of certain free
States, you decided to discuss scientifically whether and how the world can be reformed
and how social relations can be bettered by peaceful means.”
144
On the other hand, this
statement also presaged in an ironic fashion the failure of IR to succeed in fulfilling its
original promise of providing tools for solving world conflicts in non-violent ways. Only
a few months later, the Munich Agreement would follow, and one year after the ISC
conference, Czechoslovakia was already dismembered.
An important aspect that points to the dominance not of Anglo-American but
continental European participation emerges from the list of participants at the 1938
conference. While scholars from British and US institutes are a visible presence, ranging
from the rapporteur himself (Alfred Zimmern) to John Eugene Harley, a professor of
political science at University of Southern California who participated in the Prague
meeting as an observer, and to the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, it
is also essential to consider the interest shown by continental European institutions and
their scholars. While the French Henri Bonnet's directorship of the International Institute
144 Zimmern, 1939: 207.
108
of Intellectual Co-operation (the League of Nations-connected unit under which ISC
came into being) at the time is understandable by considering its being supported by the
French government, the conference numbers highlighted a Central European dominance.
Out of 55 participants, 12 were from Czechoslovakia, explainable by the venue of the
event. Prague as the meeting place also clarifies why so many people (16 of them) came
as representatives from the neighboring countries of Central and Eastern Europe, namely
Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary. Two Australians and one Chilean
represented two continents, whereas Japan and Brazil had sent three observers. For the
Western European countries, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium,
and Switzerland had each their representatives, ranging from one to three. The British
delegation included 5 and the American 4, with the Canadians another two.
From all these figures, one can infer that the ISC was not an Anglo-American
enterprise, notwithstanding the visible influence of these two countries in the emerging
discipline of International Relations. With regard to the study areas of these scholars, the
picture is one of mixed origins, as there were political scientists, economists, scholars of
international law, and historians. This dimension provides a useful means for
understanding that International Relations was a research concentration in which scholars
from various disciplines were coming together.
145
145 Whereas the future course of IR has become one highly correlated with political science, the legacy of
a broader international focus lives on in the shape of the North American International Studies
Association (ISA) and other national-regional association as well as the newly established World
International Studies Conference (WISC) which include specialists from many disciplines in their
conferences.
109
On the other hand, Germans were not present, with the exception of a single observer
from Heidelberg University. Although the founding meeting that generated the ISC had
taken place ten years earlier in Berlin at DHfP, the Nazi takeover had detached German
scholars from this international association in line with Germany's withdrawal from
membership in the League of Nations. With regard to the interest shown by American
foundations was significant the participation (as observer) of Tracy Barrett Kittredge in
his capacity as the assistant director at the Social Sciences Division of the Rockefeller
Foundation as was that of Malcolm Davis (full participant and chairman of meetings held
on “economic policies in relation to world peace”), the associate director of the European
Center (in Paris) of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The conference's opening also witnessed a general summary of the situation faced by
this newly emerging area of study. According to Zimmern, for a decade, the ISC and
scholars associated in its projects “have been engaged in practicing international
relations, in discussing problems; today, we are asking what this new subject is.” In his
narrative, IR was “a child of the [First World] war, a product of wartime conditions.” In
the UK and many other countries, people would discover in the war and the early postwar
context that their knowledge about the broader world and its different political
constellations was insufficient. As a consequence, this initial situation, combined with a
quest for more information and also a search for overcoming conflicts paved the way for
an emerging discipline of IR.
146
146 Zimmern, 1939: 212, 216.
110
On the other hand, in Zimmern's assessment, the dominant features of IR had
changed, no longer resembling its post-First World War characteristics. These earlier
aspects had been tied more to descriptive works, offering more on an informational level.
However, by the late 1930s, he saw these features more represented by structures like the
Royal Institute of International Affairs, but not by IR specialists. The scope of IR's
subjects was not limited to issues of League of Nations, or the diplomatic system
anymore. While Zimmern acknowledged that many textbooks kept their focus on inter-
state relations, he was quick to offer a broader perspective. All scholars agreed, in his
opinion, that IR's subject has gone beyond such a narrow focus.
147
This meant that states
were not the only thing to be studied by IR scholars. The usual post-1919 research agenda
tied to the League and its functions was seen as not serving the expectations from world
political studies that were in need of expansion. This shows that a desire for broadening
its research and study dimensions existed already in the pre-1945 period, with scholars
suggesting leaving behind the earlier role of merely descriptive-informative studies.
Zimmern was also critical of what one could call the utopians. While their impact
was also relevant, he sees in this circle of scholars more “sentimentalists” who have been
more prone to wishful thinking instead of providing fact-based studies. However, his
position is also one that rejects a preference for “ethical neutrality.” Opposing the views
of a fellow British scholar, Charles Manning, Zimmern asserts that “the effort of the
scientist is itself a moral effort, because the search for truth is part of the whole of
morality.” He stated explicitly, on the other hand, that Manning's proposition was
147 Zimmern, 1939: 225-226, 252ff.
111
acceptable in the sense of first “see[ing] reality, and thus later on [deciding] what should
be done in order to make the world better.”
148
These statements can be taken to be among
the first proposals developed in the context of IR's ethical-normative functions, an issue
of much prominence in the discipline's later periods.
149
The topic of academic freedom, an issue of intermittent debate in IR circles (as will
be also discussed in the context of German and, more specifically, French IR contexts)
was also prominent in the Prague debates. Brooks Emeny, a professor from the US had to
withdraw his words of critique directed at the European colleagues and its educational
conditions. Dietrich Schindler, a Swiss professor, in his capacity as the chairman of the
second meeting, defended the old continent by asserting that “freedom of teaching is
guaranteed by the Constitutions of most of the democratic and liberal countries, which
are still in the majority in Europe.”
150
While this defense can be seen as rather surreal,
taking into consideration the demise of democratic regimes even before the Second
World War, it shows the significance given to saving Europe's reputation in the face of
American challenges in the area of academic status.
What was the state of American IR compared to European contributions? According
to Halford Hoskins, the Fletcher School Dean, “in recent times there has been a great
growth in interest in international affairs in the United States.” US scholars were able to
148 Zimmern, 1939: 217, 229.
149 It is important to note in this context that Manning would emerge in the later parts of the 20
th
century as
an apologist for Apartheid in South Africa, his country of birth. As a consequence, his strong anti-
normative position in IR debates, as seen in his opposition to Zimmern's more normative stance, has to
be rethought in a wider framework. Also significant is the fact that Manning was excluded from the
British Committee on the Theory of International Politics that stood at the origins of the English
School in IR. For more details on these aspects, see Dunne, 1998.
150 Zimmern, 1939: 312.
112
use the conferences of the ISC to praises their advances, as the study of IR had extended
to many graduate schools and university departments. Interestingly, he refrained from
using the label, International Relations, preferring instead International Affairs. The
reason was that the former was seen as too broad an area of study by American
scholarship.
151
European self-appraisal, on the other hand, came from Paul Guggenheim,
from the Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies (IHEI). He did not only
comment on the international character of his school, which was founded with the
support of the Carnegie Endowment in the mid-1920s, but also mentioned the
epistemological advantages of this internationality. Thanks to international interactions
going on in Geneva and at this institute, scholars affiliated with IHEI were able to
“constantly revise their viewpoints.”
152
In fact, the geo-epistemological conditions at
Geneva can be interpreted as a feature of a combination of European academic traditions,
the international presence in the city thanks to the League of Nations as well as co-
operation with Americans that started with its very founding and the CEIP involvement in
that process.
Paul Guggenheim, a professor at IHEI in Geneva used the debates to criticize what
he perceived as the parochial nature of IR studies prevailing in many countries. With the
exception perhaps of “the Anglo-Saxon countries, whose interests are world-wide in
many fields,” he asserted that the general approach was one in which scholars were
choosing to study issues of direct relevance to their country. Such a preference was “not
151 Zimmern, 1939: 312-313.
152 Zimmern, 1939: 314.
113
unnatural”; however, it presented a threat to the further development of IR.
153

Guggenheim's suggestion presents an early sign of the reasons for Anglo-American
ascendency and dominance in IR studies. The geopolitical omnipresence of these two
countries that arose in the late 19
th
and early 20
th
centuries from the British power, and in
the case of the mid- and late 20
th
century from American power, had brought about their
immanent interest in matters international. Therefore, the reasons for these two countries'
and their scholars' major position in the discipline of IR can be tied to their global
interests and the necessities this generated for more knowledge of others. Under these
circumstances, it becomes possible to understand why IR in its institutionalized version
first took shape in the UK and the US. However, still to be noted is the importance of not
taking the institutionalization dimension for the whole of IR, not ignoring the great
interest shown by scholars and pundits for IR and world politics even in the absence of its
academic establishment.
When Zimmern presented the final report of the 1938 conference, he was still not
able to answer certain essential questions, showing the existence of conflicting
viewpoints that made it impossible for the participants to agree on a shared position. One
of the heavily debated areas was the previously mentioned aspect of value neutrality. No
conclusion was reached in that regard, as some scholars perceived IR studies as a
normative undertaking, whereas others favored a strict detachment from a chosen
normative position. On the other hand, a unanimously supported statement pertained to
IR's scope. In this regard, scholars agreed that inter-state relations should not provide the
153 Zimmern, 1939: 315.
114
boundaries for their subject, thus going beyond studying the League of Nations and
international organizations.
154
Important for recognizing the already active engagement of American scholars in the
domain of IR, it is useful to turn to Zimmern's final remarks that “the study of
international relations is very much more systematically developed in the [u]niversities of
the United States than in any other part of the world and that this development has taken
place almost entirely since 1918.”
155
Therefore, although the structure of the ISC with its
predominantly European members, and its representatives from all five continents
pointed to an interwar organization not dominated by Anglo-Americans, in the specific
level of IR scholarship, even this earlier period witnessed the important contributions by
these two countries. Nevertheless, the 1938 and 1950 conferences also served to provide
a picture of IR, both in its organizational and scholarly aspects that made the active
participation of continental Europeans visible. In order to provide a broader
understanding of these dynamics, I turn now to ISC's last conference in Windsor, whose
debates were edited by Geoffrey Goodwin in the following year. This report serves as
another marker of discipline's developmental pathways.
It is important to understand that these two conferences point to a different
dimension of IR in the late interwar and early post-Second World War years. Instead of
the much repeated claims of idealist-realist debates, in which scholars such as E. H. Carr
(in his famous book The Twenty Years' Crisis) criticized “utopianists” with their League
154 Zimmern, 1939: 325ff.
155 Zimmern, 1939: 323-333.
115
of Nations and international law interests and defended the relevance of national interests
and power politics, this period arises in a broader light when the two conferences are
taken into consideration. The debates that I highlight demonstrate that IR's academic
standing and prospects were discussed by both European and American participants in a
way that did not remain focused merely on theoretical or paradigmatic concerns. The
influence of American foundations and international scholarly associations as well as
ideas about the emerging discipline's university future played a significant role in shaping
the conference agendas.
III.2.c. The 1950 ISC Windsor Conference
In 1950, the ISC organized an important post-World War II meeting in Windsor,
which followed from the previous year's administrative gathering in Paris. The list of
Windsor participants included Jacques Chapsal (Sciences Po's director), Jacques Lambert,
who had by then also become active at FNSP in addition to his Lyon law professorship,
and Jacques Vernant, by then the ISC secretary general. Among non-French participants
were the ISC chairman H. O. Christophersen from Norway, Frederick S. Dunn from Yale
and the director of its Institute for International Studies, the associate director of CEIP,
Malcolm Davis as well as Charles Manning, a University of London IR professor. They
were joined by scholars from diverse locations and institutions such as LSE, Brussels,
Aberdeen, UNESCO, Amsterdam and Australia.
116
The meeting was to deal with a report exclusively prepared for its participants to
discuss, written by Charles Manning. Under the new conditions of post-1945, IR
specialists faced a brighter future, one strengthened by the 1948 UNESCO resolution
taken at its Utrecht conference. This resolution decided “that all those Universities not
already possessing Chairs or Departments, and not otherwise providing for teaching and
research on the subject of International Relations, be urged as soon as possible to
establish such Chairs or Departments, or make other provision for such systematic
teaching and research.”
156
In Manning's opening report, it was recognized that interwar IR
had shown significant advances and witnessed an increasing number of institutes taking
part in the work of ISC. However, he also added that on the level of university education,
only a limited number of places had established independent departments in IR.
As World War II had interrupted ISC activities, now there arose a new opportunity to
make up for the lost time. In Manning's opinion, this era was also important to go beyond
its interwar record because IR as a discipline was partially to blame for the great
catastrophe of the Second World War. He pointed to the effects of “academic
complacency” that had played a certain role not to be overlooked in analyzing the causes
of that war.
157
Such a statement is important, as it shows the worries of IR scholars even
before the onset of the Cold War confrontation that co-evolved with the emergence of
IR's university teaching. Therefore, it becomes visible that academicians were already
156 Goodwin, 1951: 11. As the rapporteur was Geoffrey Goodwin, his name is used in referring to the
1951 volume and the contributions provided there by other scholars, although their specific
names/positions are mentioned directly when I refer to them in the main text.
157 Goodwin, 1951: 25.
117
expecting more effective consequences from their work that could change the state of
world politics.
It is important to underline that despite its global connections, the ISC had been a
place dominated by Europeans. In the post-World War II period, ISC's gradual demise
and end can be seen as being in harmony with the concomitant rise of the US to
superpower status, and American influence in shaping the post-1945 social sciences. The
early American influence in UNESCO as well as its impact within various international
scholarly associations emerging in those years would make US impact more visible in the
development of the social sciences after the Second World War.
At Windsor, the participants presented a statement on university teaching of IR that
urged the discipline to take its place among other social sciences. Furthermore, IR was
thought of largely in the context of international society, which itself was seen as
insufficiently studied.
158
However, calls for an independent discipline of IR were to meet
some objections, although not to the same degree as at the ISC's 1937 meeting in Prague.
IR could be a “distinct subject” but for some it was still not a new discipline, but only an
interdisciplinary undertaking.
159
The participants agreed to disagree on various aspects, an
issue emphasized by Manning's summary of 17 points in which scholars showed pro and
contra positions about the prospects of a more broadly institutionalized university
teaching. No clear dominant perspective emerged on the possibility of its relevance as a
subject matter, with regard to its potentials as a matter of teaching as well as about the
158 Goodwin, 1951: 36.
159 Goodwin, 1951: 37.
118
aims of such programs to be established at the university level. While the conference's
main goal was to reach a consensus on the prospects of the university teaching of IR, the
participants could not come to a decision on the feasibility of it as a separate area of study
within the academic world. More interdisciplinary understandings were confronted by a
newer scholarly generation in the opinion of which IR could arise as a separate discipline.
The differences among the scholarly positions were recognized by Dunn, the director
of Yale's Institute for International Studies, who said that an abstract definition of IR
could not emerge, as such definitions were “always for a purpose.” Becoming a
constructivist avant-le-mot, Dunn asserted that “at one time what you mean by
International Relations may not be the thing it would mean at another time for another
purpose.”
160
This clarification summarized the debates held during the meeting because
all scholars brought to the agenda their individual positions that were heavily influenced
by national academic and socio-political cultures from which they came. For instance, the
French could not overcome the legacy of a broader approach to IR that did not enable a
direct subdisciplinary status under political science, such as was found in the US.
The position of Malcolm Davis, the CEIP associate director was significant. For him,
IR's development “calls for constant foresight in terms of thinking about the forces
coming from the fields even of other sciences, the natural sciences, which affect
international relationships and international life.” Merging in his talk physicists and
atoms and political scientists, he asked for “a fruitful interchange of thought” that could
enable better means of dealing with “the emerging problems, or perhaps the old problems
160 Goodwin, 1951: 40-41.
119
in new outlines, with which we shall constantly be faced.”
161
This attitude showed a
tendency that was valid among US foundations who stood decisively behind newly
emerging disciplines like political science or IR. There existed this assumption about a
linkage between research and study (undertaken by scholars) and the benefits that could
be reached by turning to their work so that one could overcome the conflict-ridden
international system, or guide policy-makers toward moderate destinations. At the same
time, the presence of an American foundation's representative points to a continuing
interest shown by US philanthropies for the advancement of IR as a discipline that could
provide new insights on world politics.
For the French scholar Vernant, the teaching of IR should be about providing
students at the undergraduate level with “a method which will enable them in constantly
changing situations to adapt a scientific perspective in which to study these situations, to
analyse them by virtue of a specific orientation of the mind.”
162
The idea was to use IR as
a means for helping the students to be more fully prepared for a world that was
undergoing constant change. On the other hand, his co-national, Chapsal, the Sciences Po
director, was in favor of a more limited IR, one that would teach basic facts and provide
some necessary data so that they could undertake “exact analyses.” A general engagement
with IR subjects was seen as too challenging for students in the early stages of their
studies.
163
161 Goodwin, 1951: 42.
162 Goodwin, 1951: 49.
163 Goodwin, 1951: 46.
120
It is important to understand what kind of factors influenced the development of
varying perceptions about IR among scholars from different national backgrounds. One
significant answer was provided at the meeting. A professor of human geography from
the University of Geneva suggested that the differences between “the Anglo-Saxon and
continental conceptions” of IR, “in regard to objectives, methods, institutions” were
triggered by “historical as well as geographical reasons.”
164
Leaving aside his possibly
personal-scholarly reasons for underlining the influence of geography, it is helpful to
consider this aspect as a point of departure. Therefore, the debates at the 1950 ISC
meeting demonstrated the existence of a divide that was more visible than at the time of
its pre-World War II versions. In that regard, the war experiences of relevant participants
and of their countries could be interpreted as having further determined the future course
of various scholars' approach toward the study of IR. In that regard, while political
science and subsequently IR would go through a process of rebirth in West Germany, in
the French case, one could detect the actual emergence of a weak political science and IR.
The weakness of French IR could be also explained as a result of the dominant position
of legal studies, thus putting obstacles on a separate disciplinary enterprise, and the lack
of theorization which would become the modern common denominator of IR studies
under the influence of American scholarship.
It was only natural that the most influential American participant of the meeting, the
Yale professor Dunn would underline the role of “modern Social Science” in order to
“gain the self-awareness which permits objectivity in interpreting the data of the society
164 Goodwin, 1951: 50.
121
in which one finds oneself.” For him, “the full range of human action” was now open to
be studied and thus to be discovered.
165
The disinterest of continental Europeans to such a
tendency for general theorizing would be a major point of difference from their American
colleagues.
In the case of Sciences Po, Chapsal informed other participants of the meeting that
French students were willing to take IR-related courses when these were offered.
Establishing new departments and chairs would be a useful way of extending the supply-
side of IR. However, for Chapsal it was also important to educate a certain number of
students who would become prospective advisers to decision-makers.
166
Thus, IR was
perceived not only as a general means of enabling students to reach a certain level of
expected knowledge on the international dimensions, but also for preparing them to have
important future careers. At one point, however, the director of Sciences Po was more
direct in his skepticism about IR's separateness and suggested that “a[n independent]
department [of IR] is... inconceivable” as “more traditional and classical disciplines”
would be too much challenged as a result of such a move. Older disciplines such as
history and law would have to face the discipline of IR, which was itself quite rich in the
sense of being an intersection of many scientific fields, including these two competing
and more established fields.
167

During the debates, the issue of inter-generational differences was explicitly
mentioned as a factor that could explain scholarly opinions and backgrounds. According
165 Goodwin, 1951: 51.
166 Goodwin, 1951: 57.
167 Goodwin, 1951: 64.
122
to a participant from the University of Geneva, scholars under 50 would not accept a
synthesized structure of IR, being more prone to see in the discipline an independent
study whose birth they were witnessing.This observation demonstrated that a gradual
standardization was setting in. Notwithstanding the inconclusive nature of the debates
held at Windsor, this remark illustrated that the younger scholars were following a certain
approach that was more structured with regard to its dimensions of interests, compared to
the older generation for whom IR was a very broad field of study. A gradual
departmentalization could take shape once this new generation could advance its
paradigmatic revolution in a Kuhnian fashion.
168
Another relevant analysis in the meeting came from Dunn who referred to a feature
shared by all social science disciplines at their earlier stages. For him, this concerned the
uncertainty when answering the question whether an emerging discipline had its own
methods or vocabulary through which it could create its distinct niche in the general
social scientific spectrum. While dynamism marks the initial periods of a new discipline,
there arises a significant future threat for the discipline if tying itself on one of its original
methods and conceptual tools without staying open to future changes. At this juncture,
Dunn perceived the danger of complacency that could even “in some cases preven[t]
them from seeing that the groups of problems that originally concerned [the discipline]
have somewhat lost their importance.”
169
This is a significant and early warning that
168 This means that ones scholarly generations change (through retirement, passing away, losing
influence), then it becomes for new scholars to more easily defend and advance their different
approaches as the former gatekeepers have lost their initial power. For these aspects see Thomas
Kuhn's 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
169 Goodwin, 1951: 59.
123
illustrates to a certain degree the prospective paths taken by the discipline's earlier
antagonistic paradigms, idealism and realism with regard to challenges they were to face
with changing times, that is when their initial approaches shaped under the conditions of
a given world political context were no longer the same. That this possibility was
recognized as early as 1950 shows the importance of looking back to the discipline's long
trajectory when considering its present difficulties.
When it comes to differences between the position of IR in France on the one hand,
and in the US or the UK on the other, Chapsal suggested reasons could be found in “the
enormous superiority over the Latin systems of the Anglo-Saxon systems as regards the
flexibility of University life, and the freedom of initiative – the free enterprise which is
there manifest – and that... may make for a swifter development in Anglo-Saxon
countries than in others.” However, such a direct statement, which recognized the
obstacles that French scholars could face due to the features of their academic structure,
was quickly softened when he added that continental universities were not “as fossilized”
and “bureaucratic institutions” as they were perceived to be.
170
Chapsal spoke in fact from
a position of experience, as it was he who had witnessed all the recent changes that his
ELSP/IEP Paris had undergone in a dozen of years since the late 1930s (on these changes,
see chapter IV below).
The very name of the discipline continued to generate controversies. An Italian
participant in the meeting would declare: “You Anglo-Saxons... habitually use the phrase
'International Relations' and under this name you envisage a very particular and
170 Goodwin, 1951: 61.
124
individualised subject; whereas with us the phrase 'International Relations' is an
expression of the vaguest and widest kind. We are inclined to see in it rather a congeries
of subjects than a particular discipline.”
171
It is interesting to note this suggestion, as by
that point one could have expected that at least the naming issue would be set aside,
especially when considering that there existed a long pre-World War II history of ISC
meetings and conferences held on the topic of IR. However, at the same time, this Italian
objection can be seen as an instance of perceptual differences that were raised by the
labels themselves, but for which the naming processes became just a symbolic marker.
What the Americans, or previously the British, had in mind did not reflect the practical
world political experiences of Italians and others, hence IR being interpreted varyingly
among the participants of the ISC meeting.
The conceptual and institutional problems of IR were not limited to an international
difference that had set the continentals against their Anglo-American counterparts. The
uncertainty was also effective with regard to the conflicting meanings of International
Relations and what Manning called “international studies in general.”According to him,
universities were not clear with regard to differences between these two ideas. Such
ambiguity created as a consequence an environment in which one could fail to see IR “as
an independent discipline.”
172

The call for moderation in promoting the further development of IR as a discipline
came from Lambert, the scholar held the peace chair at Lyon's Faculty of Law in the
171 Goodwin, 1951: 62.
172 Goodwin, 1951: 62.
125
interwar period. This influential professor with an international law background proposed
to stay away from a possible “superiority complex” that follows “an educational
innovator.” Many scholars assumed that “those who did not invent his branch of study are
out of date.” While Lambert shared this critique at the account of more traditional
scholars, in whom the reformist scholar saw “stupid, sleepy reactionaries... [who] must be
shaken up,” he advised that it should be a gradual process by which a more updated
discipline could be developed. Otherwise, traditional scholars of older disciplines would
be triggered to react negatively, thus presenting an obstacle to IR's further
advancement.
173
Such statements show the concerns of the early post-World War II community of IR
specialists who were the ones undertaking the heavy work of establishing an independent
academic discipline. While the preceding debates of the interwar period were significant,
it was in the late 1940s and 1950s that the institutionalization of IR equaled its effective
creation as a separate disciplinary undertaking. In cases where its independence was more
limited, IR would be put under the heading of political science, thus making it into a
subdiscipline in many instances.
As usual, with regard to the developmental trajectory of the discipline and its
significance among other social sciences, the American position was different, where the
already strong institutional set-up and scholarly richness of the US experience had
provided a much better environment for the development of world political studies. For
the director of Yale's Institute for International Studies, certain countries lacked “the
173 Goodwin, 1951: 62.
126
preconditions for the emergence of the modern Political Science of International
Relations.” This point was very significant, as it underlined the necessity for an academic
community of having first reached a certain level of social scientific development so that
a newly emerging discipline such as IR could be properly studied there. Without a proper
political science and sociology, Dunn asserted, IR would remain “as a special extension
of International Law or of Diplomatic History.”
174
When taking this proposition as a
starting point, it becomes clear that at least in the case of French IR, this premonition has
come to reflect the state of IR's much slower development there. Its two strong
competitors, International Law and Diplomatic History have managed for a long time to
face a political scientifically weak French IR scholarship whose connections to sociology
(in the form of scholars like Aron, Vernant, and later Marcel Merle) did not suffice to
counter the influence of law and history. As a consequence, in the absence of an advanced
political science community, IR in its modern American guise could not emerge.
III.2.d. Post-Second World War: UNESCO's birth and the demise of ISC
In the post-1945 period, UNESCO took over the role of its predecessor from the time
of the League of Nations, the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC).
The political science branch of the new form of international cooperation came into being
in 1949 when the International Political Science Association (IPSA) was established,
triggering similar foundations in national contexts, with the French association (AFSP,
174 Goodwin, 1951: 65.
127
Association Française de Science Politique) coming into being in 1949, the British one
following in 1950, and the West German in 1951.
175

With regard to UNESCO, its Social Sciences Division had played a major role in the
post-World War II years in furthering the world-wide development of the social sciences.
Although the idea of social sciences was, in the eyes of many European scholars, not that
separate from humanities, UNESCO's following of the US model paved the way for a
distinct division for social sciences within this international organization. The intra-
Western collaboration within UNESCO was not always easy. At one point IPSA's French
secretary general objected to a statement about “France and Italy falling below Anglo-
Saxon and Scandinavian pedagogic standards” in the development of the discipline, upon
which the observation was quickly removed.
176
Under these circumstances, while this new political science organization was
established in 1949 through the efforts of UNESCO, the ISC was moving toward an early
end. Not only was American support lacking, but also the new international scientific
organization wanted to advance a more democratic scientific community, thus
overcoming the institutional background of ISC that lay in the more elitist IIIC.
177
In the
words of the era's IPSA president, the political scientific opposition toward IR was
clearly expressed: “[I]nternational relations should be considered as an indivisible part of
political science... It was completely illogical to divide State politics into two separate
subjects, according to whether they concerned internal questions or relations with foreign
175 Adcock and Bevin, 2010: 73.
176 Selcer, 2009: 309-310, 316.
177 Long, 2006: 608-610.
128
countries.” As David Long succinctly summarized, “[t]he project to solidify and
universalise the predominantly American perspective on political science as an academic
discipline included removing the threat of disciplinary fragmentation that a separate study
of IR posed.”
178
Hans Morgenthau would state as late as 1952 that IR had not succeeded in
“acquir[ing the status of an] intellectual discipline.” Morgenthau recognized ISC's role in
the interwar period, but saw it as more ambiguous with regard to its practical results, as,
in his opinion, IR has not reached yet a well-developed disciplinary status.
179

Nevertheless, taking into account the work of the ISC, in the context of its 1938 Prague
and 1950 Windsor meetings, demonstrates the essential contributions provided by this
scholarly organization. This significance of ISC was also recognized at the start of the
1950s by Pierre Renouvin, as its various conferences and study groups contributed to the
development of interwar IR.
180
It is important to understand that this active French
scholar was seeing in the ISC the means of advancing studies with an international
dimension in the pre-World War II years. Even more significant is the fact that Renouvin
was praising the ISC at a time when its position was becoming less favorable in the eyes
of UNESCO to which his report was addressed.
Marie Scot suggests, with regard to the possible prospects of a post-1945 ISC that it
should still have been possible to advance IR under UNESCO's guidance via this same
178 Long, 2006: 615.
179 Morgenthau, 1952: 647-649.
180 Renouvin, 1950: 563-565.
129
ISC.
181
However, this is incorrect, as recent scholarship has underlined that it was the new
powers given to UNESCO which undermined the survival chances of ISC, with its pre-
war origins. Next to post-1945 created organizations like IPSA or the International
Sociological Association, the ISC was seen as too old, and instead of adapting it to the
new conditions, the higher authorities chose to bring its existence to an end,
notwithstanding much opposition from within ISC circles.
182
This move would in turn
pave the way for a more effective incorporation of IR into the discipline of political
science because the ISC structure was not completely dominated by scholars with a pro-
political science stance. The move after the Second World War, especially in the early
1950s to attach IR to political science was thus made possible, once the separate
existence of ISC was terminated, thus leaving the domain of IR to IPSA. A later report
published by UNESCO in 1954 on behalf of ISC dealt again with the aspects of IR's
university teaching. This report by Charles Manning was the last visible activity of ISC,
whose end became a reality once UNESCO support was finally discontinued in this same
period. Before that, in 1949, Malcolm Davis, the CEIP official who had by then become
ISC's chairman, had resigned, pointing to American disengagement from this club of
“internationalists.”
183
This whole process has to be understood in the context of an American takeover of
the disciplinary structures. As the US was very advanced in the domain of political
science, its initial postwar engagement in UNESCO enabled it not only to dominate IPSA
181 Scot, 2001: 112.
182 Long, 2006.
183 Long, 2006: 608.
130
but also to pose a challenge to a more pluralistic understanding of political science(s) in
Europe. The American Political Science Association (APSA) had also a significant
weight due to the size and role of the American scholarly community. From British
political studies to French and German political sciences, the European experience
demonstrated a broader understanding of the subject matter of politics. However, the
global power of the US, coupled with its dominance in political science's “singular”
version, paved the way to undermine the influence of, and consequently terminate, ISC.
This strengthened America's disciplinary position even in the area of IR, using IPSA as a
standardization tool for generating a mainstream understanding of political science that
would broadly affect the post-1945 academic world. The founding of the North American
International Studies Association (ISA) shortly afterwards would serve as a testimony to
this, being US-centered and dominated to a significant extent by political scientific
approaches. This was then an end of IR's more interdisciplinary nature in the interwar
period, turning it into a political science subdiscipline.
184
Certain institutional holdouts
would remain, like the School of International Relations of the University of Southern
California. These institutions would continue to be open to a more interdisciplinary IR
that is more than a political science subdiscipline.
What happened in this post-Second World War interaction was that “Europeans
selected and adapted components of the American social science model, a model that
itself was a product of [t]ransatlantic exchange.” It was only natural in the context of this
period that the Social Sciences Division published International Manuals in the Social
184 Long, 2006: 619.
131
Sciences the goal of which would be to “provide future representatives and negotiators
from different countries with a common basis of facts and vocabulary, thereby immensely
facilitating international understanding and agreement.” The general function of
UNESCO consisted of “coordinat[ing] the perspectives of intellectuals who represented
national cultures in order to construct a synoptic view of the world community.”
185
This
was rather a difficult undertaking, as post-World War II political science was burdened in
its national contexts by differing traditions and approaches. In the US, other social
sciences as well as psychology were more powerful, while the British were shaped by the
weight of moral philosophy. In the French and German contexts, respectively, Roman law
tradition and constitutional and administrational law had more shaping power. In the case
of the Soviet Union, the determinant was obviously a Marxist-Leninist one.
186

These dimensions of disciplinary infighting and shifts will serve as a useful means to
understand the detailed disciplinary history I provide for German and French IR.
Developmental trajectories for IR studies in continental Europe were not only going to be
shaped by domestic influences but also by these larger dynamics affecting the post-1945
development of political science and IR on a more general level. In order to clarify
another significant dimension of these transnational dynamics, I will turn in the next
section to the overall role of American foundations that played a very important role in
these processes. While I discuss their individual involvement in the German and French
cases separately, here the analysis will be on their general nature, offering a broader
185 Selcer, 2009: 317-318, 326, emphasis mine.
186 Coakley, 2004: 190.
132
picture concerning the functions of these US philanthropies in order to prepare the basis
for the explanations in the following chapters.
III.3. IR and the US Philanthropies: Foundations and IR's Founding
The role of US philanthropic foundations is a factor that cannot be neglected when
analyzing the development of IR, because they did not only shape the discipline in the US
but also around the world, with particular impact in continental Europe. I will now
explain the goals these organizations had, and highlight their general features. Such an
explanation is useful as three American foundations, the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace (CEIP), the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), and the Ford Foundation
will be shown in the German and French chapters to have played influential roles in the
development of their respective political science and IR communities.
When looking at US foundations, first it is important to understand their position in
their home country. These were philanthropic institutes established in order to work on
issues of reform. They were founded by America's multimillionaires who wanted to
create a positive and widely visible legacy by helping different social strata. The
Carnegie Endowment had more global ambitions from its start, whereas the other two
foundations would expand to the international scene in a more gradual way. These early
20
th
century foundations have their modern counterparts in the shape of the Gates
Foundation or George Soros' Open Society Foundation.
133
According to Inderjeet Parmar's neo-Gramscian approach, the three US foundations,
which would have a significant impact on IR scholarship, can be interpreted as centers of
the (East Coast) Establishment. While acting in order to oppose the domestic situation of
the interwar years that was favoring isolationism, they promoted the idea of liberal
internationalism and managed to “socialize and integrate American and foreign elites.”
Parmar suggests that they were trying to build an international order which would be in
line with US interests. For this purpose, they aimed to generate a network of scholars,
diplomats, and other elites ranging from the US to Europe as well as to developing
countries. In this context, the three big foundations did not always reach their goals of
their larger aid programs which had socio-economic dimensions. However, as Parmar
states, they succeeded greatly in creating “sustainable elite networks that, on the whole,
supported American policies.”
187
They were institutes with state, political, corporate, and ideological ties, going
beyond a narrow philanthropic engagement consisting of monetary assistance. Their
trustees and directors were personally connected with the two leading US political
parties, served as board members in various corporations, and promoted ideas broadly
associated with the concept of liberal internationalism. These three foundations
established close links with the federal government, the unit with which they were most
directly engaged and the promotion of which was their major concern in the early 20
th

century, as states-level policies were seen as an obstacle to their favored internationalism.
However, in the 1920s and early 1930s they were not that close to the federal state. Their
187 Parmar, 2011: 3.
134
eventual prominence developed in the post-World War II era, when they were not only
helping the State and Defense departments (continuing on a path that had its origins in
the world wars), but also supporting US universities in the development of area studies as
well as IR programs. In addition to helping elite universities like Harvard, Yale, and
Princeton to build special seminars or advanced research programs that were not shying
away from political or military connections, they also promoted a certain way of doing
social science. Positivistic methods and policy-related use of knowledge were interwoven
with each other and helped to create the “military-intellectual complex.”
188
While at many points, their positions coincided with US policy positions, during the
McCarthy years they took care not to comply with all the wishes of domestic political
circles. These American foundations shared a major goal, one related to creating an
international elite of knowledge who could contribute to the ideals of promoting a global
order based on peace, democracy and a market economy. According to Ludovic Tournès,
US foundations' arrival in a country does not present a case of direct intervention that
infuses the local academic system with ready-made American ideas. There is always a
role played by local reformist forces whose actions could have started ahead of the active
support provided by the American philanthropies. In this regard, instead of a US model
that is diffused, it is better to understand this process as one of interaction which
engenders a co-produced change in the area in which Americans and local forces focus
jointly.
189
What needs to be emphasized is that one should understand these processes as
188 Parmar, 2011: 5-7, also see Müller, 2010.
189 Tournès, 2011: 5-13.
135
transnational dynamics, as also pointed out by Tournès or Helke Rausch (see the German
chapter), while at the same time also understanding the contingent ways in which such
interactions generate results that do not reflect expectations initially carried by the
participants of such projects.
An important point presented by Parmar concerns the fact that the creation of a broad
scope of intellectuals helped the “'harmonization' of divergent social and economic forces
and the perpetuation of unequal systems of national and global power.” Like his focus on
the specific case of networked scholars in developing countries, this model can also be of
relevance when looking at the American influence in continental Europe. Therefore, the
constant focus of US foundations on the European scene, with their roles in shaping of IR
programs in Germany, France, and elsewhere testifies to this quest for incorporation. As
will be seen in the German and French cases, the main point of Parmar's approach is
validated to the extent that “the construction of global knowledge networks is almost an
end in itself; indeed, the network appears to be their principal long-term achievement.”
190

Thus, even when failing to establish in these countries an IR studies modeled on the
American model, the foundations could still be seen as having as least co-shaped the
development of the discipline.
When one looks at the relationship between foundations' position and the production
of social scientific knowledge, it becomes important to note the comment of Joseph
Willits who was the director of RF's social sciences division. He asserted that “social
scientists are as much justified in making their skills and knowledge available for the
190 Parmar, 2011: 10-11.
136
conduct of the war as the natural scientist who works on gun sights.”
191
Although the
context of this comment, the war year of 1942, after the actual US involvement in World
War II, provides a certain explanation, one can also deduce that such assumptions were
not limited to war time engagements. According to Parmar, foundations helped to
promote a dual structure: realism in IR for universities, and globalism for the educated
classes at large against the earlier domination of American isolationism.
192

The Rockefeller Foundation's role in the creation of Yale's famous Institute of
International Studies (YIIS) in 1935 with substantial financial support, or the Carnegie
Endowment's help in the development of Princeton's research seminar in early 1940s that
made military issues part of academic interests
193
show how these philanthropic
institutions provided an essential means of presenting a certain type of international
understanding via their focus on IR education. As a consequence, it is no coincidence that
it was the RF that organized the 1954 conference on IR that can be seen as part of a
general involvement on its part to influence the way political science would develop.
194
In
the same period, it was Rockefeller's Kenneth Thompson who supported the
establishment of the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics whose
members would later rise to prominence in the form of the English School of IR.
195
As
Tim Müller demonstrates, a similar engagement took place in the area of political theory
191 Quoted in Parmar, 2011: 65.
192 Parmar, 2011: 65.
193 Parmar, 2011: 68-76.
194 See Guilhot, 2010.
195 See Dunne, 1998.
137
at a time when Marxist influences with a Soviet touch had to be opposed by presenting
some coherent and powerful ideational tools that could help in providing an alternative.
196
The interwar years marked by conflicting nationalisms hugely disfavored the opening
of the social sciences beyond the national frame. In this regard, social sciences had a
“subordinate position vis-à-vis established disciplines.” which meant that under such
circumstances the role of foundations was essential, as with the RF in the 1930s or the
Ford Foundation in the Cold War period.
197
It was not coincidental that IR as a subfield,
and then to a large extent as an independent social scientific discipline, played its part
during these years. Even earlier, in 1938, the first organized meeting had taken place
between internationally active American foundations and governmental officials in the
State Department so that they could discuss how to work together in the area of
international cultural relations.
198
Earlier efforts and later engagements of US
philanthropies and the American government, elaborated in the German and French
cases, have to be understood as realizations of these broader expectations.
An example of earlier attempts by US foundations to influence the study of IR was
the support given to the International Studies Conference (ISC) (a body founded by the
League of Nations' organ the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation [IIIC]).
Here, James Shotwell, an important American political scientist, was the chairman of this
important body's US national committee, while both RF and CEIP were big financial
196 See Müller, 2010, chapter 4.
197 Heilbron et al., 2008: 155-157.
198 Berghahn, 1999: 400.
138
contributors of ISC.
199
As pointed out earlier, the withdrawal of US funding was a major
reason in the later demise of ISC in the early 1950s.
At ISC's 1938 Prague meeting discussed above, a RF official, Tracy Barrett Kittredge
presented to his international audience of IR scholars three questions which he saw as
being of importance for his foundation. First, the foundation wanted more knowledge
about the phenomena of international life or world order to be generated. Another issue
concerned whether “the efforts of the organised society” were succeeding in “deal[ing]
with these phenomena?” The last question was: “What can we do about it? To what
extent can these processes, which appear to be revealed by the purely scientific study of
the phenomena, be subjected to control?” Furthermore, he informed his audience in
Prague that “we can make use of the better knowledge of these processes in order to bring
about the kind of world which we ourselves think we want.” Carefully, he would add that
the Rockefeller Foundation “has no opinion about these questions.” However, their goal
was to have IR scholars undertake studies that would provide answers or certain
clarifications to these questions.
200

This dimension of control is not a coincidence. To the contrary, it is in line with
American philanthropies' general interest in a certain social reform that had by then
entered the domain of world politics. Scientific expertise was expected to provide useful
tools in bringing the anarchic universe of international affairs into a less conflictual
condition; and foundations expected to gain helpful insights from a discipline to the
199 Parmar, 2011: 95.
200 Zimmern, 1939: 244-246, emphasis mine.
139
development of which they would henceforth closely contribute. It was in this context
that Kittredge talked about the Rockefeller support “for the Secretariat of the Conference
and for the preparatory studies undertaken by the various national co-ordinating
committees,” demonstrating the broad scope of their contributions to the advancement of
IR studies. As a last point, he pointed to five areas in which RF's interest in IR focused:
research, training of future researchers, successful diffusion of research results, support
for publications, conference, and similar events as well as serving as guide for
internationally active agencies.
201

The emphasis on control meant that IR scholarship (and broader social sciences) was
perceived as a tool for providing useful ways of keeping (world) politics in a manageable
state. Alfred Zimmern noticed these points put forward by the RF representative, and said
later during the conference that “the universities had also a part to play side by side with
governments in this process of control.”
202
Therefore, it is necessary to state at this
juncture that leading IR scholars were answering positively the approaches of US
foundations. Also in the concluding session of the same conference, the Czechoslovak
official presiding the meeting was quick to thank CEIP and RF “without whose financial
aid our conference could not exist.”
203
However, already by that time, the Rockefeller
Foundation was becoming less enthusiastic in supporting ISC. One official from its
Social Sciences Division stated that the increase in political tensions would turn the
organization into an academic one instead of leading it to engage more intensively with
201 Zimmern, 1939: 316-319.
202 Zimmern, 1939: 244-246, 248, emphasis mine.
203 Zimmern, 1939: 337.
140
issues of contemporary developments in a more realistic fashion. The fact that RF
expectations were not met due to ISC's more formal activities, resulting in conferences
and publications that failed to have a major impact on the non-scholarly public, was
leading the foundation to revise its earlier enthusiastic support to ICIC through which
ISC was being founded at the time when the Second World War was to start.
204
In the specific case of IPSA, whose role was elaborated above, the involvement of
US foundations shaped this international platform for political scientific cooperation to
an important extent. Its secretary general for the 1949-1951 and 1956-1960 period was
the director of CEIP's European Center, housed in Geneva in the aftermath of the Second
World War. This same person, John Goodmaghtigh, a Belgian law professor, was also the
director of the Belgian Institute of International Affairs, pointing to the complex way in
which scholarly-foundational-international cooperational paths merged into one another
even on personal-scholarly levels. Another American philanthropy, the Ford Foundation
was a significant contributor to the IPSA, demonstrating the close interaction between an
initially US-dominated world political science organization and American
philanthropies.
205
These examples further clarify the broad engagement of these US
foundations in the promotion of a certain understanding of social sciences. Looking at
German and French political science and IR will provide detailed analysis about the roles
of these units in specific country cases.
204 Rietzler, 2008b: 27, 5.
205 Scot, 2001: 56.
141
A main point that emerges from this chapter, and builds the basis for the following
analyses of German and French IR, is that foundations played a role that should be taken
into account when looking to the developmental trajectories of IR. It was not only in the
US and the UK that this support was an important part of the discipline's empowerment.
While Hedley Bull and Adam Watson would, in the preface of their 1984 book The
Expansion of the International Society, thank the Ford Foundation, and members of the
English School's original institutional body, the British Committee on the Theory of
International Politics would ask the Rockefeller Foundation for additional support in the
period covering the late 1950s to early 1970s, similar developments shaped German and
French IR communities.
206
The essential function of American philanthropies was to
contribute to the emergence of a new discipline not only in its Anglo-American journey,
but also in the more difficult terrain of continental Europe that witnessed major
opponents such as older established disciplines and traditional ways of university
teaching.
The other point that ties this chapter to the case studies of German and French IR's
developmental trajectories concerns the history of interwar and early post-Second World
War debates on the discipline's future as an independent area to be taught at universities.
As I analyzed the 1938 and 1950 conferences, which distinguished themselves from other
ISC events by their focus on the university teaching of IR, it became possible to
understand that IR's prospects were already a subject of debate in these years. It shows
that the post-1945 pathways of IR's German and French did not only take shape by the
206 See also Dunne, 1998: 104-105.
142
mid-20
th
century influence of a more influential American IR, but earlier factors that
enabled a greater space for transnational dynamics to play an essential role in continental
Europe. The positions of European scholars were not negligible, as the ISC itself was an
organization in which Europeans dominated. In this context, interwar IR with its
European dimensions has to be noted when approaching the trajectory of the emerging
discipline in 20
th
century Germany and France.
143
CHAPTER IV: THE DISCIPLINE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN
GERMANY

In the preceding chapter, I showed how IR was not a post-1945 invention. The (early
interwar) interest of continental Europeans in studying the international in a pluralistic
way becomes most visible in the ISC. It was no coincidence that its foundational meeting
was held in Berlin's DHfP in 1928, as German scholars showed significant interest in the
subject of world politics. However, the involvement of American foundations, and, after
1945, of US military and government officials would play a greater role in paving the
way for the institutionalization not only of political science, but specifically of IR as an
area of study in West German universities, enabling its establishment. In this chapter, I
analyze the processes that generated favorable conditions for the (largely mid-20
th

century) empowerment of this new discipline in this new country.
Among my major findings in the (West) German case is the suggestion that no
American-style IR came into being despite the heavy interference of American actors.
The reasons of this can be found in the hybrid IR that resulted from the interactions
between German, American, and international actors in the shape of scholars, officials,
foundations, and associations, as well as university structures. While the details are
provided throughout the chapter, it is important to note that (West) German IR developed
thanks to the support provided by non-German actors. However, it was German local
forces interacting with outside actors that paved the way for transnational dynamics
144
giving the new discipline its final shape. No quantitative and behavioralist position
dominated the German IR, but its gradual move to a subdisciplinary position under
political science was determined by the American influence.
Another important point concerns the temporal backwardness of (West) Germany,
lacking the degree of American intensive engagement with IR in the form of specific
academic publications and major associational structures. It was mostly via political
science journals and associations that German scholars dealt with IR, as separate IR
journals were founded only in the late 20
th
century. This should not make us ignore a third
feature that pertains to the German influence on the development of American political
science and IR. I show how German professors immigrated to the US not only in the
1930s but also during the 19
th
century. It was thanks to their efforts that German
university reforms of the Humboldtian spirit were carried over to the other side of the
Atlantic, which led to the creation of the first American political science PhD programs.
Similarly, German-Jewish scholars contributed to the broad institutionalization of IR in
the American universities in the mid-20
th
century, when their European-related ideas gave
new directions to American social scientists.
When studying the development of the study of world politics as well as the later
emerging disciplinary structure of IR in (West) Germany, I focus on three aspects. Two
of these will focus on institutional and scholarly-agential dimensions of IR's development
in 20
th
century (West) Germany. For the institutional level, I describe the significant
function carried by a Berlin establishment for the study of politics. Deutsche Hochschule
145
für Politik (German School of Politics, DHfP) played a major role in the development of
general studies on politics while also providing the first institutionalized place for study
and research on world politics. Its Weimar era origins and the later re-founding in West
Germany after the Second World War is useful for understanding how world politics
advanced as a study topic among German scholars. The scholarly aspect, on the other
hand, pertains to the role of a German scholar whose engagement in this area of study
stretches from the years of Weimar Republic into the important early years of post-World
War II West German IR. By using Arnold Bergstraesser as a focal point of approaching
German IR's development, I aim to provide a sufficiently broad but still distinctive
analysis of this scholar that serves also to clarify West German IR.
In addition to providing analyses about both the institutional and scholarly-individual
perspectives, I will also consider in more detail the general developmental trajectory of
German political science and IR in its totality, sometimes focusing more on the general
political scientific developments when it covers and/or overlaps with the IR discipline. I
engage with multiple dimensions by presenting a general framework of German political
science and IR as separate disciplines emerging mainly in the mid-20
th
century, showing
the institutional and scholarly dimensions of their development, pointing to specific
features of the German understanding of IR, and explaining its divergence from other
significant IR communities. Overall, my goal is to provide a developmental narrative of
German IR that shows how different IR communities come into being. In this regard,
institutional structures play a significant role. A major conclusion concerns the rather
146
contingent dynamics that shaped present German IR scholarship. One important cause of
this is the impact of the US through its foundations and scholarly contacts as well as the
historical trajectory through which German scholars passed. These factors prevented a
pre-determined direction for IR's emergence in West Germany. The disciplinary history I
present is one of non-linearity, and also one of transnationality. While I start from
national IR assumptions, the conclusion is one that goes to a certain extent beyond
national borders as both the institutional and scholarly dimensions are shaped by forces
beyond the national. In this context, I hope that the study serves to point to new directions
in debates about IR and its disciplinary history.
As the development of political science as a university discipline is strongly
connected to the emergence of IR, at some points, their histories will be discussed
together in order to provide better clarification of conditions that enabled the further
development of International Relations as a separate area of study in (West) Germany.
The overall framework will present an analysis of the Weimar era interwar period as well
as the West German trends in the years of the Cold War, with a bigger focus on the early
stages of IR's emergence in the 1950s to mid-1970s. It is in the concluding chapter that I
will discuss the post-Cold War state of German IR in connection with its French
counterpart.
It is important to note that I use all these institutional and scholarly (agential) axes in
the context of transnational dynamics that are most clearly visible in the West German
case in the specific involvement of the US government officials in their capacity as West
147
Germany's temporary rulers in the aftermath of the Second World War. While I deal with
the interwar involvement of American philanthropies and the impact they had on German
IR of the era in a separate section, structure-wise it becomes difficult to cut off the West
German developments from the concomitant influence of US actors, be it foundations,
government, or returning or visiting former emigrants, some of whom became American
citizens in the war years or shortly afterwards. Their engagement in the development of
post-1945 West German IR is explained throughout the sections whose focus is on this
same period.

IV .1. 19
th
Century German Political Science: A Period of Failure
I begin my analysis of German IR's long journey toward disciplinary establishment
by turning to the broader trajectory of German political studies. Using the important
disciplinary history of German political science, written by Wilhelm Bleek, it becomes
possible to highlight the general context that has led to the actual establishment of
(world) political studies in the early 20
th
century.
German political science itself can be seen in terms of a longer history that reaches
back to the Middle Ages. In an important study of the discipline's history in Germany,
Wilhelm Bleek sees for instance the professiones ethices vel politices as earlier forms of
political science professorships in those periods. A significant dimension underlining the
connections between politics and scholarship is found in the impact of Protestantism, as
Bleek shows that state-building practices undertaken by Protestant princes paved the way
148
for further advances in political education. From that point on, one notices the correlation
between the teaching of politics and the rise of modern state, where the latter determines
the form and content of the former.
207

In the 18
th
century, new political study areas like Policey, Ökonomik and
Kameralistik (policy science, economics, cameral science) emerged. However,
liberalism's rise would lead to a decrease of interest in these areas because these studies
had been closely affiliated with the state policy of intervention. According to Bleek,
political science has been more relevant at times of reform.
208
Hence the role of
professors was also influential in the reformist policies of the 19
th
century before they got
crushed in the middle of the century after the failure of the 1848 revolution. Scholars
such as Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann and Robert von Mohl would participate in the
Frankfurt assembly experience, before leaving it after the prospects of a democratic
Germany were crashed. When the expectations for a successful revolution did not
materialize, it was only natural that these liberal scholarly circles lost their influence. The
concomitant acceptance by the German bourgeoisie of a rather repressive Prussian state
that would shape Germany following the 1871 unification was another obstacle to a
liberal society with academic openness. Not unlike the 20
th
century cases, pressure at
home led some important scholars to emigrate. Johann Louis Tellkampf, for example,
chose to leave for the US where he would teach at Columbia only to return in 1846 to
another German university where he was to share his American experience. This was not
207 Bleek, 2001: 23, 65-71.
208 Bleek, 2001: 84-87, 102.
149
always a welcome practice, as many Germans found his constant reference to America
boring.
209

Another major result for professors, who were over-proportionally involved in liberal
reformist movements of the mid-19
th
century failure, was the rather disconnected nature
of their theories from the practical implications of the revolutionary action. The
continuation of a state policy that saw officials with a legal studies background
(Juristenprivileg) as ideal candidates for state service further diminished the position of
political education. Under these conditions, politics became merely a teaching position
with not much of a prospect for actual research.
210
The fact that power and the state were
perceived interconnectedly led to von Treitschke's assumption of politics as arts of state
(Politik als Staatskunst). In such a framework there would be even less need for politics
as a discipline of study because it differed from approaches prioritizing empirical-law-
like structures or analyses based on the idea of great-statesmen.
211

While emphasizing the interconnected nature of the development of politics as a field
of study with other countries and regions, Bleek not only provides a picture of German
scholarship that is influenced by continental traditions, but also points to the impact of
German scholars abroad. Concerned with an oppressive German state, a very important
name in the development of political science, Francis (Franz) Lieber left Germany like
his colleague Tellkampf. He arrived in the US where his efforts played a major role in
shaping the initial features of the discipline of politics. At Columbia College, he was
209 Bleek, 2001: 133-134.
210 Bleek, 2001: 135-139.
211 Bleek, 2001: 149-155.
150
successful in his attempt at changing the name of his university chair. Thus, it was no
longer called “chair of history and political economy” but “chair of history and political
science,” the first time that a chair explicitly carried this name.
212

Whereas the Lieber connection provides an interesting aspect of the transnational
influences decisive in the development of academic programs and research areas, a
further aspect made this even more relevant. For example, a student of Lieber, John W.
Burgess, undertook part of his studies in the home country of his professor, being one of
some 9000 American students who studied in Germany between 1865 and 1914. Once
Burgess became a professor at Columbia, he managed to follow the German lead in
university reform that was a consequence of Humboldtian changes in the early 19
th

century. Doctoral programs were established in the US, including political science.
Furthermore, the founding of a School of Political Science (more modeled at the Parisian
ELSP) at Columbia and the publication there of Political Science Quarterly were
important advances in the effective cohesion of political science as a discipline.
Interestingly, one third of the book reviews in this American journal were devoted to
works published in German.
213

The picture that emerges at this juncture is one in which early German scholars had
an important say, even after leaving their country. It was not only their ideas carried
across the Atlantic that shaped the birth of US political science, but also the German
university structure leading to a broad revision of American higher education. The third
212 Bleek, 2001: 180, emphasis mine.
213 Bleek, 2001: 183-185.
151
aspect was student exchanges as seen in the case of Burgess who had studied in
Tübingen. In the pre-WW I years, the general degree of academic exchanges were so
high that there were fellowships named after Kaiser Wilhelm and Theodore Roosevelt for
American and German students who visited universities in the other country.
214
Another
case concerns Carl Joachim Friedrich who had immigrated to the US in the early 20
th

century and came to postwar West Germany where he did his utmost to help in the
creation of an independent discipline of political science, which he saw as a necessity for
a democratic society.
215
He was also to be closely engaged with German-Jewish emigrant
scholars in the US (as shown later in the case of Bergstraesser).
The main reason for seeing in this period a general failure of political science is that
liberal reformist professors' weakness in the mid-19
th
century and the subsequent docility
of the German bourgeoisie meant that university structures did not develop in a way that
could support the further establishment of political scientific studies. The fragility of
liberal professors who had done the most to advance such studies resulted in a decreased
importance for this area of study.
IV .2. Weimar and IR: DHfP and German Approaches to the Study of World Politics
As this study focuses, to a greater extent, on the institutional and scholarly aspects of
IR's disciplinary history in Germany (and France), the dimension of its ideational,
conceptual, and theoretical features is of a secondary importance. At the same time, the
214 On German-American cultural relations in the 20
th
century see Füssl, 2004.
215 Bleek, 2001: 27-28.
152
historico-political conditions are an important factor that stand in the background.
Therefore, I use this introduction to the pre-1945 period for presenting a brief analysis of
the circumstances shaping German approaches to the international dimension, and turn
both to the political and ideational context.
The broader legacy of the First World War influenced Germans' self-perceptions in a
new European environment. They lived in a country that had lost the 1914-1918 war, but
the defeat was explained differently by different groups. The Weimar Republic's
weakness became more visible when a World War I military leader, general Hindenburg
was elected to the presidency, although his animosity to the democratic regime was no
secret. As Weimar Germany emerged on the basis of a tripartite coalition between social
democrats, Catholics, and liberals, these same forces would play an important role in the
advancement of German political studies and the founding of DHfP. The 1930s and the
coming of the Hitler dictatorship affected this school, destroying its academic cadres,
standing, and later, existence.
The pre-1945 period of German world political thought has been marked, also in a
retro-active fashion, by the impact of Geopolitik, a specific approach to space, influenced
by the earlier studies of the German thinker Friedrich Ratzel. While the Nazi focus on
space and race created a difficult tension to overcome for German geopoliticians because
space alone was the only factor of relevance for the latter, the Allies had a general
perception of Karl Haushofer's work that had its origins in the stories about “the thousand
scientists behind Hitler.” Many excepted to find in Munich a huge research institute led
153
by this German geopolitician whose son was executed, in the final periods of the Second
World War, by Hitler's regime. Americans and British ignored that the Nazi association of
Geopolitik was also a result of the Nazi efforts to appropriate it for their purposes, turning
it into a Grundprinzip (basic principle) and not to political science.
216

The general conditions under which German scholars studied world politics and
issues of international dimensions were marked by this post-war legacy in which DHfP
was one of the influential organizations to connect with the broader world. It did not only
evolve into a school where (world) politics would be studied, but also into an institute
that was among the first members of the ISC, hosting its founding meeting in 1928. The
school leaders' close ties to the American foundations can be understood in regard of their
mostly liberal nature, and a relative distance from German nationalist-conservative
forces. All this meant that the mainstream German scholars and schools as well as
institutes (DHfP, but also the Hamburg-based IAP) were able to go beyond the domestic
conflicts in Weimar Germany and tie to the international level both in their studies and
their scholarly connections.
This section turns (in its subsections) to a discussion of German interest in
international affairs and in ways of studying it. The institutional advances relevant for
this dimension are explained in two subsections dealing with DHfP, and more briefly,
with the Hamburg-based Institut für Auswärtige Politik. I conclude by looking at the
interwar support provided by the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations for the
development of social and political science, and in this context also of IR. Such a
216 See Paterson, 1987: 107 and Bassin, 1987: 115, 128.
154
structure emphasizes the impact of transnational dynamics in shaping German IR as early
as the interwar period.
IV .2.a. German interest in the world and its politics
In Germany, ideas for the political education of the citizenry were most importantly
advanced by Carl Heinrich Becker in the last period of Wilhelmine Germany. Earlier, the
founding of oriental and colonial institutes in the late 19
th
century had set the stage for
basic linguistic and cultural training about foreign places. At the time of the First World
War, this Prussian state secretary and the later minister of culture and education in the
Weimar years was to assert that “political thought … has to be taught, the young German
has to be politicized.”
217
In 1917 he presented a memorandum to the Prussian parliament
asking for a broad “study of the abroad” (this is the literal translation of Auslandsstudien,
a concept that could be made much more IR-pertinent if translated as “foreign studies” or
better as “international studies”).
The memorandum reflected a clear position that connected the necessity of scientific
studies of world politics with Germany's own international standing and the citizens'
knowledge thereof. In Becker's own words “knowledge/experience of abroad is for a
world people not only a tool of its officials abroad and its interests there, but also an
indispensable part of its national education.”
218
According to him, the relevant form of
international studies should have an interdisciplinary nature and be aimed at the political
217 Bonniot, 2008: 65.
218 Festschrift, 1926: vii.
155
education of citizens, with a special focus on the world political dimension.
219
It was as a
consequence of this policy suggestion that a few years later Weimar Germany had many
scholarly institutes of foreign studies. In a volume in honor of Becker's 50
th
birthday, one
could already note contributions from various scholars from these units, ranging from the
University of Kiel's Institute for World Economy and Naval Traffic to the University of
Berlin's Hungarian Institute, from the University of Breslau's Eastern European Institute
to DHfP (German School of Politics).
By then, the editor of the important Preußische Jahrbücher, Walther Schotte, was
already pointing to advances made in Germany with regard to studying the world.
However, he thought that the world political dimension was still not as developed as the
historical or geographical aspects. International politics had to be understood more
broadly by going beyond individual foreign policies. This was “the final goal of foreign
political education.” In his concluding remarks, Schotte asked for a holistic approach
overcoming the focus of economics on raw materials or an emphasis put “by the new
special science of geopolitics on struggle for space.” Only by taking “the problems of
world politics in their totality and connectedness” could they become “objects of an
independent science of world politics.”
220

However, an initiative that had carried great weight for Becker was never realized.
The idea of founding an institute for “modern state science” (i.e. political sciences) in
Berlin according to the plans of the important German historian Otto Hintze came to
219 Bonniot, 2008: 67ff.
220 Schotte, 1926: 184, 190.
156
nothing; but Becker's quest for advances in scientific politics, that is a political science,
led to the creation of DHfP (Deutsche Hochschule für Politik, German School of
Politics), an institute that had also gathered his support against a rival school, the
Politisches Kolleg behind which stood more conservative-nationalist circles.
221
IV .2.b. DHfP in the Weimar years
The success of DHfP was also thanks to a broad list of founders. The initial idea
came from Friedrich Naumann, the leading figure of German liberalism in the late 19
th

and early 20
th
centuries. Internationally famous for his book Mitteleuropa, in which he
had proposed a Germany-centered zone in the central-eastern parts of the continent,
Naumann's national-liberal ideas had a large influence. He was, however, less
knowledgeable in the general area of foreign policy, perceiving it not as an ideology but
as a result of the national will. While preferring public opinion to diplomats' elitist
secrecies, he did not find peace movements of much significance and thought of war as
being something quite natural.
222
Naumann's later desire to promote political education
led to efforts by his followers after his death to realize this plan with a broader structure.
Ernst Jäckh, a scholar who was an important expert on the Orient like Becker,
223

stood as the main figure behind the school's foundation. A one-time adviser to Naumann
on world political issues,
224
Jäckh's role in this process showed that DHfP was a legacy of
221 Bonniot, 2008: 73-74.
222 Shanahan, 1959: 214-218.
223 Bonniot, 2008: 65.
224 Shanahan, 1959: 197.
157
Naumann, with its founders generally positioned in the political center of the new
Weimar Republic. The new school was supposed to be a center for the education of the
citizenry that would be in line with the principles of the newly established republic. This
meant that extremist forces were to be left out. Jäckh was a liberal, while social
democrats (Walter Simons) and business leaders (like Robert Bosch) became members of
its foundational committee.
In the 1926 volume honoring Becker, Theodor Heuss, not only a DHfP scholar but
also a liberal member of the Reichstag (the German parliament) was already praising the
role of his institute in the creation of political science in Germany. While defending a
(Max) Weberian position of detachment from politics when doing scientific research, he
saw in DHfP a reflection of the “political and economic fate of the state and nation.”
225
DHfP is in its origins an interesting example of historical path-dependency in
institution-building in the sense that its founding was a self-acknowledged imitation of
the Parisian Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques (ELSP). Ironically, this French
institution had been founded in the aftermath of the French defeat against the Prussians in
the 1870-1871 war. At that time, French elites were looking to the other side of the Rhine
where they saw the origins of Prussian superiority on the battle field as a natural
consequence of German intellectual dominance that had emerged from the successful
university reforms of the Humboldt era. The reforms were reflected in the modernized
structure of the University of Berlin.
226
In both schools' foundations, a lost war, a
225 Heuss, 1926: 160.
226 Gangl, 2008b: 79-80.
158
transition from monarchy and a general reform of the education system accompanied
these private institutes of political education. A process that had started with the victory
of the revolutionary and Napoleonic armies had led to the restructuration of the German
university system, which was later to pave the way for a similar policy by the elites of an
emerging Third Republic in post-1871 France.
The leading names of these two institutions explicitly pointed to the interconnected
nature of ELSP and DHfP. For the director of ELSP, Emile Boutmy, it was “The
University [of Berlin] that had won at Sedan,” whereas the president of DHfP, Ernst
Jäckh asserted at the founding ceremony of his institute that “[i]t was the Ecole Libre that
has politically won in the [First] world war.”
227
Jäckh even asserted that his idea for such
a school of politics took its final shape when he was travelling from Sofia to
Constantinople, using the long train journey to chat with the German count Wedel who
informed Jäckh about his studies at the Parisian ELSP, praising this institute's role as a
“center of the spiritual and national rebuilding.” In a letter to Becker, Jäckh wrote that
this experience convinced him even more to found the DHfP, thus following the
recommendations of Becker.
228
It was Becker who had laid the ground work by saying
that this new institution should focus on “all political science areas … without the
consideration of party orientation,” seeing in the school the embodiment of a national
spirit.
229
Similarly, many years later, the post-World War II refounder of the school, West
Berlin's future social democratic mayor Otto Suhr was to state that it had not been a
227 Gangl, 2008b: 92.
228 Jäckh, 1952: 10-11.
229 Bleek, 2001: 203.
159
coincidence that the post-World War I founding of the DHfP did not differ from the
ELSP's founding in the aftermath of the French defeat in 1871.
230
On October 24, 1920 the founding ceremony of the DHfP took place. The importance
given to the School was underlined by the presence of Friedrich Ebert, the social
democratic first president of Weimar Germany, at the opening. In addition to support
from very important liberal businessmen like Robert Bosch and Carl Friedrich von
Siemens, the Prussian state (where the school was located) also contributed by donating a
building. In its early years the politician and maker of the Weimar Constitution, Hugo
Preuß as well as the famous historian Friedrich Meinecke also taught there, while the
liberal Theodor Heuss, the social democrat Hermann Heller, and the right-wing Adolf
Grabowsky were scholars who demonstrated the faculty's heterogeneous structure.
231
An important name who was representative of elites' contribution to the new
academy, the then foreign minister Walter Simons added that Germans were now
consciously taking the French path “and founding after our defeat” this new institute.
232

Even many years later, it is interesting to note that Heuss was to defend the school's
policy of admitting foreign students, saying that Germany or its politics were not secrets,
and that German students could also gain different experiences by interacting with these
students coming from abroad. The Parisian counterpart was not forgotten when he
asserted that it was better to have these students educated in Berlin instead of the “great
230 Suhr, 1952: 33.
231 Bleek, 2001: 203ff.
232 Gangl, 2008b: 93.
160
propaganda place” in Paris, namely the competing ELSP located in the French capital.
233

Similarly, as Schotte reminded in 1926, during the 1917 debates about international
studies, following the memorandum of Becker, a liberal member of the Prussian
parliament had suggested using the Parisian school as a model for German foreign policy
studies. The focus had to be on the practical uses of a new form of knowledge that dealt
with the foreign and the international.
234
From all these mutual assertions and similar perceptions about the power and
influence of the other, as well as the prominence given to the education of/on politics,
there arises a clear picture about the significance of knowledge at a time when change is
omnipresent. It is in this context that one sees the elites of the Weimar coalition gathering
for the establishment of a school that will educate the citizens and also create new
intellectual elites for the republic. This dual function, to be a school for the citizenry's
political education and to provide knowledge about politics and the world at large to
prospective leaders of the Weimar Republic remained as a permanent source of tension
throughout DHfP's existence.
235

In the analysis of Detlef Lehnert, DHfP is not seen as a bastion of democratic forces.
Its scientific character is similarly questioned. In the late 1920s, DHfP witnessed an
increase of conservative-nationalist faculty members, thus weakening the Weimar
coalition frame of the school. The German nationalists were especially influential in the
areas of foreign, geopolitical and ethnic studies. Many scholars challenge the view that
233 Heuss, 1926: 160, 162.
234 Schotte, 1926: 184-185.
235 See Gangl, 2008b.
161
the school's Academic Division, created in its later years, was a major game-changer, as it
did not attract much student interest.
236
An important aspect concerns the increase in the relative weight of courses dealing
with world politics, international law and regional studies. In the first few years it was
around 20%, but by 1933, just before the Weimar Republic came to an end, this figure
had risen to 40%.
237
However, despite the international connections of DHfP and its
liberal leaders like Jäckh, the majority of courses on international politics were not taught
by the pro-Weimar faculty; scholars associated with nationalist-conservative ideologies
had a bigger role. Left-liberal scholars offered 7 courses compared to the right-wing
faculty's 14 courses within the Academic Division. Accordingly, Lehnert sees in this
interest in world politics a certain form of “internal emigration” for the nationalist-
conservative members of the DHfP. By teaching world politics, they were able to turn
their back on Weimar democracy in the sense of their scholarly engagement which
ignored the domestic area that was marked by, in the eyes of these scholars, the disliked
features of a democratic regime.
238
Eckart Kehr, a German historian whose main impact would emerge posthumously,
was another important instructor at the school. His challenge to the conservative-
nationalist accounts of the German role in the First World War generated big problems for
him (he remained in the US, being already there as a visiting scholar, at the time of the
Nazi takeover). His writings were later collected and published as Der Primat der
236 See Lehnert, 1989.
237 See especially the table in Lehnert, 1989: 452.
238 Lehnert, 1989: 455-457.
162
Innenpolitik (The Primacy of Domestic Politics). Although the volume's title was
determined by the editor, a major (West) German historian, Hans Ulrich Wehler, this
concept reflects Kehr's approach that questioned the readiness of the German bourgeoisie
for militarization at a time when no foreign political needs justified a policy in favor of
building a powerful navy. Anti-British and anti-Russian policies of the Wilhelmine period
are interpreted as a “foreign policy exit” the logic of which was to be located in domestic
class coalitions.
239

At such a juncture, a founding member of the DHfP, Adolf Grabowsky had a
completely conflicting position that asserted the primacy of foreign policy. This right-
wing professor had been the director of the geopolitical seminar in the school since 1925.
For him, the space was much more relevant than “the false abstractions of all previous
theories of the state.
240
The victors of this debate on primacy were the right-wing faculty,
and the general prominence given in the school's studies to foreign policy seems to have
contributed to the nationalists who gained the upper hand versus left-liberals like Kehr.
241

Otto Hoetzsch was another leading name among DHfP's nationalist professors who
had openly acknowledged the ultimate aim of political research and studies, to wit, “to
raise a people (Volk) ... to the ancient height of statal power and position.” He was joined
by others like Georg Cleinow and Max Hildebert Boehm, who respectively saw in their
courses a means of withstanding the Bolsheviks and of providing “a historically deeper
and bloodreacher [blutreicher] conception” about German people who was seen as
239 Blank, 1970: passim.
240 Söllner, 1991: 53-54.
241 Bleek, 2001: 208.
163
divided because of various factors.
242
Hoetzsch was also a parliamentarian of the
nationalist-conservative DNVP who rose in 1932 to the directorship of the study group
Foreign Policy and International Studies (Aussenpolitik und Auslandskunde) within
DHfP.
243
The emerging picture is one in which the domain of international politics at DHfP
was dominated by right-wing scholars whose approach was shaped by ideas about a
reemerging German power in the world. Whereas the school's more centrist founders
cannot be seen as figures who opposed a renewed German influence, it was the more
assertive nature of the right-wing faculty that differentiated the latter from their moderate
colleagues associated with political parties supportive of the Weimar regime. Therefore, it
is important to recognize both the ideas of Jäckh and his friends who saw in DHfP a
means of providing the weakened Germany of the post-1919 period with an institute
capable of generating new elites carrying necessary knowledge as well as the weight of
ideas of the nationalist-conservative faculty (many of whom had joined the school after
its unification with the right-wing Political College). This second group tried to advance
their ideational power by focusing on geopolitics, ethnic studies, research on the East
(Ostforschung, that is studies of Central-Eastern Europe), contributing thus to an
expansionist approach.
Jäckh was later to be full of praise for “his” DHfP. In his 1952-written retrospective,
following the re-founding of the school in West Berlin, his readers would learn that the
242 Söllner, 1991: 52, emphasis mine.
243 Burges, 2004: 48.
164
interwar predecessor was so successful that one US president had referred to this German
institute when pointing to the necessity of political education. Another reference is to a
British politician who saw in the Weimar DHfP “the most renowned institute on the
continent.” The highest level of this self-praising narrative is reached when he cites a
leading name of ISC who had the following words for DHfP in his speech for its tenth
birthday celebrations, held interestingly in the Reichstag building in 1930: “[DHfP] is
praised abroad as one of the most beautiful and most fruitful creations of postwar
Germany. There is no scientific institute that arouses greater international interest –
thanks to its spirit of scientific freedom, political responsibility and interstate
cooperation.”
244
The role of DHfP can be better understood when taking into account German elites
who wanted to contribute to the international empowerment of their state. In that context
politics was approached more in terms of statecraft rather than a more theoretical
analysis.
245
However, at a point at which there was no institutionalized political science,
the importance of the school was to promote the study and also some (not very advanced)
research on politics, with a special emphasis on foreign political and international
dimensions. The case of Siegfried Landshut, an important name in post-World War II
German political science, points to the overall weak position of political studies in
Weimar Germany. When trying to get a professorial position (Habilitation) in the field of
“politics,” he was not allowed to undertake the necessary application by directly asking
244 Jäckh, 1952: 6.
245 Söllner, 1991: 49-50.
165
for political science to be his field. Professors of the time did not see it permissible to
allow a scientific degree/position in politics.
246

Before turning to another relevant institution focusing on the world, it is important to
explain the end of DHfP in its liberal interwar structure. When the Nazis came to power,
Jäckh's insistence on his school's survival was not successful. It was Hitler himself who
informed the school's director about Goebbels' intentions to put DHfP under the control
of his ministry. A meeting with the Nazi dictator did not help Jäckh from preventing the
consequent Gleichschaltung (putting under Nazi control) of his school, thus starting a
process that would completely change its whole nature. In the meantime, Jäckh would
emigrate to the UK, only to return to Berlin for the post-1945 refounding of his school
under completely different conditions.
247
After the takeover by the dictatorial regime, the
Nazi and SS-affiliated people (using here the word scholar would be improper) reached
its highest point, before the final in merger into the Berlin-based
Auslandswissenschaftliche Fakultät (AWF, Faculty of Sciences of the Abroad/Foreign).
248
The school had in fact lost its influence shortly after Nazi control started, with its student
numbers decreasing from 1000 to 500 within four years. Only four scholars of the pre-
Nazi era would remain at DHfP in 1937, which points to a significant rupture of German
political science.
249
A substantial number had to leave due to their Jewish or leftist roots,
246 Bleek, 2001: 227.
247 See Korenblatt, 2006: 415 and Eisfeld, 1996: 36-37.
248 For a study on Nazi's use of studies dealing with international phenomena and the way they
instrumentalized science for their racist and expansionist purposes see Botsch, 2006.
249 Burges, 2004: 112, 108.
166
while many turned toward an “internal emigration” leaving the public life, whereas
important figures such as Jäckh had also left the country.
IV .2.c. The Institute in Hamburg: Far from Berlin, close to the world
In Hamburg, there emerged another important institute, which contributed
significantly to Weimar Germany's thinking on international affairs. Institut für
Auswärtige Politik (Foreign Policy Institute – IAP) was founded in 1923 by Albrecht
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy who had participated as a German delegate at the Paris Peace
Conference. Originally starting its work as a research center focusing on the causes of the
First World War, IAP counted among its supporters not only the liberal Hambourgian
business circles but also the Rockefeller Foundation as well as German ministries.
250

Although this center was geographically distant from Berlin and thus did not have the
impact of DHfP, its ties to the important Hansa city where it was located and whose
generally liberal spirit it overtook, made of IAP an important factor in the generation and
analysis of German views on world politics. The IAP founder Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
was also a professor of international law at the University of Hamburg, and it was thanks
to his efforts that the institute started to publish the journal Europäische Gespräche
(European Talks) which managed to bring together leading voices on world politics in its
pages.
251

250 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 199.
251 Burges, 2004: 67-72.
167
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was internationally well connected, serving as a member for
the Rockefeller Foundation's German local fellowship committee. Interestingly, while
other members of the committee were more traditional in their preferences, he was prone
to American ideas of social science. It was no coincidence that RF was itself interested in
developing the study of international relations.
252
In terms of IR, it is useful to look at the IAP charter that listed as its goal “the
scientific observation and recording of the political and economic forces determining the
foreign policies of states and – through the study of history – the finding out of the
regularities governing interstate relations with a view to providing training in foreign
policy.”
253
According to Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who shared his views concerning the
institute's aims at the opening ceremony, the institute carried the goal of “serving for
peace.” However, it would be too much, he asserted, to expect from “diplomacy and even
the science of foreign policy” to make the war disappear.
254
In regard of these statements,
it becomes visible that IR as such was still not much developed in post-First World War
Germany. The institute's position is more one tied to the analysis of world politics in a
think-tank-like manner. Therefore, certain assertions that see in IAP the world's third
international affairs institute, following the British Royal Institute of International Affairs
(RIIA) and the American Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), seem to be valid as far as
the three of them shared both a liberal internationalist worldview and a research center
252 Fleck, 2011: 45-46, 68.
253 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 251 fn. 11
254 Burges, 2004: 75.
168
structure that was detached from universities. No actual academization was to mark these
three institutes, demonstrating thus their more policy-related features.
An important cooperation between IAP and Berlin's DHfP concerned the publication
of a series of books on international affairs. Started in 1927, this series titled Politische
Wissenschaft (Political Science) was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation with
annual monetary contributions.
255

IV .2.d. US foundations and German studies of world politics during the interwar
period
Two US philanthropic foundations, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) and the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) played major roles in DHfP's
interwar development. At that time, Germany had to confront major difficulties due to the
international scientific boycott it faced in the post-First World War years. This boycott,
defended especially by the French, could only be overcome in the mid-1920s. It was
thanks to US actions supported by wartime neutral countries that the French were
convinced to allow the German scholars to gradually rejoin the international scientific
community.
256
German scholars' pro-war position in 1914 was a main reason for this
reaction.
In the case of Max Weber, for instance, he took a more critical position only in 1917,
after initially having seen the war as something “great and wonderful.” The famous “call
255 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 251 fn. 11 and Burges, 2004: 74 fn. 141
256 See Fuchs, 2002: passim.
169
of the 93” that included scholars, intellectuals and artists as signatories was aimed at
defending the German war policy.
257
It shocked British and French public opinion as well
as their scholars who were very critical of the German move to occupy Belgium, a
country that was neutral.
258
This situation showed the problematic pro-state, pro-war
attitude of most German scholars, demonstrating the mentality prevalent at the time of the
transition to a new, democratic regime, the Weimar Republic, founded in 1919.
In the last years of the Weimar Republic, Jäckh was constantly trying to convince the
Rockefeller Foundation of his school's successful scientific position. This period, marked
by a general financial decline, witnessed more Europeans looking for increased US
funding. In this context, he asserted that DHfP was undertaking a significant move
toward academization. Its recently created Academic Division provided a useful
showcase, testifying to the school's gradual overcoming of its less scientific origins.
However, the big words and promises of Jäckh were not taken at face value.
Contemporary internal evaluations of the foundation were skeptical. That the school had
managed to found the discipline of political science in Germany, for instance, was not
seen as an argument reflecting the exact nature of its true and nevertheless significant
accomplishments.
259

Notwithstanding aspects that did not completely satisfy RF, under the actual
conditions of the early 1930s, another RF report saw in DHfP “a real ray of light in
Germany, as far as an objective attitude in connection with international affairs is
257 Mommsen, 2000: 178-239.
258 Fuchs, 2002: 273.
259 Among others see Rausch, 2007: 93.
170
concerned.” One has to understand the moves of the foundation in a context that was
shaped both by the failure of efforts to create a Stresemann Foundation which would be a
peace research center similar to CEIP (the Carnegie Endowment itself was supposed to
fund it, but the project became obsolete) as well as the shelving of the project for
supporting another significant Berlin institution, namely the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut for
Comparative Public Law and International Law. If that plan had been realized, this
institute would have been turned into a center for the study of international relations and
international law, expanding its area of research more toward a broader IR framework.
260
CEIP's relations with the school were developed as a consequence of the ongoing
contacts between Jäckh and Nicholas Murray Butler, who was the president not only of
this foundation but also of Columbia University. Following the former's visit to New
York in 1924-1925, it was Butler's turn in 1926 to go to Berlin and meet with the DHfP
people. The result of these ties emerged in the form of a visiting professorship in March
1927: the Carnegie Chair for International Relations and History.
261
(A similar chair was
already present in Paris, again through the efforts of the CEIP.) The chair enabled both
DHfP's students and the interested public in Berlin to listen to many prominent figures
involved in the area international affairs. Ernst Robert Curtius from Heidelberg, André
Siegfried from Paris, James Shotwell from the US as well as Polish and Italian scholars
made the list in the late 1920s.
262
This whole process was a sign that DHfP was
considered as a significant institution through which the Carnegie Endowment could
260 Rietzler, 2008a: 71-72.
261 Rietzler, 2008a: 69-70.
262 Czempiel, 1965: 276.
171
contribute both to Germany's democratic order and broaden studies in the area of IR that
were in line with its expectations.
263
A full chair would be established at the start of the
1930s, but the conditions surrounding the Nazi rise would lead it to failure within a few
years.
A more successful cooperation was built with the Institut für Sozial- und
Staatswissenschaften (Social and State Sciences Institute), established under the
leadership of Alfred Weber in 1925. However, this was a center the research of which was
more on culture and state sociology and less on (international) politics.
264
The Heidelberg
institute which had a center-left profile and (unlike DHfP) no concentration of right-wing
professors, kept receiving financial aid from the Rockefeller Foundation until 1937, into
the years of the Hitlerite regime. In this policy of continuation, the scholarly fame and
personal integrity of this other Weber brother was a factor that had made him trustworthy
even during the years of the Nazi dictatorship.
265

IV .3. Post-1945 Paths of West German International Relations
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Germany, this time a divided one, had to
face the consequences of its racist-expansionists policies the legacy of which was more
dramatic compared to the 1914-1918 war. It is important to briefly present the historical-
263 See Winn, 2006. This article also explains CEIP's general position in post-First World War Europe and
its broader engagements for promoting peace by advancing such scholarly ties.
264 Bleek, 2001: 227.
265 Rausch, 2007: 93-94.
172
ideational conditions that affected the general context under which IR was to be
established before turning in detail to its disciplinary trajectory.
For some German historians, the post-1945 years marked a major turning point in the
sense of paving the way for Germans' decisive turn to the West, while others interpreted
this period as demonstrating the German quest for security. For Heinrich August Winkler,
a major historian of modern German history, “the long path to the West” finally enabled
Germans to become a real “Western” nation by establishing an effective democratic
system and distancing themselves from totalitarian systems.
266
The ultimate stage of this
Westernization would be the end of the East German state and German re-unification, but
many of the “Western” features of modernity were already present in the West German
state. For another historian, Eckart Conze, West Germans' main worry was to secure their
security. They had to accommodate to new conditions, and this meant that Westernization
could take shape more easily because the prospects of unification were closed. Under
such circumstances, social and political changes leading the country toward the West
were the only option.
267
Whereas the initial years of the West German state had been shaped by the
hegemonic position of the Christian Democrat chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, the political
conditions would change in the 1960s. As a result, the Social Democrats, led by Willy
Brandt, took over the government in a new coalition with the liberals.
268

266 See Winkler, 2010.
267 Conze, 2009: 107.
268 The same period would be marked by societal changes, creating also reactions within the academic
world, as radicalized students would show their discontent with even social democratic professors, in
one famous case attacking a political science professor at the Otto Suhr Institut of the FU Berlin.
173
While the Brandt government came forward with a new policy of Ostpolitik that
aimed to create friendlier relations with the Eastern bloc, the postwar academic world
was one marked by greater openness to cooperation with the West, overcoming the more
nationalist tendencies of the past. It was as part of this change that (West) Germans
scholars became part “of a transnational enterprise oriented toward Anglo-American
models.”
269
This signified that a more intensive interaction with US scholarly community
arose as a new reality. However, as I show below, these closer ties created dynamics that
would trigger many scholars (especially of the younger generation) to transcend the
American dominance in the academic world. These scholars played a significant role in
turning their US-gained knowledge to more US-critical directions, trying to expand the
space of scholarship to more neglected dimensions such as the Third World, peace
research, and Marxist ideas.
It is also important to understand the general position of the political science
discipline to explain the conditions relevant for the emergence of (West) German IR. In
this context, the most important starting point is to see the international and internal
forces at work in the aftermath of the Second World War. The later understanding of post-
1945 West German political science as a Demokratiewissenschaft, that is a science of
democracy, was to provide a broadly accepted conceptualization. Only with the 1968
student generation and the rise of critical voices, there followed a more skeptical attitude
toward West German self-perceptions with regard to the role of political science. The
initial reason for such a labeling derives from the fact that a post-Hitlerite West German
269 Jarausch and Meyer, 2003: 194.
174
state positioned alongside the Western allies found in political scientific education a
means of providing its citizens with the civic knowledge necessary for a functioning
democratic system. Many years later, when its critics came forward, they would point to
the failure of this role, as German political science had limited itself to an aloof position
from which no sufficient engagement with the post-war society and state was to take
place.
270
In the emergence of a postwar political science, multiple layers of actors had their
part. Next to the role of German(-Jewish) scholars who were to return permanently or to
have significant influence in their capacity as visiting professors, Western occupying
powers, especially US authorities, played a decisive role. On the other hand, many
Germans who had not emigrated but spent the years of dictatorship and war in a so-called
“internal migration,” i.e. not leaving the country, but living in an isolated and detached
way, were to return as scholars to the universities. A big challenge was to come from
scholars who opposed the very idea of political science. This group mostly consisted of
scholars engaged in the powerful disciplines of law and history.
In the case of (West) German IR, and more broadly in political science, the impact of
factors that are at the intersection of “science proper” and politics can be demonstrated
not only with regard to the interwar but also the post-World War II era. While
understanding the impact of a US-shaped understanding of a scientific study of (world)
politics, it is still necessary to take into consideration the influence of the German
university structure and German emigré scholars in the late 19
th
and early 20
th
centuries
270 Ziebura, 2003: 18.
175
upon the actual birth and development of the US political science. As exemplified by the
cases of Lieber and Friedrich, it was German scholars who contributed to US
scholarship's updated modern understanding of political science. Similar effects were
seen much later, in the post-World War II period, a time when German political science
itself was undergoing a process of rebirth. Many German-Jewish emigrant scholars who
made themselves political scientists, following varying levels of adjustment to dominant
US versions of science, contributed significantly to the US IR discipline, as names like
Hans Morgenthau and John Herz provided the building blocks of a realist IR with their
Europe-related insights shaping the features of post-war IR in the US.
When Ned Lebow discusses the development of US realist IR, he rightly mentions
German-Jewish emigrant-scholars like Morgenthau and Herz. Focusing on the close
connection between their life experiences and research agendas, he points to a path one
should not lose sight of when analyzing the way scholarly research was triggered by their
surroundings. While some scholars like Adorno would dislike this US academic
experience, not least due to American assumptions about objectivity in science, many
others reached important positions there. Their insights derived from German idealism,
Marxist understanding as well as historicism would provide important sources of fresh
ideas to American social science by providing a comprehensive approach to research.
271
It
is important to keep these two-way impacts in mind before turning in a more detailed
fashion to analyzing the developmental trajectory of post-1945 West German political
science, and more specifically, IR studies. The examples presented here make it clear that
271 Lebow, 2011: 562, 549-550.
176
transnational dynamics at work had origins in previous periods, and were not necessarily
leading to a pre-destined track for the future development of scholarly activities in the
new West German state. In this intense period of American-influenced development of
political science and IR in post-1945 West Germany, the engagement of US actors is
explained throughout the various subsections instead of a detached analysis in a single
subsection that would cut off their story from the broader analysis.
IV .3.a. The emergence of a West German DHfP: from school to university
The post-World War II refounding of the German School of Politics took place on
January 15, 1949. This time, the main actors behind the efforts to reestablish DHfP were
social democrats who had the support of Christian democrats and liberals. While the date
precedes by a few months the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany (West
Germany under the guidance of the Western powers), the “new” DHfP was to become a
major symbol in the academic life of Berlin's western part, as the city itself was destined
to serve as a marker of the divided Cold War world.
The post-1945 praise for the interwar DHfP did not differentiate between its more
liberal circles, and its nationalist cadres, ignoring also the extent to which scholars like
Jäckh were open to certain negotiations with Hitler's regime (although they could not
secure the realization for their proposals that would pave the way for school's further
existence in the Hitlerite period). West Germans thought about using this institute's
prewar history as a tool for framing a positive picture of German political science's pre-
177
Nazi successes.
272
On a more general level, the aftermath of the Second World War meant
that (West) German political science was to take a new shape. Such a point could be
interpreted either as a restart, as a completely new start, or as a part of longer processes of
rupture and continuity.
273
The frame I develop here is based on the idea that the two eras
of DHfP differed, while recognizing its contributions to the development of IR studies in
both periods. It is not possible to ignore the fact that ISC's first meeting had taken place
in 1928 at DHfP. However, in line with the broader transnational dynamics that gave the
most important impetus for the actual institutionalization of political science, and more
specifically of IR, it is necessary to focus on the post-1945 period. My analysis is one that
starts from continuities as well as new starts, depending on the aspect one employs.
Looking at the context of its founding, that is, the days of a blocked West Berlin, it
was understandable that the pro-West German parties in the city assembly chose March
18, 1948 for debates concerning the refounding of the DHfP. This was the hundredth
anniversary of the 1848 revolution.
274
Therefore, a DHfP reborn in the aftermath of World
War II was to be given a role not unlike its Weimar era predecessor that had been seen as
the promoter of the then new Republic. Now, 28 years later, it was the social democratic-
led pro-Western coalition that used DHfP as a means of replying to the pro-Soviet
authorities in the eastern part of the city.
275
Thus, there was a functional similarity with
the times of the Weimar era, when the pro-Republican political parties, including similar
272 Buchstein, 1999: 208-209.
273 For an extended analysis of these aspects see Laborier and Trom, 2002.
274 Göhler, 1991b: 146.
275 Söllner, 1996: 281.
178
formations from the major center-left, centrist and center-right positions, had stood
behind the 1919 founding.
Among the names whose efforts led to the new DHfP was Otto Suhr, a scholar-
politician who at that point presided over the Berlin city assembly and was later to
become the first mayor of West Berlin. A former member of the Weimar-era DHfP
faculty, and the future first president of West Germany, the liberal Theodor Heuss also
supported the school and wanted it to “make Germans more adept [geschickter] in the
management of their political business.” Also helpful to note is the statement of Suhr who
had become the first director of the re-founded DHfP. According to him, a “Diplom-
Politiker,” that is a politician with a (university) degree, was something unnatural.
276

Consequently, the reborn school was again in the shape of a non-university institute.
These claims about the duties of this re-founded establishment demonstrate that, in its
initial stage, it was not supposed to be a major center of political scientific studies.
The post-World War II DHfP had quite a heterogeneous structure, and its
departments included not only social policy, economics, philosophy and sociology,
history and geography but also political opinion and consent building as well as foreign
studies and foreign policy. This list gives a clear idea of the rather broad scope covered
by the school, further underlining the nature of the institute that saw political education as
its main duty. Its structure became a major problem in the 1950s which reflected similar
difficulties that it met in the 1920s with regard to the issue of academization. Whereas
Otto Suhr himself was to lament in 1950 the lack in “the clarification of politics as
276 Göhler, 1991b: 144, 152.
179
science,” for Ernst Fraenkel, a scholar who contributed much to the development of post-
1949 West German political science, it was important to turn the school into a center of
an independent discipline. He added that “the study of auxiliary sciences
[Hilfswissenschaften] was too academic” while politics itself was not dealt with at the
school in a sufficiently academic manner.
277
This quest for a scholarly study of politics, that is for the actual study of political
science was also supported by the student body. In a 1952 analysis of the newly re-
founded DHfP, Suhr mentioned the complaints of students who were asking for more
academic studies, going beyond the four-semester structure and for including a diploma
program as well as more courses on world politics and foreign policy. It is interesting that
Suhr refers in this context to the old DHfP's successes in these areas, the realization of
which he sees possible under the challenges generated in a city that was at the forefront
of a divided world.
278
Such was the need for change that an institutional relationship with the Freie
Universität Berlin (FU Berlin) was initiated in 1952. The following year witnessed the
creation of Diplom (undergraduate degree) studies which was accepted by 1956 to lead to
an “undergraduate degree political scientist” (Diplom-Politologe). The institutional
merger with the West Berlin-based FU Berlin led finally in 1953 to the inclusion of DHfP
into the former's newly established Otto Suhr Institut (OSI). This inter-faculty institute in
West Berlin emerged henceforth as the biggest political science center in West Germany.
277 Göhler, 1991b: 154-155.
278 Suhr, 1952: 37.
180
However, the efforts to make the DHfP join the university were met with opposition.
Many professors within the university disliked the increase of political science's influence
that would be generated by such a merger.
279
IV .3.b. A chair for studying the international: Eugen Fischer-Bailing and his work
After a short period marked by Carl Dietrich von Trotha, the recently established
chair in foreign policy in DHfP was given to Eugen Fischer-Bailing. This latter scholar
had a traditionally formed interest in world politics and saw, in his own words, “no better
introduction to international political behavior than the papal documents of the Middle
Ages.” His involvement during the First World War in the German Army High
Command's Foreign Division (Auslandsabteilung der Obersten Heeresleitung) and the
Cultural Department of the German Foreign Ministry were useful means for a direct
encounter with foreign policy issues, in addition to the experience provided by the war
itself. His most important engagement in the Weimar years was to work as the leading
manager in the parliamentary research committee that dealt with the issue of war
responsibilities (Schuldfragen). Fischer-Bailing even asserts that his research work there
provided “the first example of political science work in Germany.” It was only after
World War II that he returned to the academic life that he had left in 1913.
280
The later
DHfP merger into the FU Berlin's Otto Suhr Institut would make him the first official
professor in Berlin with a chair in the field of world politics.
279 Ziebura, 2003: 18.
280 Fischer-Bailing, 1960: 5.
181
Fischer-Bailing plays an important role in the development of German IR, as his
1960 book with the title of Theorie der auswärtigen Politik (Theory of Foreign Policy)
was among the first publications providing a direct engagement with IR.
281
His study
analyzed in four sections different dimensions of foreign policy: first, foreign policy as a
power political relationship between states; second, the ties of foreign policy to other
dimensions like religion, science, arts, economics, public opinion and (international) law;
third, the details of foreign policy processes in the sense of diplomacy techniques and
foreign ministries' role; and fourth, international organizations (originally called
“supranational” in the book). Notwithstanding remarks about its theoretical contributions,
the book resembles earlier IR books of the 1940s published in the US, which aimed to
prove their readers with a general introduction to world politics. Even his definition of
the theory of foreign policy is based on the state-centric understanding of the period,
seeing it as “nothing else than the teaching of the interests of sovereign states and their
validation” (Geltendmachung).
282
When Fischer-Bailing dealt in the first section of the book with functions of foreign
policy, it is interesting to note the rather philosophical nature of his analyses, marked by
references to various factors like humanity, violence, and interests, not very different
from Morgenthau's or E. H. Carr's approach. One of the main emphases made in the
preface concerns his wish for the “devaluation of borders” (Abwertung der Grenzen).
While asking for a power politics that can guarantee the survival of humanity, he
281 Burges, 2004: 171. According to Burges, it was the first theory-connected IR publication in West
Germany.
282 Fischer-Bailing, 1960: 18.
182
mentions that this is made difficult by borders, but also sees in forces like religion and
science dimensions that have managed to overcome these borders. In this framework, he
thinks that the book itself has to be a means of overcoming ideological borders that are
among greatest threats to peace.
283
This is an interesting approach and shows the
normative quest that is carried over to a study of foreign policy. A second-order (that is
research-based) interaction with the first-order of world politics itself is thus explicitly
interpreted as an element that can contribute, however narrowly, to a more peaceful
world.
Of much relevance is the fact that Fischer-Bailing's book was one of the early
products of the DHfP's merger into Otto Suhr Institut at FU Berlin. Published as the sixth
volume of the institute's “science of politics” series, the book had come to life thanks to
the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, a fact acknowledged by the author himself at
the end of his preface. This also demonstrates the continuing interest shown by US
philanthropies in furthering IR studies. It was no coincidence that both the Rockefeller
and the Ford foundations contributed, in addition to the US Department of State, to the
founding of the FU Berlin in the first place. Developing close connections with West
German scholarship was now serving as a means of strengthening the American position
in the overall Cold War confrontation, and the foundations contributed to this to the
extent of their capacities.
284

283 Fischer-Bailing, 1960: 4-5.
284 Rausch, 2010: 133-135.
183
An analysis of the literature used in his work provides a useful frame to interpret the
way post-1945 West German IR developed. When looking at the bibliography presented
in a topic-based way, there emerges a clear preference for traditional figures. In the area
of power, for instance, the writings of Cardinal Richelieu and von Moltke, Empress
Maria Theresia and von Treitschke are joined by their “updated” counterparts like
Morgenthau and Niebuhr. In the areas of peace, disarmament, courts and international
law, Carl Schmitt's 1950 book Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Ius Publicum
Europeum is there alongside Bertha von Suttner's famous anti-war book of 1889, Saint-
Pierre's text on eternal peace from 1713 in addition to Lenin's and Kant's well-known
works on peace. In the section on general publications, Karl Haushofer's 1927 book on
borders as well as John Herz's Political Realism and Political Idealism book published in
1951 are mentioned, but also Adolf Grabowsky's (former right-wing professor at the
Weimar era DHfP) 1948 study Die Politik (Politics).
IV .3.c. Founding a discipline: conferences, decisions, implementation
In the early years of postwar West Germany, the academic establishment of political
science as a separate discipline was a heavily contested idea. While the occupation
authorities saw it as means of creating civic education for future generations, scholars
from law and history disciplines perceived political science as a challenge to their own
academic status. These two areas themselves included political sciences (in the plural
version) but opposed a separate field of politics in the form of a separate singular political
184
science. American re-education efforts combined with the rise of pro-political science
scholars paved the way for the discipline's actual founding in West Germany. It is
important to understand that all this was taking place in a society still feeling the impact
of the Hitlerite dictatorship and war years with all its consequences. Under such
circumstances the very idea of political science was anathema to many people. The anti-
politics climate was responsible for broadly shared feelings of rejection against its
study.
285
Unlike the law professors, there has been a clear break with the Nazi years in the area
of political science and its scholars. Whereas legal professors were heavily burdened due
to their Nazi-era positions, the majority of future political scientists had been either
emigrants abroad or chosen domestic isolation.
286
While DHfP was affected by the Nazi
takeover early on and lost its structure toward the end of 1930s, it was reborn in a
democratic fashion in the postwar period. The break with the Nazi years provided even
more reasons for a pro-political science approach after the war.
In the case of American officials, their positive attitude toward its teaching arose
from a critique of Germany's traditional emphasis on legal training. US authorities
thought it was time for civil service employees to undergo civic education via a study of
politics instead of Germans' preference for law. American initiatives were also a result of
German emigrant-scholars' impact. Names like Ernst Fraenkel, Franz L. Neumann and
Karl Loewenstein provided Americans with much information that supported the teaching
285 Mohr, 1995b: 14-16.
286 Lietzmann, 1996: 41.
185
of politics in German universities as a separate discipline. Interesting in this regard is that
the introduction of political science was defended by references to German scholars of
politics in the previous centuries, like Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann and Robert von
Mohl.
287
These two professors were influential names in 19
th
century German studies of
politics, before interest was lost following the oppression of 1848 and the later docility of
German bourgeois vis-à-vis Prussia's oppressive state mechanisms.
The opposition to political science as such asserted that this separate and new
discipline was being “imposed from abroad” and serving “ulterior purposes” of US
foreign policy goals. However, one should add that emigrant scholars themselves were
not always in line with US positions, as many of them would end up, for instance,
rejecting German rearmament, a policy advocated later by Americans.
288
The idea that
political science was an “American discovery” was also rejected by Otto Suhr, similarly
referring to Dahlmann and von Mohl in order to point to the earlier roots of political
science in Germany. For Suhr, the post-1848 regress in the influence of German scholars
and political science itself could now be overcome in the new DHfP of the post-World
War II refounding.
289

What emerged in this context can be seen as “a process of amalgamation” which
would generate “a specific West German form of political science.”
290
As stated with
regard to the general framework of this study, the interactions between Americans
287 Lamberti, 2008: 270-272.
288 Lamberti, 2008: 278.
289 Suhr, 1952: 39-40.
290 Köhl, 2005: 38ff.
186
military and civilian officials, US foundations, German scholars and state representatives,
and returning or visiting former German-Jewish emigrant scholars made it possible for
political science and IR to advance as disciplinary projects. However, their future paths
were not going to follow traditional German models, nor become a direct imitation of the
US version of IR studies. Transnational dynamics were shaping the discipline, giving it a
distinct shape.
A particular role was played by Loewenstein who assumed that political education
would lead to a new generation that would be armed with much needed civic political
knowledge, thus paving the way for a democratic (West) Germany. Scholars like Ludwig
Bergstraesser (a distant relative of Arnold Bergstraesser, member of the Social
Democrats) and Alfred Weber, who were important social scientists even in the Weimar
years, were now convinced by Loewenstein to get engaged in this new process.
291
Three important conferences provided the necessary venues for an organized
establishment of political science. The first one took place in Waldleiningen in September
1949. As Bleek reminds in his account, in those same days the West German state was
being created in Bonn, thus hindering Theodor Heuss from participating, as he was to be
elected as the Federal Republic's first president. The subject to be discussed in
Waldleiningen was “the political sciences at German universities and colleges.” In
addition to 87 German participants, there were also twelve foreign political scientists
present in the audience, including the president of APSA.
292
291 Lamberti, 2008: 272.
292 Bleek, 2001: 266 and Lamberti, 2008: 272.
187
Not only was this conference financed by Americans, but also its German organizers,
namely the government of the Hessian state, were influenced by the US authorities in
order to prioritize education in the area of politics. The most important result of the
conference was its call for the establishment of “chairs in political science, especially in
world politics, political sociology, comparative government, contemporary universal
history, and political theory.” It is useful to note that this division was formalized at the
Waldleiningen conference for the first time.
293
The structure that was set up in this
meeting demonstrated that IR would henceforth be a research field within the discipline
of political science, leaving behind the previous influence of historical and legal studies
on the study of politics.
Continuing opposition from the side of established disciplines and university
leaderships forced two subsequent meetings in 1950. In that same year the US High
Commission in West Germany had supported four scholars to come to Germany in order
to help develop ways for the introduction of political science.
294
The first conference,
organized at the newly refounded DHfP, was insistent on its reference to “an independent
science of politics.” The meeting had an interesting name: “The science in the framework
of political education.” According to its conclusions, under “the present German reality
this political science” can be advanced by the establishment of independent research units
as well as chairs at universities, thus creating a separate discipline at the academic level.
The political concerns were clear when it was asserted that “the science of politics can
293 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 206, 253 fn. 24.
294 Lamberti, 2008: 273.
188
only contribute to political education, which connects knowledge, experience and
civilized behavior [Gesittung]. The transfer of a high level of political knowledge …
supports the sustainable political self-education of the German people.” The new DHfP
seemed to follow its old version when it was explicitly stated that “support from
philosophy, history, law, economics” was needed in order to realize the discipline's
goals.
295
In June 1950, a third conference started in Königstein, again initiated by the state
government of Hesse. Hesse had by then, unlike many other West German states, already
three chairs at its universities for “scientific politics” (Wissenschaftliche Politik), an
earlier label for political science. The conveners asked in the meeting for the
establishment of political science chairs at every university.
296
This by itself was no easy
process, as seen in the case of the West Berlin's Freie Universität. There, the academic
senate had voted in October 1949 against the establishment of political science because
“no mere imitation of American conditions could take place at German universities.”
297
It
would only be in the 1960s that the call for separate chairs of political science was finally
answered by the majority of West German universities. Only in 1954 did the West
German university rectors adopt a resolution enabling the establishment of separate
political science chairs. As late as 1959, there were scholars, like the historian Gerhard
Ritter, who saw in political science just something “new, US-imported.”
298
However, the
295 Suhr, 1952: 41-42.
296 Bleek, 2001: 267.
297 Göhler, 1991b: 159.
298 Bleek, 2001: 278.
189
major debate looked as if it had been won by groups in favor of a separate political
science discipline. Even the issue of labels was significant. Political sciences (politische
Wissenschaften), an approach favored by legal scholars, historians and others who saw no
separate discipline of politics, was no longer talked about. Instead, the singular form of
political science (politische Wissenschaft) was adopted, underlining the inherent
distinction of its disciplinary nature.
299
Having seen the way a postwar political science developed in West Germany, it is
important to note the fact that International Relations/International Politics/World Politics
has been at the roots of the new discipline as early as the 1949 Waldleiningen conference,
in which the study of world politics had been primarily mentioned amongst the
study/research areas of a discipline of politics-in-founding. This period was marked to a
certain extent by the slow take-over of IR by political science, detaching it from the fields
of history, economics, and law.
300

IV .3.d. Organizing for and fighting over political science: West Germans' political
science association (DVPW) and critics of West German political science
Following the conferences, another important step toward the full establishment of
the political science discipline in West Germany was taken. On February 10, 1951,
Vereinigung für die Wissenschaft von der Politik (Association of the Science of Politics)
was founded. Alexander Rüstow, a scholar whose main area was economics but who had
299 Söllner, 1996: 279.
300 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 255-256 fn. 36.
190
an overall interest in social sciences, was chosen as the first president. Previously, he had
taken part during his emigration in the restructuration of Turkey's university system. A
very important German scholar, and the preceding owner of Rüstow's new chair at
Heidelberg, namely Alfred Weber became the honorary president. However, the initiative
was interestingly taken by a left-wing scholar, Wolfgang Abendroth when he contacted
the director of the DHfP, Otto Suhr, with a proposal to establish an association for
political science. This led to Suhr's subsequent engagement by using his school's
influential role in West Berlin.
301

Throughout this process, US authorities continued to play a decisive role. Officials
within the High Commission convinced German scholars that an organized structure for
German political scientists would be important in order to grant them funds that were
destined for the establishment and development of political science chairs. As a
consequence, there arose a further incentive for founding an association.
302
Already in
1952, the high-standing of postwar West German political science was demonstrated in
the association's first meeting following its establishment. Behind this meeting stood the
resources provided by Americans.
303
Here, the former DHfP scholar and the then
president of the West German state, Theodor Heuss gave the opening speech,
emphasizing the role of political education in a rather pragmatic fashion. Interestingly, it
fell to Carl Joachim Friedrich to actually point to earlier political science traditions in
Germany, although he himself had taught in the US after leaving Germany in the early
301 Bleek and Lietzmann, 2003: 75-77.
302 Lamberti, 2008: 273-274.
303 Söllner, 1996: 280.
191
20
th
century.
304
In addition to the goal of political scientists of promoting their discipline
and the related US support, the recent founding of the International Political Science
Association (IPSA) in 1949 had clarified the need for a similar national structure in West
Germany that could pave the way for a separate science of politics and manage to follow
global tendencies.
305
In 1959, the association would take its current name, Deutsche
Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft (German Political Science Association, that is
DVPW).
While the founding of the new DHfP outside the university structure was a
consequence of many objections held at the university levels, the establishment in West
Berlin of a political research institute (Institut für politische Wissenschaft) was a result of
Franz L. Neumann's efforts. Having been in connection with Americans and promising to
secure significant financial aid, he turned to the Freie Universität Berlin that had finally
to accept the establishment of this research institute. Due to its very nature, however, it
was not focused on teaching, and can be interpreted to have presented a lesser challenge
to the university's other structured disciplines that could count on more time before
having to face a separate political science department.
306
One year before DHfP's own
merger, this institute would be incorporated into Otto Suhr Institut at the Freie
Universität.
The most relevant public aspect of postwar political science pertains to its role in
general education, as high schools started to offer classes on politics – similar to civic
304 Bleek and Lietzmann, 2003: 80-81.
305 Söllner, 1996: 280.
306 Göhler, 1991b: 158-159.
192
education. Pro-political science groups that favored more influence for the discipline,
against the old tendency that privileged law graduates in public services, did not succeed
in prioritizing the new discipline for public service, especially governmental jobs.
307

Nevertheless, for civic education classes, their necessary teacher cadres were to be
educated by political scientists, a factor that greatly increased the student numbers in the
1960s.
Two books written in the 1970s would pave the way for revisionist accounts
regarding the founding years of West German political science and thus create a big
disciplinary controversy. One of them, written by a scholar with national-conservative
ideas, challenged the general assumptions about the establishment of West German
postwar political science. According to Hans-Joachim Arndt's 1978 book Die Besiegten
von 1945 (The Defeated of 1945), it was the failure caused by German scholars' tendency
to take for granted post-1945 conditions and putting self-created limits upon their analytic
frameworks that disconnected the discipline from Germans' actual problems and from
Germany's dividedness. The other scholar, Hans Kastendiek, published a left-wing
critique of West German political science in 1977. The approach in his book Die
Entwicklung der westdeutschen Politikwissenschaft (The development of West German
political science) was an anti-capitalist one that saw West German political science as a
bourgeois science.
308

307 Gangl, 2008a: 13.
308 Bleek, 2001: 416, 215.
193
Critics were harsh in their attacks, although there was also an acknowledgement
about mainstream scholars' disinterest in undertaking historiographical work themselves.
With regard to Arndt, even if one acknowledges the acceptability of his call for more
focus on the German people's situation and interests in political scientific research, the
idea of focusing “only on the German situation” was rejected.
309
Another scholar asserted
the problem was that West German political science was seen as too left-wing by Arndt,
and as not sufficiently leftist by Kastendiek.
310
Arndt's reaction came in the form of
accusing the centrist scholars (whom he called the “juste milieu”) for using him and
Kastendiek as tools in order to make their position in the center more coherent.
311

Opposing the postwar approach of his colleagues who focused on their liberation (befreit)
by the Allies, Arndt wanted a shift that would recognize their being defeated (besiegt).
Answering his critics, he interpreted world history and world politics as processes that are
in line with national pathways. This degree of Hegelianism led to his counter-proposal,
which called for not remaining content with the given order of the post-1949, opposing
the West German political scientists for being satisfied with the new “free democratic
basic order.”
312
His reference was, of course, to the role played by West German political
science in promoting the 1949 constitutional order that established the framework
necessary for this democratic order. This position showed that the new democratic values
309 Faul, 1979: 91-92.
310 Hättich, 1980: 204.
311 Arndt, 1980: 303.
312 Arndt, 1980: 307-309.
194
promoted by political science were not accepted by all German political scientists, but by
a great majority.
It was in this context that the main theoretical and research work in West German
political science pertained to totalitarianism theory. Many emigrants who returned to
postwar West Germany continued on the path of their earlier work that had emerged in
the late 1930s and early 1940s. Franz L. Neumann's Behemoth that dealt with the Nazi
regime as well as Sigmund Neumann's Permanent Revolution: The Total State in a World
at War provided examples of the emerging literature on totalitarianism. However, when
postwar efforts led to the establishment of a separate political science discipline, it was
not the case that West Germans' approach was the same as the American version. For
instance, the rise of behavioralism in the US could not be seen in the German case where
many scholars of the interwar years were to provide the first generation of post-1945
political science. In this juncture, there arose a new hybrid political science that was not
only different from its classical German versions of Kameralistik and policy sciences but
also differing from the latest US approaches like behavioralism.
313
According to a Marxist critique of postwar West German political science, it was the
shift to anti-communism that had detached the social-democratic project in political
science from its original position, one that was based on developing a theory of society
and keeping an anti-capitalist approach among its norms. As a consequence, not only
Karl Marx but also Max Weber was left out of the new postwar West German political
313 Lietzmann, 1996: 40-43.
195
science.
314
It is in this regard that one can understand an important attack on the idea of
German political science as a Demokratiewissenschaft. Bodo Zeuner asserted that
German political science did not manage to become a science of/for democratization. The
ensuing picture was one of a pro-status quo discipline that did not engage with society
and its conditions on a level beyond the normative.
315
Even the broad impact that was
understood to be part of German Demokratiewissenschaft, including research on,
legitimizing of, and teaching of democracy,
316
did not defy significant attacks that
underlined German political science's role as “a legitimating science.” For Marxist critics,
the discipline failed to realize its critical role in providing a scientific “control [for] the
democratic system.” As a result, de-ideologization was seen as having opened the way for
a conservative political science closely connected with the West German political status
quo.
317

IV .3.e. A brief look at academic journals: from ZfP to PVS
An important dimension of German political science pertains to the nature of its
scholarly publications. In this context, the most important and chronologically preceding
case is the Zeitschrift für Politik (ZfP, “Journal of Politics”), founded by Adolf
Grabowsky in 1907. With the founding of DHfP, where Grabowsky himself had a
significant position through the geopolitics seminar he directed, the journal became a
314 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 217.
315 Zeuner, 1991: 195.
316 Göhler, 1991b: 162.
317 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 217.
196
school-affiliated publication. After it was effectively put under Nazi control, the restart of
its post-World War II publication would gain the additional subtitle of Neue Serie (New
Series) in order to emphasize its de-Nazified West German position.
Notwithstanding its important position as a journal devoted to politics, the Weimar
era ZfP had a significant number of articles that showed anti-French and nationalist
tendencies reflecting certain prevalent interwar positions in Germany. According to Annie
Lamblin, elitist anti-democratic ideas as well as some pro-Nazi attitudes marked the
journal to a significant extent. The journal was open to these kinds of ideas in order to
enable also radical political positions to have access to ZfP, while ignoring the difficulties
faced by the Weimar Republic. Relevant for the international dimension, the journal's
focus on world politics is explained as having derived from a willful neglect of domestic
developments.
318

In the post-World War II period, when the publication restarted in the fashion of
“turning a white page,” it was to become the organ for DVPW between 1953 and 1959.
319
However, this accommodation between Grabowsky, who had returned from exile, and the
association did not work out the way both sides had imagined. Finally, DVPW made the
decision to found a new journal devoted to publishing political scientific research that
would be its own publication. This paved the way for the Politische Vierteljahresschrift
(PVS, “Political Quarterly Text”), with its first volume appearing in 1960.
Notwithstanding some other journals in (West) Germany, PVS remained the major
318 Lamblin, 2008: 180.
319 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 256 fn. 42.
197
publication for political science although it has not provided much space for works in IR.
The lack of a separate scholarly journal devoted to world political research says much
about the underdevelopment of the discipline in West Germany – something that would
change much later with the 1994 founding of the Zeitschrift für Internationale
Beziehungen (ZIB, Journal of International Relations).
IV .3.f. “Generations”, “schools”, “(r)emigrants”
After the analysis of the scholarly publications in the West German community of
political science/IR, it is useful to turn the focus in this subsection to another important
dimension that determined the developmental trajectory of IR. In order to better
understand the impact of transnational dynamics, I shift to the idea of generations and
schools in West German political science as well as the general role played by emigrant-
scholars and those who returned to their country in the post-1945 years, becoming thus
remigrants. As both generations and (returning) emigrants were shaped by forces beyond
the national context, it becomes clearly visible how the future of German IR was
influenced by their US experiences.
One aspect that provides a better understanding about postwar political science is the
dimension of scholarly generations. According to an analysis made in the circumstances
of a reunited Germany, in 1996, four main generations played a role in the discipline's
development. The founding fathers (no woman was present) were the ones who had been
shaped by the historical legacies of both world wars as well as the years of the Weimar
198
Republic and Nazism. Some of them had emigrated; some remained in Germany in
domestic isolation. They contributed to the postwar attempts to establish the discipline. In
the late 1950s, the second generation followed, and it was they who gained tenured
positions directly as political science scholars, while their predecessors had come to
political science from other neighboring disciplines in which they had gained their
degrees. A third generation, born in the years of World War II and its aftermath, and thus
older than the later fourth generation of post-World War II scholars, included the voices
of critique that came out of the student movement of the 1960s, a time when the members
of this generation were slowly progressing up the academic ladder. They were also the
ones who had spent some of their study and research time in the US and were familiar
with new approaches in the social sciences.
320

Another aspect that presents a useful dimension pertains to the role of schools in
West German political science. While the remigrant Eric V oegelin is an example of a
conservative scholar with his more political philosophical approach in Munich, the
Marxist scholar Wolfgang Abendroth was quite influential in establishing the Magdeburg
School where he held a chair and led research that had a Marxist and critical engagement
with West German society. In this context, the case of Arnold Bergstraesser whose
position in Freiburg enabled him in the eyes of many to found a certain kind of approach
to political science, the so-called Freiburg School with an emphasis on normative
approaches, is also of relevance. His general impact was visible when many former
Bergstraesser students were among the first to hold tenured jobs in the newly emerging
320 See Noetzel and Rupp, 1996: passim.
199
political science departments across West Germany.
321
Notwithstanding all these
geographically diverse formations, it was the Otto Suhr Institut at FU Berlin that had the
biggest quantitative share of faculty, at one time holding 10 out of 24 chairs in all of West
German political science. This leap was also furthered by its scholars' general dominance
in the field.
The role of emigrants and remigrants (that is emigrant scholars who returned to
(West) Germany after 1945) is also important for the discipline's development. As a
British scholar, who was also the League of Nations official responsible for German
refugees, said, “no feature of the Nazi persecution made such a deep impression on the
world as the exile of the university scholars and intellectuals. In the academic world there
had been nothing comparable to it since the emigration of the Greek scholars after the
capture of Constantinople.”
322
The implications of this were also felt in the area of social
sciences. According to Alfons Söllner, a scholar specializing in the area of emigrant
scholars and political science, there are a total of 64 scholars from Germany who became
political scientists during their emigration years. Out of these 64, 33 had doctoral degrees
from law faculties before they left, while more than 20 originated from philosophy
faculties (history, etc.) and eight had faculties of state sciences in their background
(Staatswissenschaftliche). Söllner presents another categorization in which most of them
are shown to have written their theses in legal, philosophy-humanities, and sociological
321 Bleek, 2001: 337-341.
322 Burges, 2004: 139.
200
or economic fields. Only a quarter seem to have used methods connected with political
science.
323
It is significant that more than 50 scholars chose the US as their point of immigration
after the Nazi takeover in Germany. Many aid committees were established abroad. In the
US, the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German (later: Foreign) Scholars
worked intensively to help these emigrants. The Rockefeller Foundation played a very
important role with its support, but there was another dimension to its function which
needs more clarification. When helping these scholars in finding academic jobs, the
foundation was able to rely on its existing categorizations that had already grouped
certain scholars under the label of political scientists. According to Söllner, the RF also
had a special interest in scholars from DHfP and Alfred Weber's institute in Heidelberg,
as both were closer to the foundation's own ideas about the social sciences.
324
This aspect
demonstrates the constructive role the RF played in actually turning German legal
scholars, sociologists, and historians into (US-style) political scientists. In this regard, the
newly constructed areas of interest served as first steps in making German social
scientists and humanities scholars into modern political scientists.
Once World War II was over, more than a dozen of these emigrant-scholars returned
to Germany. Others, from Hans J. Morgenthau to Hannah Arendt, Karl Deutsch to John
Herz would remain in the US and become important names in the American academic
world, while not completely disconnecting from their post-war German colleagues,
323 Söllner, 1996: 10.
324 Söllner, 1996: 15-16.
201
making use of visiting professorships (like Deutsch) or writing prefaces to books in their
research areas (like Morgenthau's for West German realist IR scholar Karl Kindermann's
book). According to Söllner, eight scholars remigrating to postwar Germany got also
director positions in academic entities. The list includes more conservative scholars like
Bergstraesser in Freiburg and V oegelin in Munich as well as the social democratic
Fraenkel in Berlin. Interesting to note in this regard is that Berlin was much richer in left-
wing faculty, with scholars like Fraenkel, whereas the southern parts of the country
included conservative scholars like the former two.
325
The analyses of this subsection presented useful points for preparing the next
section's turn to the role and work of Arnold Bergstraesser, a scholar whose institutional
and scholarly contributions played a significant role in the development of West German
political science and specifically IR.
IV .4. The Curious Case of Arnold Bergstraesser: World Politics from Weimar to
West Germany
Arnold Bergstraesser can be seen as one of the most important scholars who
influenced the development of post-World War II studies of IR in West Germany. One of
his students, Dieter Oberndörfer wrote that Bergstraesser had “as nobody else created the
discipline of International Politics in [West] Germany.”
326
Who exactly was this scholar
whose presence affected not only the developmental pathway of the post-war Federal
325 Söllner, 1996: 276.
326 Oberndörfer, 1965: 9.
202
Republic's political science and IR studies but who had also worked at Deutsche
Hochschule für Politik in the Weimar years before emigrating to the US in 1937? In this
section, I aim to use the curious case of Arnold Bergstraesser as a means not only of
bringing together these three differing periods but also of investigating his personal
career and various engagements as internodal points that influenced his contemporaries
and thus contributed to the early shape of West German IR.
After explaining the Weimar and American experiences of Bergstraesser, I analyze
his return to postwar West Germany, where his institutional involvements would provide
him with a powerful position in the newly emerging discipline of political science as well
as IR. Lastly, I set his ideas on world politics and IR into this institutional and scholarly
context in order to demonstrate how Bergstraesser's ideational development was a
reflection of transnational dynamics shaped by American and German actors.
Bergstraesser's return to West Germany in the early 1950s would start an intensive
engagement with German political science and IR community. He presided over meetings
in which world political studies were discussed the first time in an extensive way, and
wrote the first article in the new German political science journal on the subject of world
politics. Continuing on a path that he had developed in the Weimar years, Bergstraesser
emphasized the relevance of a more holistic science that would be marked by synoptic
analyses, an approach he started to implement in his early 1930s sociological-cultural
studies of French society and politics.In West Germany, his international thought, in
addition to his institutional networks and initiatives, paved the way for emphasizing the
203
significance of IR studies for the future of this new country. His American years had
enabled to understand the relevance of the newly emerging discipline in the context of a
divided world in which power politics and international cooperation were to play an
important role for influencing a divided nation's prospects.
IV .4.a. Bergstraesser in Weimar: from DHfP to Heidelberg, the ideas and work of a
conservative German nationalist
In the years of Weimar Republic, Bergstraesser was close to the ideological positions
of young conservatives who were right-wing nationalists but not Hitlerite national-
socialists. As a member of the faculty at DHfP, Bergstraesser counted among the
academy's right-wing minority, because it was dominated by scholars closely affiliated
with pro-Weimar political parties, namely liberal and social democratic ones. At the time
of the Nazi takeover, he did not join his colleagues who emigrated. In the early years of
the new regime, he even became a supporter because like many conservatives
Bergstraesser saw in the national socialist dictatorship a useful means of fighting (what
he perceived as) the communist threat and the degenerate left and liberal circles of the
Weimar era.
The early years of Bergstraesser's scholarly work can be seen in the context of anti-
science and anti-modernity movements that held many German students and scholars
under their influence. Receiving his doctorate in 1923 from Alfred Weber, the brother of
Max Weber, at Heidelberg University, becoming a professor for “state sciences and
204
foreign studies” (Staatswissenschaften und Auslandskunde), Bergstraesser was also close
(but not its member) in these years to the famous Stefan George circle that included
names like von Stauffenberg, which brought together men with a conservative and anti-
modernist stance. This made him even more prone to accept alternative understandings of
science. His mentor, Max Weber's brother had significantly shaped the concept of
“existential science” that was closely interwoven with spiritual and cultural elements,
which had further relevance due to their national-integrative power. For Bergstraesser,
these positions led to rejecting ideas of “science pour la science.” His works in the
Weimar period included not only attacks on the Versailles system in a political sense, but
on a more general level, he took a position with regard to science that had to be in line
with national-pedagogical ideas and practical purposes. After having worked at DHfP he
went back to Heidelberg, where Alfred Weber held a professorship and would continue to
influence him. Even in the final years of the Weimar Republic and the early Nazi period,
he did not change his anti-modernist position and continued to criticize “the
mechanization of existence.” A “new totality of man,” and “a real wholeness” was what
he wanted. Thus, in 1934, the second year of the Nazi regime, he would write that the
“total state necessitates the total man.”
327
The influence these ideas had on his broader scholarly approach led him to use the
concept of synopsis as a means to turn his research into a holistic dimension. It is
interesting to note that the contemporary Prussian education minister, Carl Heinrich
Becker saw both sociology and foreign studies (Auslandskunde) as fields in which
327 Schmitt, 1989: 467-477, see p. 476 for the last quote.
205
synthesis was at the basis of any research. His ideas were shared by Bergstraesser, and his
scholarly work in that period and in the later post-World War II years was marked by the
way he interpreted cultural-sociological aspects via the lenses of a synoptic/ synthetic
understanding. In the background was the assumption, in Bergstraesser's words, that “the
science tries to think about the whole starting from the whole.” A holistic view
(Gesamtanschauung) tied to the interest of the nation and its culture and identity was the
ideal starting point of Bergstraesser's scholarly undertaking. In this framework, his 1930
book on France, which was not just sociological, political, or economical a study but a
combination of all these dimensions, is for many an example of his synoptic approach to
political and international studies.
328
In the 1930s, this book brought him success as its
elaborate analysis of French politics and economy – part of a two-volume set on France,
co-edited with Ernst Robert Curtius – presented an example of his cultural-philosophical
and cultural-sociological approach to country studies.
329

IV .4.b. Bergstraesser in the US: difficulties and changes
An interesting aspect of Bergstraesser's life concerns the period of his emigration
years. Due to his origins (a Jewish grandmother), he was put under Nazi pressure and
forced to leave his university position at Heidelberg. In 1937, he emigrated and settled in
the US after having waited for two years for a passport. A former World War I veteran
who wanted to make use of Nazis for his nationalist conservative expectations, he was
328 Schmitt, 1989: 474-475.
329 Fraenkel, 1965: 255.
206
also close to the circle around Kurt von Schleicher, the last pre-Hitler chancellor later
murdered by the Nazi SA.
330
In the US, he lived in California, and became a professor at
Scripps, a college for female students, known for its conservative background. There he
taught courses on German and European civilization.
331

Once the US officially entered World War II on the side of the allies, he became a
suspicious figure not only in the eyes of his colleagues, students, their parents, or the FBI,
but also among many fellow German(-Jewish) emigrants who were informed about his
earlier sympathy for German nationalist conservative ideology and the initial closeness
he had towards the Nazi regime. It was Bergstraesser who served as the Doktorvater of
Alfred Six, a leading name in the SS movement's academic involvement who was to
become the director of the Berlin-based AWF, a later institutional merger of schools
dealing with foreign and world politics in the 1940s. Bergstraesser's general remarks on
this student's dissertation work – the topic of the dissertation was Nazi propaganda,
which fully implementing the racist and anti-Semitic content one could – had been
positive (“a gain, both in content and methodological approach, for the scholarly
literature on the dynamics of the modern state” [sic!]) presenting a problematic example
of his academic stance in the early 1930s.
332
In 1941, Bergstraesser was arrested following the publication of an article in the
German emigrants' journal Aufbau that had exposed his involvement in the 1932
dismissal of Professor Gumbel from his university position at Heidelberg. Bergstraesser
330 Krohn, 1986: 269, 255.
331 Krohn, 1986: 260 and Lange, 1965: 247.
332 Eisfeld, 1996: 46-47.
207
was accused of having followed Nazi students' wish to dismiss this professor from his
position, as Gumbel was an important anti-nationalist figure in the German university
system. Further attacks pointed to his 1933 book Nation und Wirtschaft (Nation and
Economy) that was rich in comments of a pro-Nazi nature, including praise of the Nazi
revolution and calls for a corporatist state. His similar position in speeches given in
England in the same year was also put under spotlight. Some other questionable moves
(denied by him) concerned an alleged participation in a meeting with Nazi figures as well
as flying the Nazi flag at the university after the Nazi takeover.
333
At that point, Bergstraesser had only a few supporters including Carl Friedrich at
Harvard, a professor who had immigrated to the US earlier in the century and helped him
to find the job at Scripps College in Claremont. Another figure was Arnold Wolfers, now
at Yale, and a former colleague from DHfP in Berlin as well a former German chancellor,
Heinrich Brüning, who was then also at Harvard. These supporters wrote letters to the
FBI in order to defend Bergstraesser against the accusations, ranging from Nazi
espionage to suspicious activities, at the bases of which were the general perceptions
about his German nationalism among the Scripps community. Some even thought that he
was secretly visiting Germany in those years, although his actual destination had been
Switzerland.
334

Friedrich's efforts at the Department of Justice succeeded in freeing Bergstraesser in
February 1942. In the meantime, Bergstraesser's and his friends' counterattack focused on
333 Krohn, 1986: 265, 272.
334 Krohn, 1986: 256, 260.
208
marginalizing the accusers in the eyes of US authorities. The main means of this was to
interpret them as extreme left figures who stood in disharmony with the US
understanding of democracy. Similarly, Bergstraesser asserted that his stay in Germany
until 1937 was marked by an internal opposition to the Nazi regime. Thus, even his
comments that can easily be seen as pro-Nazi were, according to Bergstraesser, a means
of tacit opposition to the Hitler dictatorship. In September 1942, a second arrest followed.
He was freed again (on parole until 1946) in February 1943. With the help of George
Shuster (president of Hunter College and a member of the regional Enemy Alien Board)
who knew him from his student days in Heidelberg, Bergstraesser succeeded in finding a
new job at University of Chicago, which became a necessity as he had to leave Scripps
due to the impact of the investigation on the campus. Now he was part of the Army
Special Training Program there and the Department of Justice was keen on dealing with
the academic critics of his “rehabilitation.” The department's internal memo stated that he
was “a very valuable teacher for our military and civilian officials who might become
concerned with administration of government in Germany” and hence it was important
“to use the special abilities of paroled alien enemies in the war effort.”
335
Bergstraesser
taught at Chicago for the next 8 years, becoming a member of its famous Committee on
Social Thought.
336
How did the scholarly writings of Bergstraesser take shape in these years of what he
would call “internal” migration in Nazi Germany and during the later US emigration?
335 Krohn, 1986: 272-273.
336 Lange, 1965: 247-248.
209
The answer can be found in Goethe, the greatest symbol of German literature and culture,
a constellation of hope for many anti-Nazi Germans in the post-World War II years.
Before he left the country Bergstraesser had started to write on Goethe, his article “Man
and State in Goethe's Action” being published in a German journal in 1935/1936. In the
post-war period, he continued on this track by co-editing a book in German for the
University of Chicago Press in 1947, his own chapter being on “peace in Goethe's
writings.” The obvious aim of the volume was to present the US – which was a former
enemy and now an emerging ally of (West) Germany – with the bright side of German
Kultur in order to exit from the long shadow of Nazism. This interest in Goethe would
result in further publications like Goethe's Image of Man and Society in 1949 and the
article “Goethe's view of Christ” in the journal of Modern Philology. According to his US
colleague Viktor Lange, who participated in the memorial services for Bergstraesser held
in Freiburg in 1964, this focus on Goethe was a means of finding alternatives to the
problems of the 20
th
century. It was in this context that Bergstraesser became the main
organizer of the big meeting in Aspen, held to commemorate the 200
th
birthday of the
great German cultural figure. From Ortega y Gasset to Albert Schweitzer, from Walter
Hallstein to Ernst Robert Curtius, many significant names were assembled there thanks to
his efforts.
337
337 Lange, 1965: 249-250.
210
IV .4.c. Bergstraesser in West Germany: institutional weight
Before turning to his studies on world politics after his return to his home country,
one needs to consider the broad scope of activities through which Bergstraesser managed
to play a prominent role in West Germany. The actual end of his emigration came only in
1954, and thus he was to spend only ten years back in his home country before his death
in 1964. Although he was a relative late-returner among his fellow re-migrants, his
success is undeniable. Not only did Bergstraesser become the president of the West
German UNESCO commission, but he also presided over the Atlantic Bridge Association
in addition to advising the Atlantic Institute in Paris.
338
Furthermore, he was the first
director of the Research Institute of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Aussenpolitik (DGAP,
German Foreign Policy Association) before it moved to Bonn. Another very important
West German think tank, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (Science and Politics
Foundation), closely connected to the defense and foreign ministries, was also the result
of an earlier initiative by Bergstraesser. His death preceded the creation of its research
institute, but the foundation was already established by 1962.
339
With regard to his position within West German political science, Fraenkel remarked
that Bergstraesser was already doing political science before he was finally given a chair
in political science at the Freiburg University.
340
One has to note here that he did not get
back his chair in Heidelberg where he had been positioned in the pre-emigration period.
The role of Alfred Weber was a significant obstacle because he saw his former student
338 Oberndörfer, 1965: 12ff and Kiesinger, 1965: 17.
339 Burges, 2004: 182-183.
340 Fraenkel, 1965: 252.
211
burdened by pro-Nazi positions taken during the early Nazi years.
341
The years of
emigration were for Bergstraesser times of “excludedness.”
342
But his return to West
Germany provided him with a powerful position from which he would be able to exert
his influence within German political science. Thus, Bergstraesser's official remigration
that happened relatively late, in 1954, did not hinder him from playing a leading role,
after overcoming challenges that had their roots in his political views during the interwar
years.
After his return to West Germany, Bergstraesser's new position gave rise to a scholar
figure who seemed to be omnipresent. From associations to foundations, from university
institutes to policy work, his activities generate a picture of a scholar who was at the
center of the new West German state's knowledge-related policies. He was not only the
first professor to get an official political science chair, but also stood behind a great
number of initiatives at the university-foundations-governments nexus. It is in this
context that Kiesinger saw in him a figure who aimed to contribute to freedom by
providing its (West German) institutions with cohesion; for Kiesinger, Bergstraesser's
virtual omnipresence with regard to world policy-related developments in West Germany
was a natural consequence.
343
In addition to all his efforts at institution-building, Bergstraesser was also very active
in agenda-setting, that is in determining areas of focus that would become major research
domains within German IR in the second part of the 20
th
century. He founded a research
341 Bleek and Lietzmann, 2003: 78.
342 Oberndörfer, 1965: 12.
343 Kiesinger, 1965: 17.
212
center at Freiburg University on developing countries, an approach made easier by his
earlier interest in comparative and cultural studies, of which his 1930 book on France had
already served as a model. After his death, this research unit was named Arnold
Bergstraesser Research Institute. Another academic area marked by his impact was the
field of American studies. In the founding meeting of Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Amerikastudien (German Association for American Studies) in 1953 (one year before his
definitive re-migration to Western Germany), he presented a paper on research and
teaching aspects of American studies in which he opposed the idea of a separate
discipline as such, defending instead cooperative arrangements incorporating humanities
and social sciences when studying a country.
344
Such a proposal was in line with his
overall understanding of science, according to which science did not exist for its own
sake but in order to provide insights that could be used by the larger society. The way for
this could only be reached if more holistic approaches would be established, instead of
distinctly separate disciplines. However, this position did not hinder Bergstraesser from
putting all his postwar weight into the defense of a separate political science discipline.
The reason was his seeing in a distinct science of (world) politics a much needed tool that
would both engage citizens and postwar Germany on a constant basis with (world)
politics – an aspect discussed in more detail below.
It is as a consequence of these positions that his scholarly assumptions can be
understood. Ernst Fraenkel remarked that Bergstraesser was one of the most successful
names in the “symbiosis of science and politics,” while his student Oberndörfer explained
344 Fraenkel, 1965: 257.
213
that for this scholar “all science was at the end a 'political' science” that was there for the
public good.
345
Notwithstanding earlier conservative nationalist positions, Bergstraesser
can be seen in light of his postwar West German position as a representative name in the
era's political science and IR. Even Ekkehart Krippendorff, a leading voice in critical
political science and IR in West Germany was full of praise for his former professor
many decades later when giving his retirement speech at Freie Universität Berlin's Otto
Suhr Institut.
346
The legacy of Bergstraesser included the influence he had on West German political
science through his students. Many important scholars, including Kurt Sontheimer, Hans
Maier, Gottfried-Karl Kindermann, and Hans-Peter Schwarz were part of this group who
also made good use of their mentor's connections in order to rise to prominent positions
in the early decades of post-World War II political science, with Oberndörfer himself
getting the second chair for Political Science at Freiburg after Bergstraesser.
347
IV .4.d. Bergstraesser's international thought in the context of West Germany
According to his colleagues, Bergstraesser's focus on international politics was the
result of a combined US-German experience. The years spent in the US, at a time when
the country was reshaping itself as a new superpower of the postwar era, brought him in
touch with developments in IR. The close connections between academia, government,
345 Fraenkel, 1965: 253 and Oberndörfer, 1965: 13.
346 See Krippendorff's academic retirement speech “Unzufrieden” [Dissatisfied] in Krippendorff, 1999.
347 Burges, 2004: 167 fn. 46.
214
think tanks (all later emphasized by the famous Stanley Hoffmann piece
348
) that he
witnessed in the US can be interpreted as having played a major role in his later West
German engagements and initiatives. It was in those years that IR rose to more
prominence, a point underlined by many historiographies as the actual date of its birth
349

and also acknowledged by contemporaries.
350
Being in the US in those formative years
enabled him to directly note these fast changes. In the context of Germany, on the other
hand, German “provincialism of public consciousness” was something that brought about
his reaction.
351

For Bergstraesser, studying world politics was a means of providing West Germany
with a political scientific aggiornamento that was simultaneously aimed at connecting the
country to the emerging Western bloc. It is not surprising that Kiesinger, the later West
German president mentioned in his memorial speech that Bergstraesser had always
wanted to have people with world horizons who could think politically in universal
terms.
352
Such reasoning led to seeing political science not only as an academic activity
revolving around the education of future scholars or the introduction of general political
education but also as a process that would create “a scientifically educated responsible
elite.” These very people would then provide a strong basis for a properly functioning
pluralist democracy.
353
In these terms, one notes the continuation of the earlier Weimar
348 See Hoffmann: 1977.
349 See for instance Guilhot, 2010.
350 See among others Thompson, 1955.
351 Oberndörfer, 1965: 13.
352 Kiesinger, 1965: 17.
353 Fraenkel, 1965: 252-253.
215
DHfP goal to use political scientific and world political education for generating people
with useable knowledge who could make use of this in their future elite positions.
At the ideational juncture, fears and perceptions derived from the years of the
Weimar experience and the Hitler dictatorship as well as ideas originating from the US
emigration period are clearly at the forefront of Bergstraesser's post-World War II
worldview. It was for this reason that he did not interpret the experience of German
universities, and political and social sciences in particular, in a way that would lead to
more skepticism with regard to the manipulative capacities of these disciplines, which
had become visible at the time of the Nazi takeover of and influence on social sciences in
German universities. For Bergstraesser, science had political responsibilities and had to
be recognizant of them and to realize them. The Nazi experience did not make him shy
away from this position. He resisted, contrary to all voices that opposed the (re-)birth of a
German political science discipline in the post-1945 period, by standing behind this line
of argumentation. Political science was to have political functions, but this time they were
going to be in line with the principles of a pluralist (Western-style) democracy. In this
context, production of knowledge that would guide policymakers would not be an
unwelcome aspect.
354
When looking at one the first articles published in the (West) German Politische
Vierteljahresschrift (PVS), the major academic political science journal of the period, it is
Bergstraesser's article that one sees as the first text laying the basis for IR-related
discussions. His article in the second issue of PVS (in 1960) carries the title
354 Fraenkel, 1965: 253, 259.
216
“International Politics as Branch of Political Science.”
355
Therein, when defining
International Politics as a special discipline of political science, he provides the following
description: “totality of activities of states' decision bodies [Willenskörper] that deal with
their behavior toward other states or state systems as well as to the economic and cultural
units represented by them.”
356
The picture that arises seems at first glance to be tightly
tied to a state-focused viewpoint. However, it is the same author who writes just a few
years later that the “nation-state oriented foreign policy of the old Europe” has become
part of the past.
357
Perhaps this acceptance of broader factors led him to discuss in 1960
the relevance of international law as well as public opinion and international
organizations. His conceptual framework is in line with ideas familiar from the US
version of IR in the early 1950s. Sovereignty, balance of power, and security are
mentioned specifically as Bergstraesser looks for a contextual understanding of them. He
states that it is IR's duty “to clarify [these concepts] with regard to their actual political
relevance.” It is no longer sufficient to keep taking their meanings as given, deriving
them from traditional political thought.
358

While acknowledging the power of US IR and institutional structures originating in
the likes of the Council on Foreign Relations and its British counterpart the Royal
Institute of International Affairs, as well as the continuing search for ways of ending wars
as a self-stated goal of the discipline, Bergstraesser makes a move forward by presenting
355 Reprinted as Bergstraesser, 1965h.
356 Bergstraesser, 1965h: 23.
357 Bergstraesser, 1965a: 55.
358 Bergstraesser, 1965h: 24.
217
the idea of vordenken (thinking in advance, thinking ahead), another tool that connects
the scholarly arena to the political one. Seeing in the world of the 20
th
century
“interdependences of political actions,” in which domestic social policies – not least due
to the Soviet Marxist influence – have come to prominence, which challenge the earlier
habits around the primacy of foreign policy, he refers back to the relevance of a cultural-
sociological understanding of others, not only for scholarly but for policy purposes also.
In this framework, “the global reach of foreign political horizon” emerges as “a
prerequisite of decision.”
359
Bergstraesser's political position, explicitly shown in the duality he describes
between Soviet Bloc totalitarianism and Western democracies, influences the general role
he gives to IR. Only a West German academic structure whose humanistic studies could
manage to overcome their narrower forms of national-cultural features can pave the way
for accessing more universal forms of knowledge, something that is much needed in the
area of world politics.
360
Here one has to note the concomitant weakness of post-war West
Germany in the international system, but at the same time the determined efforts of
Bergstraesser to create the conditions necessary for a German international presence in
the form of a proper member of the Western democratic-capitalist bloc. The ideational
support for this new Germany is to be found in a world political outlook that is less
parochial and more universal, recognizing directly the Cold War realities and (for
Bergstraesser) the greatest challenge of the 20
th
century, namely the fact that the world
359 Bergstraesser, 1965h: 24-25.
360 Bergstraesser, 1965h: 26, 29.
218
has for the first time become truly global, not as a unit but also as a political problem.
Under these conditions, the idealist-realist debate in IR does not present a serious
intellectual enterprise for him, but merely a “pseudo-controversy.” The 19
th
century
Realpolitik is interpreted as a consequence of power state theory (Machtstaatstheorie),
“the dogmatism of which ignored less visible forces of world politics.” Idealism, too, is
touched by his critique when he accuses it for having put too big expectations on securing
peace via the supposed joint impact of international morality and international
organizations. In his opinion, such expectations were unrealizable.
361
It is important to recognize the degree to which Bergstraesser accepts the
interwovenness inherent in 20
th
century world politics. In 1958, in the first annual survey
volume on world politics he edited for DGAP, it reads that all states have now entered “a
single context of impact” so that “[n]o political event, on whatever continent it takes
place, remains meaningless for the other participants.” In this general essay that deals
with the world of the mid-1950s, there emerges a world politics characterized by mutual
dependence and mutual impact, with a balance that is still not stable after the old
European equilibrium has been lost with the decline of European powers. In that
framework, Bergstraesser sees even bigger dynamics leading to a “labile world balance”
because historical problems are not resolved and new ones are added with the influence
of domestic social developments. As a result, “power politics of the past is replaced by a
multilayered context,” one that includes more than just political factors, extending now to
economic and social factors in addition to the usual ideas of national interest. At such a
361 Bergstraesser, 1965h: 34-35.
219
time, “[t]he political world map of the present can no longer be drawn Euro-
centrically.”
362
His pro-US attitude becomes visible when he praises its distinct position, while
basing his points on the domestic features of American society. The US with its capacity
for improvisation, a factor even more important than Americans' entrepreneurial spirit
and free market values, is therefore ready for even more success. What to outside
observers can look like “a step-wise building of an empire,” is according to Bergstraesser
the consequence of this improvisation potential of Americans. The US is not an actual
imperialist power in his analysis. Ideas about its imperial policies get an explicit rebuttal
in his argumentation, whereas it is the Soviet political system that draws his criticism.
The latter is seen as a version of technical-managerial modernization models, while the
positively evaluated Western model is rooted in the Christian-antic legacy.
363
It is
interesting that no mention is made of the Nazi dictatorship in this long analysis of the
Western and Soviet blocs. Politically, the German-(Western European-)US ties are
defended by a triptych of interests shared among them. Obviously, the perceived Soviet
threat takes first place. However, the ideological commonality arising from the market
economy structure is quickly added to the pool of joint interests. Thirdly, the ties to the
Third World with its newly independent developing countries play an important role in
connecting the US to its West German ally.
364
362 Bergstraesser, 1965c: 106-109, 141.
363 Bergstraesser, 1965c: 132-133, 111-112.
364 Bergstraesser, 1965g: 172ff.
220
Bergstraesser's stance with regard to the role of states comes to the forefront again
when he writes that “the scientific research of world politics” has to take states as main
actors of the “world political dynamic” into consideration. Furthermore there is a distinct
emphasis on the need to separate individual political events from more general
recognizable structures and possibilities. According to him, contemporary events by
themselves should not be taken as the only present and future givens of world political
processes. The emerging message is one with implicit references to a future world order
that can be different from the Cold War era of the 1950s. Although the strict connection
with the “Free World” is mentioned once again, Bergstraesser does not shy away from
paving the way for a contemplative study of world politics open to multidimensionality.
This means that certain aspects that were taken for granted in their eras (be it the British
colonialism, or Stalin's confrontational Soviet foreign policy) can gradually or suddenly
become obsolete factors that no longer play a role in world politics. All this is then
derived from and tied back to the impact of cultural differences and intercultural
dialogue, elements of great significance in Bergstraesser's general approach that
originates from a cultural-sociological starting point. While newly independent nations
like India struggle to make progress domestically and on the world political stage, in his
eyes, it is also European culture that contributes as a useful guide to the former's quest for
technological advances. Taking into account the early Cold War, with all the contextual
dynamics of his analysis, including but not limited to decolonization, makes it possible to
understand why he was prone to keep constantly underlining the relevance of culture – an
221
essential part of world politics and thus of IR that was only to make an effective return in
the discipline's post-modern years.
365
For Bergstraesser, it was this role of culture that
brought with it the need for understanding the others and one's own “way of existence”
(Daseinsart), an assumption that also made the connection with his constant reference to
the need for a new style of education that goes beyond the parochialism of national
education.
366
These connections, in turn, provide a general framework whose main elements are
the necessity of a broader (world political) education, aimed at developing a better
understanding of the other (thus also advancing the knowledge about the other, a useful
policy in a world marked by the Cold War); the relevance of intercultural dialogue,
notwithstanding a clear positioning on the side of the Western democracies; and finally, a
certain commitment to analyze the changing world with some European cultural
sensitivities while acknowledging the effective end of a Euro-centric world order.
When explaining politics (Politik) itself, in the Staatslexikon of the 1950s, an important
post-World War II German encyclopedic handbook on state and politics, Bergstraesser
wrote that power has to be only “a means not an end in itself” and opposed “absolute
authority of the state or people” and “autonomous reason of state” due to their
inappropriateness for Christian ethics.
367
By focusing instead on its principle of
365 On this late discovery of culture by IR see Valbjørn, 2008.
366 Bergstraesser, 1965c: 143-144.
367 See Bergstraesser, 1965i: 189ff. This is a reprinted version based on the Staatslexikon (6
th
edition from
1956).
222
subsidiarity, he proposed to organize “an ordered freedom” that included state
interventions at points of necessity.
It is not difficult to understand how these suggestions resulted from his ideological
background. Now a committed member of the new West German academic elite, having
left behind his earlier sympathies for a nationalist conservative revolution, Bergstraesser
was still asking for order, the borders of which would be determined, not limitlessly but
ultimately still, by the state. Explicitly expanding these assumptions to the domain of
international politics, he underlined the necessity of mutual respect for “rights and
freedoms of individual peoples as well as containment of one's own claims.” The ultimate
order could be found by “the establishment of a universally recognized authority, which
would effectively represent the common good of all,” a process where world politics has
to make its contribution.
368
However, in the Cold War years, he recognized the difficulty
of an independent policy that the UN could follow. The two superpowers seem to have
the ultimate saying in world politics.
369
For Bergstraesser, IR lies beyond a study of legal relations that are part of
international law and beyond works of history that are useful sources for world political
analysis. For him, it is in the aftermath of the First World War that “the newer science of
politics” led to the development of the discipline of International Politics (emphases in
original). The primary role of “Anglo-Saxon countries” as well as the (original) English
label of “International Relations” is underlined in his entry on “Foreign Policy”
368 Bergstraesser, 1965i: 189.
369 Bergstraesser, 1965a: 47.
223
(Auswärtige Politik) for the Staatslexikon.
370
When analyzing the main features of a
transformed world politics distinguished from its 19
th
century predecessor, Bergstraesser
recognized in the bipolar structure of the Cold War period a factor generating “universal
mutual dependence.” This dramatic difference from the 19
th
century is furthered by the
interconnectedness of domestic social policies and foreign policy. As explained earlier, it
was of great significance for this scholar, who was at the forefront of efforts for the
construction of a new West German academic community – especially in the area of
social sciences as well as the humanities, to point to the impact of social policies on the
way foreign policy was implemented. It is in this new framework that “foreign policy
today can be thought of and realized only in the world context,” as it is the new great
powers on the sidelines of Europe whose ideologies and socio-economic structures
provide the main points of struggle around which the new world politics is constructed.
Consequently, one sees that again he is emphasizing that “there is for the first time a
world politics in the geographically global sense.”
371
An article that was published in a volume honoring Kurt Georg Kiesinger's 60
th

birthday serves as another example of the importance he gave to order. The very title,
“Hope for a Worldwide Political Order,” can be seen as a continuation of Bergstraesser's
emphasis on the idea of order, not only within the limits of a West German capitalist
democracy or the Western bloc in general, but also globally. Only such an interpretation
allows for his next move, that is, the call for a continued deterrence against the Soviet
370 Bergstraesser, 1965a: 38.
371 Bergstraesser, 1965a: 48-49.
224
bloc as well as for a “reliable relationship” between the Western and Eastern blocs.
372

Written in 1963, this text points to the possibility of a thaw in inter-bloc relationships, a
process that also enables the emergence of a certain degree of order in world politics.
However, one confronts again his preference for the Western bloc, now interpreted not
only in terms of freedoms but also as a model for others due to its homo faber nature, that
is in a position where the West assumes the role model in the form of an entrepreneurial
actor.
373

In this analysis, it is again possible to see the interwoven nature of world political
developments and the way Bergstraesser's observation of global events shapes his
suggestions for the study of international politics. He talks of a world horizon and
universal thought, hence the need to broaden one's view of the world and its politics. An
area of focus that would be one of his legacies in West German political science, the
study of developing countries, also comes to the forefront when he underlines, in a
foreign policy context, the importance of development aid and the bilateral and
multilateral contexts in which this can take place. However, his major conclusion pertains
to West Germany's influence in world political terms. For Bergstraesser, “our
participation at world political thought and action” would remain without much impact if
the scientific and educational levels could not reach a more advanced stage. He asks for a
“stronger penetration of the world horizon of the present” into West German education.
Again, it is the quest to overcome parochialism in areas of global knowledge and
372 Bergstraesser, 1965b: 154.
373 Bergstraesser, 1965b: 147.
225
international involvement that leads him to advocate an intensive engagement in the area
of International Politics/IR.
374

The same issue is mentioned in a talk he gave at the Amerika-Haus in Urach in 1957
(so-called America houses were cultural centers aiming to bring American culture to a
German audience, and they served as important means for creating a pro-American
attitude among the West German population). Common goals and problems of American
and West German foreign policy provided his discussion subject. In this earlier
presentation, he even went beyond the idea of foreign policy, rejecting it in favor of the
concept of world politics. That assertion was a result of his much repeated suggestion that
the world and its problems have become global for the first time in the 20
th
century.
375
The American success in the study of world politics and the triggering effects of
World War II were similarly mentioned as well as his desire to reach similar levels of
knowledge production in West Germany. Universal, world political horizons had to be
implemented in his home country, this desire being a consequence of experiences in his
country of emigration. This persistent preference for German empowerment in terms of
global knowledge can be partially explained by his geo-civilizational preferences that are
defended in the face of Cold War challenges. In this regard, Bergstraesser explicitly
distinguishes the problem of a divided Germany from the analogous cases of Korea and
Indochina. He says that “we [Germans] should not underestimate ourselves. We are
citizens not only of an old occidental country of culture [Kulturland], but also of a
374 Bergstraesser, 1965b: 154-155.
375 Bergstraesser, 1965g: 167.
226
country, in which once the idea of a universal order of peace-creating reality was
spiritually and institutionally providing the solid foundation of public life.”
376
When he
keeps defending this line with further historical references back to the Holy Roman
Empire, one can ask the question as to why the similarly advanced civilizations of the Far
East should be ignored in the context of contemporary world political realities. Therefore,
it is more possible to assert that Bergstraesser's is basically a position that derives its
major assumptions from his previous nationalist conservative years, now adjusted via the
lenses of a supposed cultural-civilizational advancedness.
Simultaneously, his understanding and perception of Germany has to be thought of
within the general context of his approach towards Europe, its culture and civilization.
While acknowledging that the continent is itself witnessing cultural differences and even
antagonisms,
377
he does not shy away from presenting a monolithic description that
disregards the use of plurals. Behind this holistic perception of Europe, one can find
Bergstraesser's sociological-political approach at the roots of which cultural elements
play the foremost role. It is for this reason that he goes on to assert that “European
national literatures present in reality a total history of occidental literary thought
experience [Gesamtgeschichte der abendländischen dichterischen Denkerfahrung].” The
legacy of cultural elements points to the single nature of Europe's existence. In this line
of reasoning, the idea of Europe is tied to a single cultural circle with its own political
and spiritual dimensions, a zone in which the European culture provides its own norms.
376 Bergstraesser, 1965g: 166-167.
377 Bergstraesser, 1965c: 141.
227
Its organizational-technical management lies at the roots of the global system, and it is in
Europe that the scientific form giving birth to these advances has been originally
developed. While the roots of the contemporary Cold War rivalry between the US and
Soviet Union can be found in Europe, it is also in Europe that the “social question” first
emerged in its modern guise. As a result, even the decline of Europe does not necessarily
decrease its cultural-scientific influence because the burden that remains from the
concomitant problems generated by its social and economic advances continues to
change the world and to determine the forms new conflicts take.
378
Bergstraesser summarizes all these developments and the level of tacit European
influence when he writes that “the spiritual, economic, and social existence of Europe has
become the fate of the world” (Dasein Europas zum Weltschicksal geworden).
379
Thus, his
writings reflect a continued belief in the possibility of Europe's distinction. At the end, he
again prioritizes Europe as a cultural zone that has “thought in advance and discovered in
advance” (vorausgedacht und vorauserfunden), that is it accomplished all this before the
others. In addition, it has also “suffered in advance/before others” (vorausgelitten). It is
these legacies that lead Europe to possess the cultural and spiritual means of serving
humanity at these times of change.
380
Following the focus on the German and European cultural-historical legacies, it is
useful to refer back to Bergstraesser's clear preference for the Western bloc of capitalist
democracies under the leadership of the US. The American model serves in a useful
378 Bergstraesser, 1965e: 157-160.
379 Bergstraesser, 1965e: 161.
380 Bergstraesser, 1965e: 164.
228
capacity at another level. When speaking about the American tendency for bipartisanship
in foreign policy issues, he adds that West German political parties have started to make
similar moves. According to Bergstraesser, the debates within the Bundestag (federal
parliament) provide less clearly distinguished divisions among the governing and
opposition parties. The moment is one at which people need to leave aside old ideological
positions and to be conscious about the necessity of “thinking world politically.”
Americans were successful in that regard with their new “world political conception.”
381
A major feature that arises from the analysis of his works, also mentioned by his
colleague Fraenkel, is the lack of general theorizing.
382
It is more often the case that his
texts present carefully written analyses, which aim to provide the reader with a useful
understanding of world politics, and not least with relevant issues in contemporary
foreign policy. Notwithstanding these aspects that could be met by a more critical stance
by today's IR scholars marked by an interminable quest after more (abstract and
detached) theorizing, one can actually see in Bergstraesser's idea of culture a circle
surrounding his basic approach to the study of international politics. It is in this context
that he asserts that knowledge of cultural transformation that takes place in the 20
th

century needs to be augmented. Even more important is the need to perceive the
connection between the plurality of motives that lie at the basis of varying political
actions of nations and the actual reasons of these differences, the roots of which he
assumes to originate from their “cultural past.”
383
381 Bergstraesser, 1965g: 171.
382 See Fraenkel, 1965.
383 Bergstraesser, 1965b: 155.
229
As a result, his approach is based on the following triangulation: culture, world
politics, and a cultural-sociological study of world politics. Taking note of his earlier
work in the 1930s, especially the book on French politics and society, and of the fact that
he was a student of Alfred Weber, clarifies his background further. Bergstraesser was not
only a political scientist, who became in the eyes of his colleagues perhaps the only
scholar (at least) of his generation who had managed to combine all the discipline's main
areas, reaching from political philosophy to international politics, domestic politics and
political sociology, but also a scholar whose work on this later area made him a
sociologist.
384
This sociological position presumably provided him with a more culture-
sensitive perspective that was to mark his general political scientific and IR works.
In the case of Bergstraesser, the idea of a synoptic political science guided his work
in various issue areas. Constellations had to be considered, and culture, sociological
dimensions as well as contemporary history were to provide helpful guides for works of
IR.
385
In a world that was interpreted to be a “unity-in-being/unity-in-progress” (Einheit
im Werden),
386
it was the analysis of contemporary cultural difference and similarity that
stood as a focal point in his research. At this juncture, it is helpful to remember his earlier
work that had taken similar assumptions. Whereas the implications of his earlier (pre-
emigration) ideological views could lead one to interpret Bergstraesser's quest for a
holistic-integrative science in more nationalist and even pro-Nazi terms, his post-World
War II commitment to the West German democratic system and decisive engagements in
384 Fraenkel, 1965: 254.
385 Bergstraesser, 1965h: 34.
386 Bergstraesser, 1965f: 98.
230
favor of its strengthening, not only in a US-supported way, but also via the education of
its elites in world political horizons, demonstrate that his earlier quest for synopsis had
lost the élan of nationalist fervor and anti-systemic elements. Part of this shift was to be
found in the general circumstances of a changed international system. But one has also to
acknowledge the political transformation that marked Bergstraesser himself. He became a
scholar actively involved in the work of UNESCO (and even the president of its West
German committee), thus showing the continuation of his interest in education. This time
he was more explicit in his calls for the relevance of law and humanity, in his advocacy
of international partnership and intercultural dialogue. In UNESCO, he perceived a
possible emergence point of world conscience.
387

When looking back at Bergstraesser's overall impact in the area of political science,
some scholars state that his legacy was weakened once the US-imported features of a
modernized discipline started to take the upper hand with the rise of a new West German
generation of scholars.
388
However, in institutional terms, it is clear that the research and
study centers, at the establishment of which he played a major role, continued to provide
significant functions. In this regard, it is possible to assert that one cannot necessarily
make a final accounting between a scholar's ideational contributions and his/her
engagements in the development of a discipline's structures. In many instances, the
institutions are known to survive behind the original ideas that were important for, and
developed by, the then powerful actors.
389
In the case of Bergstraesser, in the broader
387 Bergstraesser, 1959: 7
388 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 219-220.
389 For an example within the context of IR see Ikenberry, 2001.
231
scope of this study, it will become visible that his overall weight lost initial power with
the generational changes and shifts in scholarly approaches. Nevertheless, his wide-
ranging impact lives on: the university and think tank centers he helped to establish are
still important players in German research on world politics; his normative interests were
continued by other scholars (not least like Krippendorff) focusing on Goethe's impact;
and a more recent general opening to US IR and engagement in global IR scholarship
seems to have realized his wish for a German IR community that is at the top of world
political studies.
IV .5. Meeting for IR: Thinking about the World and the Discipline in 1963
Foundational meetings in which important decisions for the future course and
institutionalization of a discipline are decided, and conferences at which initial
frameworks of a discipline's research agenda are aired for the first time deserve special
attention in any disciplinary history that aims to provide a comprehensive picture of IR's
developmental pathways. It is in this context that this section turns to a detailed
discussion of a 1963 meeting in which DVPW members devoted themselves to analyzing
the contemporary world political structure of the Cold War period, providing thereby
useful theoretical and conceptual frameworks for explaining the relevant phenomena.
This showed that West German scholars were by now able to employ IR's toolkits in a
mutually understandable manner, pointing to another sign of the discipline's gradual
establishment in this specific context.
232
It was only in 1963 that a full day of DVPW's annual meeting would be dedicated for
the first time to the subject of IR. This date itself shows the relatively late development of
interest in IR in West Germany. To a certain extent, one could interpret this meeting as a
functional analogue to the Rockefeller-organized conference on IR theory that had taken
place 9 years earlier in the US.
390
However, significant obstacles standing in front of the
Germans were more visible as their focus was to a larger extent on the idea of world
politics itself. Thus, compared to the US meeting, it was sufficient if the scholars could
contribute to a self-understanding of IR as a separate field of research and study instead
of spending time developing abstract theories capable of explaining the structure of world
politics.
The presiding member of the third day's meetings devoted to IR and held on April
25, 1963 in Heidelberg was Arnold Bergstraesser. After acknowledging the backwardness
of IR research and teaching in West Germany, Bergstraesser opened the floor to two
presenters, Richard Löwenthal from FU Berlin, the only IR-chaired professor of the time,
and Wilhelm Cornides, who also played an important role in the West German
community of world politics scholars and pundits in his capacity as the founder of the
Europa-Archiv journal, later renamed Internationale Politik. This journal, which was to
become part of DGAP that was founded in 1955, did not differ from its British and
American counterparts like International Affairs and Foreign Affairs; it is hence the
oldest postwar journal on world politics in (West) Germany.
390 See Guilhot, 2010.
233
The presentations and debates that followed were published in the 1964 volume of
PVS. They provide an important means to gain insights about the way IR discipline
developed in West Germany. This same issue of PVS included on its last pages an
obituary written by Kurt Sontheimer – for Arnold Bergstraesser, Sontheimer's mentor
who had died on February 24, 1964. Interestingly, this founder-role function was asserted
in Löwenthal's speech at the conference, when he said that Bergstraesser did not formally
have a chair in foreign policy, but that it was he who “in his chair of political science
[was] the re-founder and perhaps even founder of this discipline in postwar Germany.”
391
A similar tone of praise arises from Cornides' presentation. Like Löwenthal, he saw
in Bergstraesser a scholar whose contributions to the development of IR studies (in West
Germany) cannot be overemphasized. It is thanks to Bergstraesser that “a methodically
secured connection [is made] between the 'horizontal' analysis of the world political total
constellation of the present and the 'vertical' analysis of historically developed structures
of culture circles.”
392
What Cornides had in mind concerns Bergstraesser's ability to
provide a historical consciousness to world politics that is supported by a holistic
approach, or in Bergstraesser's own words, a synoptic analysis.
When Bergstraesser presented Löwenthal at the opening of the meeting, he
mentioned that it was 30 years ago they had met in Heidelberg the last time. This
reference itself (made in 1963 about 1933) is sufficient to remind us about the Nazi
rupture that took place in Germany and terminated many scholarly engagements. It is no
391 Löwenthal, 1964: 95.
392 Cornides, 1964: 110.
234
coincidence that Bergstraesser used the same 30 years frame when pointing to Albrecht
Mendelssohn Bartoldy's Hamburg-based Foreign Policy Institute (IAP). In the past three
decades, Bergstraesser had witnessed both his and Löwenthal's emigration from Nazi
Germany and the end of the Hamburg institute, only to see their return to West Germany
in the postwar years and the founding of DGAP, the development of its research institute
much shaped by his personal contribution. At such a juncture, it was Bergstraesser who
referred to US successes in the field of IR because Americans “have recognized for many
decades” the importance of dealing with “the problems of international politics with
scientific tools.”
393
At the meeting's end, the presiding Bergstraesser would reach a
similar conclusion:
The knowledge level [Kenntnisstand] and thus also the decision capacity in world
political problems have [in West Germany] a still too narrow breadth. Therefore
both of them have to be especially developed, if we do not want to be in danger, in
comparison with more developed countries like the US, Great Britain and France,
of remaining here at the level of provincial thought that opens inexact and irrelevant
[unzutreffende und irreführende] perspectives for today's world civilization.
394
When analyzing the two presentations and consequent debates, it becomes evident
that the main questions remain at the level of world political developments and do not
reach the more theoretical stage that was on the rise in these same years on the other side
of North Atlantic. Bergstraesser explained at the meeting's start that the two scholars
would focus on Eastern and Western parts of “current bipolar world politics.” While
Löwenthal focused on the predominant role of the two superpowers as their respective
393 Bergstraesser et al., 1964: 93.
394 Bergstraesser et al., 1964: 149.
235
blocs' leaders, he asserted that major problems would arise in due time within the blocs as
national interests would differ at least on some issue areas. In this regard, he referred to
three aspects. First, there was the case of colonialism and its ending. Countries like the
US with their industrial societies but without colonial possessions had interests that
naturally diverged from French or British colonial policies. Second, their defense
positions were different. For instance, the US could make use of its geographic isolation,
whereas that would not be valid in the case of its West European allies. Lastly, in the
specific case of Germany, its division was according to Löwenthal a problem for West
Germans, but not for their allies within the Western bloc.
395
As a consequence, the
emerging picture is one of present and potential divergences that stand side by side with
the alliance structures and take their origins from the differing nature of national-interest-
related givens.
Whereas Löwenthal's analysis was relevant for its focus on the Eastern bloc and the
emerging raft between Moscow and Mao's China, the Western bloc built the topic of
Cornides' analysis. According to him, there was an existential difference between the
foreign political perceptions of maritime powers, by which one can understand the
Anglo-Americans, and those of continental Europeans, i.e. France and West Germany.
Following Ranke's ideas, he asserted that it was more the case for continental powers to
detach themselves from other states in the sense of having to more prominently
demonstrate their power and capacity in facing possible challenges. In this context, an
important reference to the preceding speaker shows the potential inherent in the 1963
395 Löwenthal, 1964: 98-100.
236
meeting, that is the search for new approaches to world politics, both with regard to
thinking about and studying it. Löwenthal's ability to go beyond the “German
misunderstanding” with regard to the assumption of the primacy of foreign policy was
acknowledged by Cornides as an important contribution because the former scholar was
able to present a shift towards the concept of “primacy of national interests.” Such a
preference was seen as better equipped to deal with a plurality of divergent sources of
interests. This observation led consequently to a significant frontal attack on US political
science. For Cornides, one should be very careful not to equalize “'the' national interest
with 'the' foreign political interest” - something he saw as being typical of American
approaches. He went even further in assuming a “more diffuse concept of national
interests for sea powers.” While sometimes national and foreign policy interests do
overlap, it is Mahanian geopolitics that plays an important role for Cornides' detailed
explanation, especially with regard to sea powers and their foreign policies.
396
Interesting to note is the sudden jump in Cornides' references from the German
Ranke to his American counterpart Mahan without any further mentioning of Karl
Haushofer or other 20
th
century German geopoliticians. A possible reason lay in the Nazi-
taintedness of German geopolitics, which itself seems not to completely prevent
geopolitical analysis but could possibly have led West German scholars to disregard
contributions from scholars associated with German expansionism. Behind the partial
policy nature of Cornides' analysis, also due to his non-academic position, there arises an
interesting assumption about postwar US policies. According to Cornides, it was “not
396 Cornides, 1964: 110ff. Emphasis in original.
237
'realpolitical' interest, but the idealist interest for a better world order” that shaped US
moves after 1945. Thus, American economic interests are interpreted to be irrelevant for
the ideological motivation of the US in its search for the “one world ideal.”
397
While these assumptions would not be bulletproof – as seen later with many
revisionist analyses of US Cold War policies, the very existence of such West German
observations points to the situation in the early 1960s and the way US leadership in the
Western Bloc was taken as given and subsequently idealized. However, Cornides was
also clear about divergences between Americans and their European allies. Similar to
Bergstraesser's remarks about the greater significance of German problems compared to
Asian circumstances, Cornides saw in West Europe something that was not comparable to
Japan as an ally in Asia. At the end, he acknowledged that no “complete harmonisation”
of interests among the members of the Western alliance in all domains was possible.
398
The two presentations were followed by a discussion in which many scholars took
part. Their comments also provide useful insights into the state of West German IR by the
early 1960s. For instance, a professor stated that “also with regard to international
politics, our discipline is a 'practical science'” emphasizing thus the actual nature of
debates taking place on that day.
399
The subject was alliances and national interests, and
the main points touched on by the two presenters had much policy relevance.
Notwithstanding the intermittent theoretical dimensions mentioned above, the general
framework was of a practical-political nature. On one occasion, Bergstraesser praised one
397 Cornides, 1964: 113.
398 Cornides, 1964: 115.
399 Bergstraesser et al., 1964: 124.
238
of his colleagues for having been part of a process that had been a well-known aspect of
the US IR community, to wit, the revolving door connection between universities and the
government. This was and is a rare case in (West) Germany. When Bergstraesser
introduced Professor Boris Meissner from Kiel University, it is Meissner's CV showing
both his foreign ministry involvement and scholarly position that led Bergstraesser to ask
for more of this type of experiences so that scholars who have gone through practical
political duties do not remain a rarity.
400

The changing world situation marked the meeting's focus on alliances, with
Bergstraesser noting the newly emerging relevance of a North-South confrontation that
could go beyond the existing West-East tensions, due to their internal problems “between
the haves and have nots.” With regard to the ongoing effects of decolonization, it was
again Bergstraesser who asserted that the newly independent nations' contemporary
nationalism would decrease in due time, once Arabs and Africans would manage to adapt
themselves to their new reality. However, his prediction in this regard would not be
realized. Another aspect he emphasized concerns the role of interests. In this regard,
Bergstraesser presented an interesting proposition when he asserts that political interests
oriented at the nation-state no longer provide a compatible framework for 20
th
century
world politics. It was for this reason that West Germany is defendable “only as part of a
bigger complex.”
401
This was in line with his other statements discussed earlier that seem
400 Bergstraesser et al., 1964: 128.
401 Bergstraesser et al., 1964: 133-134.
239
to foresee a world of declining nation-states notwithstanding their current domination in
world politics.
With respect to Bergstraesser's comments in the meeting, there is one final aspect
that deserves special attention: the language he uses. When concluding his last longer
comment during discussions that followed, he presents a multilayered approach for the
analysis of world politics. First it is about the “analysis of the existing.” Then it is
followed by a prognosis of “the emerging one.” The third layer pertains to a mental
preparation in order “to shape the draft of the coming one” in such a way that the
statesman can fulfill his “obligation towards the future” to the extent that this is possible
for “the human being who is thrown into the fate of his existential struggle.” It is through
these different layers that one can generate thinking-in-advance (Vorausdenken) in world
politics.
402
These observations not only remind one of some texts written by Morgenthau,
a German-Jewish emigrant scholar in the US who was the principal postwar founder of
the discipline's post-World War II (American) form. They also point to the arcane
language of world politics, with its processes shaped by individuals who cannot change
their destinies. Even state leaders are presumed to have a limited sphere of action
available to them. Another aspect concerns the much emphasized dimension of
Bergstraesser's thought in the context of policy relevance. By again using the idea of
“thinking-in-advance,” he points to the way IR is expected to provide help for the
decision-makers, at least within the confines of their possibilities.
402 Bergstraesser et al., 1964: 136.
240
It is Bergstraesser's thinking-in-advance concept that leads Löwenthal at the end of
the meeting to point to the still weak state of foreign policy studies, that is IR as a
discipline, in West Germany. For Löwenthal, this very fragility presents a threat in the
sense that “thinking-in-advance [could turn] to wishful thinking” (Wunschdenken). As a
consequence, he warns against using utopia as a toolbox of methods. Acknowledging that
mere analysis does not mean much without synchronous ideas of and expectations about
the future, Löwenthal insists that a repeated error in world politics has been to assume
that expectations were easily realizable by setting up necessary institutions. Be it the
League of Nations, proposed by Wilson or the contemporary example of the United
Nations, supported by Roosevelt, he sees a constant mistake due to utopian thinking
which created difficulties that arose as a result of actual trials for its implementation.
403

Thus, it becomes clear that some versions of world political analyses can end up being
reified in ways that do not reflect the original intentions and fail consequently to reach
expected levels of success.
A similar conclusion emerges from Cornides' concluding remarks when he discussed
the dividedness of Germany, European problems and issues of alliance politics. He saw in
political science a tool that provides time frames about the present and potential
decisions, possibilities, and chances. Therefore, political science, according to Cornides,
also deals with problems that will arise in the future.
404
The limits within which political
science can fulfill its role is visible; it seems that both Cornides and Löwenthal had
403 Bergstraesser et al., 1964: 144.
404 Bergstraesser et al., 1964: 144.
241
doubts about the extent to which research on and study of world politics can illuminate
our understanding of it. In fact, these assumptions were in line with the more policy-
oriented, practical concerns that provided the background to the meeting of 1963.
The last words of the third day came from Dolf Sternberger, the president of DVPW,
the association of West German political scientists. It is not surprising, after the previous
statements, to note that he advocated a pluralistic political science, while praising
successful debates held at the conference (including its non-IR meetings), which were
rich in discussions, criticisms, and consisted of “different research directions or thought
styles – philosophical, historical, legal.” In these circumstances, he accepted that some
collisions took place, whose origins lie in the divergence between legal scholars and their
humanities-based colleagues. For the association's president, however, these very
differences were an important resource that should not be made obsolete by the
prioritization of methodological rigidities or “terminologism.” Therefore, Steinberger
proposed to make the discipline accept its openness to collision courses, as it is through
exchanges that follow that politics becomes richer as a field of study.
405
While already in 1963, two young IR scholars (both later becoming prominent
members of West German scholarship), Ekkehart Krippendorff and Ernst-Otto Czempiel
would publish articles analyzing the supposed primacy of foreign policy and criticizing
its weak points, thereby providing an early critique of realist IR and supplying a more
socially cognizant alternative,
406
it is rather the meeting of the same year that provides an
405 Bergstraesser et al., 1964: 149.
406 See their articles in PVS's 1963 volume Krippendorff, 1963 and Czempiel, 1963.
242
example of IR's institutionalization in West Germany. Whereas a younger generation of
scholars would provide a more theoretically conscious approach, it was through the
efforts of the older generation that the necessary structures for the study and research in
world politics were set up. Most importantly, they managed to set up scholarly forums
and analytical categorizations that would become initial building blocks of an emerging
discipline of IR.
IV .6. Origins of IR: The West German Contribution to Disciplinary History
Looking at the West German analyses of the origins of IR provides not only a path
for broadening the general debates about the discipline's birth and development but also a
useful means for understanding how the scholarly community in postwar West Germany
saw its actual role within the context of scholars' perceptions about the existence and
functions of IR. This analysis also serves to present a picture of how certain approaches
became the mainstream of German explanations for IR's general history, one that in many
instances failed to consider their own contributions in the early 20
th
century.
As discussed in the preceding chapter, Bergstraesser's earlier evaluations were
important in pointing to the influence of US IR, especially in interwar and post-World
War II years. His immigration to the US had provided him, like many of his colleagues,
with a direct understanding of the American scholarly community and its practices in the
area of political science and IR. A more detailed engagement was to come, however, from
Ernst-Otto Czempiel's PVS article in 1965, titled “The Development of The Study of
243
International Relations.” Czempiel, who evolved into one of the most important and
globally engaged figures of (West) German IR scene, was interestingly the first scholar to
provide a detailed discussion regarding the discipline's origins. According to Czempiel,
“a scientific study of International Relations” has been there only since the years
following the First World War. Important names from earlier periods like Machiavelli or
Kant are disqualified to be contributors to a scientific study of IR due to their lack of
providing a “critical-systematical theory.” Science is based upon three distinct features
according to Czempiel: being methodological, presenting testable results and providing
validity claims. Consequently, works of earlier periods, notwithstanding their high quality
in other aspects, fail to provide theories that include all these necessary criteria in order to
be called scientific.
407
Examples of scientific studies are given starting with the 20
th
century only. Paul
Samuel Reinsch's 1900 book on World Politics at the End of the Nineteenth Century
counts in this regard, as well as the World War I-era book project of the British Council
for the Study of International Relations, bringing together six scholars. However,
Czempiel has in fact a later (and exact) date in mind as the main starting point of the
discipline of IR: May 30, 1919, the day British and American delegates participating at
the Paris Peace Conference had a meeting at which a special issue was on the table.
Taking the world war into account, the delegates decided that an institutionalized setting
for the study and research on world politics had become a necessity. While the first
project was to write a history of the peace conference itself, their decisions paved the way
407 Czempiel, 1965: 270-271.
244
for establishing scientific institutes of international affairs on both sides of the Anglo-
American Atlantic.
408
Interestingly, Czempiel refers in his analysis to a 1950 article in UNESCO's
International Social Sciences Bulletin.
409
This article itself provides a very short history of
the British RIIA. It mentions the May 1919 meeting as the original decision point for the
founding of the RIIA (Chatham House) and the American version CFR. In that meeting
the British and Americans are said to have decided:
to establish institutions in their respective countries where experts on the different
aspects of international affairs could meet for discussion, find essential reference
material and, by improving their own knowledge and understanding, be in a better
position, through their various professions of teacher, journalist, soldier, business
man or civil servant, to contribute to the broadening of public information on the
issues of the day.
Following this statement, the article also mentions the founding of the Hamburg's
foreign affairs institute and Berlin's DHfP, and asserts that the Germans too developed
their plans during the Paris conference, “unaware of the British and American plans” of a
similar nature. Indeed, the German side of this development is also confirmed by the
reports of contemporaries, people like Mendelssohn-Bartholdy who were among the
members of the German delegation. Importantly, the RIIA article goes on to point to later
developments of an institutional nature such as the cooperation that emerged between
these various IR institutes and schools, including the establishment of League of Nations'
IIIC (Institute for International Intellectual Cooperation) and the consequent step of the
408 Czempiel, 1965: 275-276.
409 Here I use the English version, while Czempiel refers to the same article in its French version.
245
founding of the ISC. It is as a result of these that “by 1939 there existed on the unofficial
plane a network of collaborating institutions throughout the world concerned with the
scientific study of international affairs.”
410

If Czempiel's explanation can be labeled IR's “1919 process,” it becomes important
to note that IR as an academic field was the result, in his opinion, of “political necessity.”
Hence, 19
th
century peace movements, the conferences in The Hague, and the Carnegie
Endowment are mentioned as important factors in the discipline's formation, even
carrying more significance than the influence of neighboring disciplines. Democratization
of foreign policy and the concomitant rise of perceptions that recognized war's
irrationality provided a much needed impetus for IR's eventual birth.
411
However, a major
problem arises in this explanation of Czempiel, one that concerns his strict criteria about
scientific IR. One has to acknowledge that both the institutes and the interwar additions
to scholarly IR community were insufficient with regard to his framework.
Methodological soundness, validity or testable results were not present in post-1919 IR,
not even within its most important interwar organ, the ISC. When Czempiel himself
points to the importance of the ISC's 1938 Prague meeting, where it was decided that IR
was not about “formulating a system or providing norms” but actually in “analyzing
facts, ordering them and trying to explain them,”
412
it becomes evident that on the eve of
World War II, there was still no coherent approach in IR that could pass Czempiel's
tripartite scientific evaluation.
410 RIIA, 1950: 372.
411 Czempiel, 1965: 274-275.
412 Czempiel, 1965: 280.
246
As shown by Czempiel himself, the discipline emerged as a consequence of efforts to
“help politics in the realization of peace,” although it later evolved in a bifurcated manner
so that on one hand, there was a continuing trial to find means of overcoming war,
whereas a different approach arose in the shape of basic research. The latter was
predominant in the post-World War II years, a point also made by Czempiel. All these
propositions, in turn, lead to one conclusion. If one follows Czempiel's own criteria, it
becomes unnecessary to put a special emphasis on the 1919 process. Rather, it would be
the post-1945 period that is marked by the actual rise of IR as a scientific study of world
politics. In this 1964 article, the (West) German scholar underlines an essential
problematique of IR, the difficulty of “clarifying the issue areas of its subject matter
[Gegenstand].” The not so easily solvable question of identification has triggered,
according to Czempiel, interest in more pragmatic research areas instead of theoretical
elaborations.
413

At this juncture of IR's birth and development, it is interesting that Czempiel turns to
one of his French colleagues when trying to define IR's subject matter. By referring to
Chevallier's concept of “le complexe relationell [sic, relationnel] international,” which
explains IR's object of study as “an interwoven reciprocity of relations that emerge – in
all areas – between different states within a special 'relation'-milieu, which is generally
defined as international society,” Czempiel finds a useful definition.
414
However, it is the
UNESCO report prepared by the British scholar C. A. W. Manning in which the
413 Czempiel, 1965: 276-277, 280.
414 Czempiel, 1965: 282.
247
Chevallier definition was used that serves as the actual source of Czempiel's reference.
Thus, one cannot necessarily infer that there is a direct interest of German scholars in
their French counterparts. Nonetheless, it is significant here to note that early post-World
War II IR was marked by a market structure in which there was not an Anglo-American
dominance. Another dimension pointing to a significant difference from US scholars'
expectations about a scientific IR was Czempiel's position about science itself. For him,
the three criteria that he provided for locating actually scientific works are the means of
differentiating science from other forms of consciousness (Erkenntnis), but this provides
only a difference of “methodological but not of [a] qualifying nature.” Science does not
necessarily reach more correct results than other forms of cognition (Erkennen), as “a
mystic or a poet can have much more correct consciousness and insights than a
scientist.”
415
The importance of the disciplinary history provided by Czempiel becomes clear
when one notes how often it provides in a reference point subsequent years, especially
with regard to his emphasis on the “1919 process.”
416
The focus on the role of the 1919
Paris decisions that led to the creation of international affairs institutes shows that they
are given a role that goes beyond their actual scientific contributions. However,
Czempiel's explanation is useful to the extent that it actually helps in understanding a
significant position that quasi-governmental and non-university structures always had,
that is as actors in the development of world political research and hence of IR itself.
415 Czempiel, 1965: 271, also fn. 3 there.
416 For instance, Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 199, with fn. 9 on p. 250; Krippendorff, 1977: 29, less
engaged Rittberger and Hummel, 1990: 17.
248
Differing from Czempiel in its emphasis was the approach of Wolfgang Abendroth.
As explained above, he was a leading Marxist-critical scholar in West Germany, the
founding figure of the “Marburg School.” According to him, it was the fault of
neopositivist biases that the scientific nature of IR was discussed in a non-historical
manner. This paved the way for ignoring the pre-World War I development of scientific
thinking on world politics. In this regard, a special role is given to international law, as
Abendroth underlines the importance of de Vitoria and Suarez as well as Grotius with
their 16
th
and 17
th
century works. The reason for this broader scope is that their
approaches are in line with an understanding of science in which “scientific-empirical ...
reflexion about social regularities [Gesetzlichkeiten]... that go beyond state borders” are
present as main tools.
417
By also referring to the impact of peace movements and
groupings like the International Worker['s] Association and the consequent
“International”s, Abendroth aimed to draw a chronologically earlier timeline. It was
thanks to their efforts in providing “theoretical debates on [a] high scientific-analytical
level” that these Marxist movements are interpreted to be among the earliest contributors
to an emerging science of IR.
418
At the basis of Abendroth's Marxist analysis lies the
suggestion that IR's scientific origins are located, unlike Czempiel's focus on “the 1919
process” with the Paris Peace Conference and the consequent founding of the RIIA and
the CFR, in the left-wing movements of the late 19
th
century.
417 Abendroth, 1973: 14.
418 Abendroth, 1973: 15.
249
Abendroth's main assumption was the idea that academic disciplines provided
historical reflections of a given period. Deriving from his historicalness-tied Marxism, he
concluded that “each subdiscipline is only a moment of a ... [changing] whole.” Foreign
policy and IR (used in English, as “International Relations” in this text) are therefore
“always moments of a such process in its totality that repeatedly penetrate each other.”
For Abendroth, this does not necessarily mean that research in IR should not take certain
phenomena and processes as reifiable givens, thus leaving aside their historicity.
However, he advocates that one has to understand that it is these historical processes that
keep changing the world as we know it. Interestingly, there follows a short debate
between Abendroth and his IR specialist colleague Czempiel on these aspects of the
discipline. While accepting many points put forward by the former, like the role of
historical processes and connections between the social and political aspects, Czempiel
asks to go beyond “social-economic structure of conditions” by pointing to the influence
of other factors like technology, decision-making processes or the role of individuals.
Furthermore, he prioritizes the impact of systemic conditions whose roots he locates in
international interactions.
419
Criticizing some of Abendroth's assumptions, Czempiel sees a pro-Soviet position
when the former interprets Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe as a natural consequence
of the world war, talking in a justifying manner of “area of domination
[Herrschaftbereich],” and interpreting the Soviet support for the Cuban revolution as an
“act of solidarity.” The problem for Czempiel is that Abendroth's approach is marked by
419 Abendroth, 1973: 25, 27.
250
contradictions, which are caused by his decision to make a choice between the two
superpowers. With regard to the scientificity of Abendroth's approach, Czempiel criticizes
the Marxist method he employs, and asserts that it needs to adjust to analytical levels
reached by the “bourgeois” sciences. Abendroth's explanation with its focus on historical
totality is seen as lacking in sufficiently dealing with the heterogeneous structure of world
politics and its complexities. In Abendroths' concluding comments, one notes the attack
on Czempiel's critique, as the latter is accused of ignoring the nature of ideology inherent
in his approach. Therefore, while Abendroth accepts the role of ideology as a thought
system affecting scholars, he sees in Czempiel's quest for objectivity and his eclectic
models an actual example of ideology.
420
What emerges from this debate concerns both the theoretical and practical
dimensions of IR. With regard to theory, we have to note the diversification that has taken
place within West German political science/IR community. On the one hand, there is an
approach which sees the need for recognizing the historically situated nature of the
international system, with its post-1648 and capitalist roots. The other side presents
models that aim at going beyond this focus on economic-historical factors. Czempiel,
whose contributions to (West) German IR would be of much significance in his later
career, represents a model similar to US IR. It is not unlike the recommendation, in a
different context, of Robert Keohane when he proposed to his fellow IR scholars that they
should remain within the limits of a certain path when doing IR.
421
Czempiel's assertion
420 Abendroth, 1973: 32-37.
421 Keohane, 1988.
251
that Marxist-influenced approaches can only provide an alternative to “empirical-
analytical” models to the extent they shift their positions and open themselves to the
mainstream with its more complex problematics illustrates the claim to exclusiveness.
Czempiel's assumption that only such an adjustment of Abendroth's and others' positions
would perhaps no longer present an alternative to empirical-analytical models is itself an
acknowledgement that there is a deep gap between the two approaches. In this context,
any approximation includes the danger of damaging the model's internal coherence.
However, it is at this juncture that the concluding remarks of Abendroth gain a new
significance. His reference to the important role controversy plays for science clarifies
the advantages of debates within the scientific community, reminding us once more of the
functions of dissent and difference for scholarship. With regard to the practical
dimensions of IR, Abendroth's acceptance that Marxist approaches have to make use of
the factual analysis of the “contemporary 'bourgeois' science,” while adding that the
reverse path is in fact more necessary, demonstrates that a pluralistic science of IR can
enable its scholars a peaceful coexistence. However, as explained above, these kinds of
differences among West German scholars did not always generate positive consequences.
The lack of a real dialogue would even lead, in the early 1980s, to a new political science
association that requested a more exclusive political science engagement by accepting
only scholars (and not students) actively involved in the discipline.
422
At that point, it had
become clear that scholarly as well as ideological differences were causing a mutually
benevolent ignorance.
422 Bleek, 2001: 363.
252
When looking at the discipline's history, an important explanation of IR's origins
came from Ekkehart Krippendorff, one of the most important names in German IR's
critical wing. His 1972 PVS article, “International Relations – Experiment of a political-
economical frame analysis,” provided a radical critique of IR's past and present.
423

Krippendorff started by criticizing the discipline of IR for having failed – as seen with the
World War II – in its original goal of finding an effective means to prevent wars.
According to him, the study of IR “was given the dignity of an academic discipline only
as [a] reaction to the First World War,” but this interpretation had to be challenged. What
Krippendorff wanted to focus on were the imperialism theories that had preceded IR
theories. For him, works of Hobson, Hilferding and Luxemburg present instances of
“scientifically high-quality analyses of the international system.” Their opposition to
bourgeois society is interpreted as having led to the emergence of the discipline of IR. In
this regard, not the focused nature of world political changes that brought an end to the
European order provided the main factor in explaining the scientification of world
political studies. Rather, Krippendorff asserts that IR is “the answer of bourgeois science
to the Marxist-revolutionary challenge.”
424
In this critical scholar's class-related analysis, the acceptance of Marxist explanations
of the origins of warss would have generated an implosion for bourgeois society and its
science. Therefore, it had to come up with alternative explanations and research agendas.
All the consequent debates on war responsibility issues and the concomitant solutions put
423 Krippendorff, 1973a: 9.
424 Krippendorff, 1972: 350.
253
forward in the form of international law, the focus on the League of Nations as well as the
rejection of capitalism's, and especially imperialism's, role in the outbreak of the world
war had the purpose, for Krippendorff, of denying further influence of explanations
provided by imperialism theories which were offering a Marxist analysis. It was as a
result of practices of ignoring that these approaches, in his words “the historically first
genuine theory of international politics,” were excluded from the university structure.
Theories critical of capitalism were accused for lacking “true scientificity” and being part
of a political agenda.
425
The way IR's academic birth is interpreted by Krippendorff is of much relevance, as
it presents a very different explanation for its disciplinary history. By shifting the timeline
of first scientific theorizations to the late 19
th
century before the “1919 process,” to
important books like Hobson's Imperialism published in 1900, he is able to offer an
alternative narrative.
Another point emphasized by Krippendorff, concerning IR's historical development,
deserves special attention: the leading role of the US in post-World War II IR. He asserts
that the discipline “exactly reflects the foreign policy needs – and contrasts – of the US
after the completed dissolution of England as the economic and political center of the
imploded [zusammengebrochen] first imperialist system.” Already in 1972, five years
before the famous Hoffmann article analyzing IR as “an American social science,” this
West German scholar focused on big investments made in university and non-university
research in IR as well as US's new global position that paved the way for such a dense
425 Krippendorff, 1972: 350-351.
254
engagement with the discipline as a consequence of world political connections. For him,
noting the lack of non-American works in IR studies, with bibliographies consisting up to
90 % of works with American descent, makes the American dominance in the discipline
obvious.
426
One final insight from Krippendorff's analysis pertains to IR's role that differs from
its interwar function. No longer is it focused on providing analysis about the past war,
which was the task that provided the major trigger for the discipline's birth in the “1919
process.” While that goal did not succeed and IR was, in Krippendorff's words, surprised
and helpless about the coming war in the late 1930s (with the Marxian realist E. H. Carr
exempted by Krippendorff from this generally ignorant interwar IR scholarship), he
assumes that no such demand existed in the post-1945 period. He sees in this new IR just
a tool for “crisis management.” The post-World War II order with its “breakability” posits
a challenge that is met in the Cold War era by the discipline serving as “a science of
bourgeoisie” that helps “the bourgeois-capitalist society of states” to realize its “strategy
for self-maintenance.”
427

It is based on these premises that Krippendorff asserts a continuing need for the
discipline, but in a version that needs to undergo certain changes. In one of his rare
praises for American IR, he approvingly refers to Hayward Alker due to the latter's
understanding that only a self-critical revision of the discipline's methodologies and
conceptual tools can open the way for an IR that goes beyond its self-imposed limits.
428

426 Krippendorff, 1972: 352-353.
427 Krippendorff, 1972: 353-356 and on Carr see p. 351.
428 Krippendorff refers here to Hayward Alker's chapter in a 1970 volume edited by Norman Palmer.
255
According to Krippendorff, IR is doomed to remain a discipline that provides empirical
descriptions but lacks analytical explanations if such a crisis-management style remains
as the predominant approach in its scholarship.
429
IV .7. A Different IR: The Tutzing Theses and a West German IR Community in
Disarray
In this section, I turn to some West German scholars' interest in giving the IR
discipline an alternative and more critical role with regard to its public functions. Such a
development and the fact that it was broadly discussed in the main political science
journal PVS testify to the lively debates taking place in the West German IR community
of the 1970s. In this context, the evolution of the International Politics Section within the
German political science association plays an important role and is analyzed in order to
clarify the context in which critical scholars could emerge. That many of these scholars
had American educational backgrounds testifies to the impact of transnational dynamics
that were also at the roots of these critical voices, triggered by a combination of their US
studies and their opposition to America's Vietnam War.
The International Politics Section within DVPW was founded in 1965, bringing a
new dynamism to IR research. Its various research groups provided a major impetus for
the engagement of scholars belonging to the younger generation. This third generation of
West German political scientists had sympathies for the then ongoing social movements,
aiming for wide-spread reforms. However, this section would become obsolete, and
429 Krippendorff, 1972: 357.
256
finally closed down in 1977.
430
It would only reemerge in the mid-1980s as a separate
grouping within the association.
Among the section's most active figures was Ernst-Otto Czempiel who later co-
edited a volume with his US colleague James Rosenau, becoming one of the first German
IR scholars to have an international engagement. While he presided over the section,
some younger scholars were active in a way that opposed the perceived US dominance in
the field. Thus, one such scholar, Klaus Gantzel would write that West German IR was
“making use of the knowledge and experiences as developed by American Behavioral
Science, but also consciously moving away from its models and overcoming its
inadequacies, and at the same time going back to the social-critical and structural-
historical approaches in the European sociological tradition of thought.”
431
This shows a
clearly perceived positioning of some Marxist-inclined critical voices in the discipline
who aimed for a separate path in West German IR. This idea would lead, coupled with the
opposition of more conservative political scientists, to a big rift within the general
association. Some more critical scholars became increasingly disinterested in the work
undertaken there, as they saw a rather disconnected political science that did not reflect
the needs of a changing German society (at a time of post-1968 restructuration). On the
other hand were, the more right-wing scholars, including an association president,
resigned and formed the alternative Deutsche Gesellschaft für Politikwissenschaft
(German Politics Association, DGPW).
430 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 224, 231.
431 Quoted in Schweigler, 1976: 97.
257
One possible reason for the increasing irrelevance of the DVPW for many left-wing
critical scholars was possibly the fact that they had sufficient power and were thus in no
need of such an institutional instrument to develop and promote their ideas.
432
According
to a less favorable assessment of left-wing political scientists in the context of the student
movements, it was only later that orthodox Marxist scholars like Abendroth as well as
third generation's critical scholars made gains from students' social activism. This could
be also interpreted, to a certain extent, as an inter-generational conflict among scholarly
generations.
433

In the process leading to these later differences, the International Politics Section
within DVPW made itself an active unit for the promotion of critical voices. A group of
critical IR scholars, including Krippendorff, came forward with a proposal about the
study of IR. Their separate discussion papers were debated to provide the basis of a joint
statement. What was called Tutzinger Thesen (the Tutzing Theses) became a major factor
in developing a self-consciously critical approach within the discipline in that period.
The statement, with the title of Tutzing Theses on a Curriculum of the Science of
International Politics, aimed at providing some positions about how to teach and study
world politics. The group of scholars contributing to the report, which resulted from the
section's 1972 meeting in Tutzing, consciously dealt with both the methodology
dimension and the content of world political study. Based on a critical understanding
concerning the role of science, they underlined in their proposal the didactical and
432 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 233.
433 Faul, 1970: 85.
258
emancipatory aspects in addition to the scientific one. IR scholars were asked to submit
to their students the capacity of understanding “the relevant reality of the present as a
system.” This meant a student of IR had to gain the analytical capability of perceiving
“the phenomena [in] their conditions of constitution and [in] their functions” by looking
at their actual context.
434
The second proposal pertained to the importance of understanding the international
system as something historical. At one juncture, not that much dissimilar from scientistic
approaches in IR, history was said to provide the “empirical field in which laws
[Gesetzlichkeiten] can be recognized and understood.” From this point on, though, the
theses took a Marxist-critical direction with the authors asserting that the study of IR was
about the international system of a certain historical period, the one that had its origins in
the development of capitalism. Henceforth, the “history of class struggles” and relations
between newly interconnected peoples were presented as decisive factors of world
politics, while it was seen as essential to analyze “the international society as a complex
class society” consisting of metropoles as well as the Third World. This era of
international relations was marked by the “globality or universality of relations.”
435
The third idea was to make students capable of “analyzing system-conditioned
conflict potentials and manifest conflicts.” This formula referred to the need for
understanding the capitalist system and the internal and international contradictions
immanent to it. This group of scholars put forward a fourth suggestion about focusing on
434 Krippendorff, 1973b: 364.
435 Krippendorff, 1973b: 365.
259
the different natures of state, also on state's newness and historical situatedness. Using
dependencia-related analyses, the Tutzing Theses conceived varying degrees of
dependence for states, differentiating between the three worlds. The last goal for critical
scholars was to enable their students to “understand the foreign policy of individual states
in the context of the national and international class struggle” that was seen as leading
toward the “liberation of the human being.” It is in this framework that we read again the
word “crisis management.” According to the Tutzing report, today's foreign policy is “a
state-negotiated policy of crisis management.” They also mention the significant role of
international economic and financial organizations as part of the “imperialist system.”
436
In order to realize the goals recommended in the teaching and study of world politics,
they proposed to use a diachronic approach toward center-periphery relations.
International structures had to be analyzed not only with regard to their political, but also
social, economic-technological, communicative, and military dimensions. A similar
richness existed in the list of actors presented as part of IR's focus: “state apparata with
their subsystems, (multi-)national corporations and banks, international organizations”
including their “functional connections,” but also national centers and national
peripheries with their “marginalized groups.”
437
The last section of the curriculum
proposal presented a framework for theories with, respectively, a theory of imperialism,
of militarism, of ecology, of competing systems, of bureaucratization, of crisis strategies,
and of revolution. The final theoretical ingredients were to be “concrete utopia,” with
436 Krippendorff, 1973b: 365-366.
437 Krippendorff, 1973b: 367-368.
260
their main study issues consisting of ruler-free societies and of relevant problems of
transition emerging on the way toward that condition.
438
As becomes clear from the major points of the Tutzing Theses, the proposal was a
means for a new generation of post-World War II born/raised scholars to present an
alternative study and research agenda to the West German IR community. However,
despite their initial attempts to use the International Politics Section within DVPW to
broaden the impact of this critical approach, the initiative was to face a rejection when the
section members convened again. As Krippendorff himself stated, the Theses were not
intended to be a binding document.
439
However, this did not hinder their colleagues from
raising significant criticisms. Such an intra-section debate showed the impossibility of a
single approach acquiring the status of disciplinary hegemony. Practically, the result was
the section's termination. Aside from providing a forum for IR scholars in West Germany,
its most important contributions have been the research projects started by its various
groups. Names like Czempiel, Gantzel, and Krippendorff worked on different issue areas,
in line with certain research interests prevalent among the members. For instance, the
first project was started in 1967 and had the support of the West German Thyssen
Foundation (connected to its namesake influential industrial conglomeration). While a
later project by Klaus Jürgen Gantzel already had a critical agenda, there were also
research ideas developed by other groups of scholars. Projects on West German foreign
policy and Transatlantic politics were, however, to meet attacks from leftist scholars
438 Krippendorff, 1973b: 368.
439 Krippendorff, 1973a: 9.
261
within the section.
440
As a consequence, the combined effect of all these tensions brought
about the end of the section.
The polarization that arose within the scholarly community can be seen as a result of
critical scholars' growing unease with American political science and IR, both of which
were familiar to them from their US studies. Scholars like Krippendorff had undertaken
significant study and research projects on the other side of the Atlantic, but were now
leading an alternative understanding of science that could have been a result of the
decline of American legitimacy among many students of the 1960s, not least due to the
war in Vietnam.
441
What emerged was a divided scientific community, at least between
traditional and critical approaches, or even in a four-partite division that also included
formalistic and reformist understandings. The political connotations of these were more
or less visible in their conservative, social democratic or Marxist-socialist orientations,
while the behavioral-formalist studies were of a negligible dimension, showing the limits
of American influence on scholarly practices and preferences in West Germany.
442
In a PVS article that reflected, in its authors' words, thoughts that were developed “in
connection with the 'Tutzing Theses' of the International Politics Section” of the DVPW,
one sees a position not dissimilar from Krippendorff's. Read together, these texts provide
clear elaborations of the Tutzing Theses. In their article, titled “Theoretical and
Methodical Problems of a Critical Theory of International Politics,” Wolfgang Hein and
Georg Simonis asserted that “the bourgeois science of [IR] produces knowledge [Wissen]
440 Schweigler, 1976: 97 and Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel: 1980: 230-231.
441 Schweigler, 1976: 76.
442 For the former see Schweigler, 1976: 76 and for the latter Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 233.
262
for the rulers and ideologies in order to secure their rule.” The reasoning behind their
assumption was that “relations of rule/domination” [Herrschaftsverhältnisse] and “socio-
economic conditions of society” as well as “class relations” and “state-transmitted
[staatlich vermittelt] power constellations of the world society” emerge as main factors in
the way IR and its research agendas and practices are developed. As a consequence, one
notes the same concept employed by Krippendorff in his critique of mainstream IR: crisis
management. Thus, Hein and Simonis see the main role of IR (in its “bourgeois” version)
as one of control, stabilization and crisis management.
443
They propose to attack and criticize this bourgeois IR by developing an alternative
reference system, to wit, a metatheory of reality that would include anthropological,
normative, science theoretical and real-analytical dimensions. This rather complicated
framework is better understood if one notes their main aim of going beyond “the
positivistic-empiricist dogmatism.” The critical science of IR has to help the ruled ones
by becoming a practical science. This can only be undertaken by openness to using
multiple theories for explaining the reality.
444
As a consequence, the authors conclude by
asking for an IR that would not only be “value-oriented, critical and holistic, but also
practical,” which means dealing with “concrete problems.” In this context, they wanted
science itself to be seen “as part of the political practice and reality.” According to Hein
and Simonis, critical IR has three areas of influence reaching from the people to the
decision-makers as well as to multinational organizations. While acknowledging the
443 Hein and Simonis, 1973: 92.
444 Hein and Simonis, 1973: 93.
263
position of critical approaches with regard to ruling authorities, in the sense of having
only limited impact through their theoretical contributions, the authors also recognize the
inherent danger of being perceived as providing prescriptions from a higher position to
the ruled people for the latter's emancipation. Therefore, critical IR can point to
alternatives without necessarily asking for their direct implementation. For the authors, it
is the ruled classes that should take the steps for emancipation and not the scientists who
would act as their vanguard.
445
A very relevant aspect of IR in that period was that a separate field made significant
gains, some of them in spite of IR. This was the area of peace research. The social-liberal
coalition government of Willy Brandt decisively contributed to the establishment of the
German Peace Research Foundation that would be later closed down by the Christian
democrat-led government in the early 1980s. Although critical peace researchers
contributed significantly to the area, their initial ties to political science and specifically
to IR were significantly cut as they undertook a separate engagement. Nevertheless,
names like Czempiel who approaches both areas from a more liberal stand were to make
a name both in IR and in peace research.
All these projects demonstrate that Gebhard Schweigler, a member of the important
German think-tank DGAP and the author of Ford Foundation's 1976 report on IR studies
in West Germany, was correct when he observed that “[w]ithin the confines of the
discipline most of West Germany's international relations scholars are currently seeking
to overcome the dominance of the United States in IR research and to develop a
445 Hein and Simonis, 1973: 101-102.
264
theoretical contribution of their own.”
446
However, these trials were not going to end with
a success story. Rather, West German IR would enter a long period of internal turmoil, at
the end of which, in the post-unification period of the 1990s, a more American-style
German scholarship would have the upper hand.
IV .8. Changes in the Discipline: Numbers, Reports, Positions
In this section, I will turn to the specific details of West German political science and
IR, highlighting the ways in which the later periods of disciplinary establishment took on
distinct features. First, I focus on an issue that can be interpreted as an area of divergence
between German scholarship and its Anglo-Saxon counterparts, that of language. After
relativizing its supposed significance, I underline the state of West German IR's divisions
marking the community in the 1970s. Also, this section aims to provide a broader
understanding of IR's developmental trajectory in the post-World War II period. I look at
certain statistics that provide useful details on the settled-down nature of West German
political science, but also which demonstrate the scholarly positions of IR specialists and
their self-understandings in the context of their academic and public functions.
Does reading German texts on political science and IR provide a different experience
from reading their American (or English) counterparts? One answer could be to assert the
existence of certain linguistic variations. This seems to be assumed by some German
scholars. For instance, it is such a reason that leads Schweigler to explicitly apologize at
one point in his 1974 report on the state of German IR, which was prepared for the Ford
446 Schweigler, 1976: 100.
265
Foundation. When he writes in a footnote that “[d]ue apologies must be made for this
(and other) translations, which reflect the German authors' difficult, if not at times
unintelligible use of language,” then it points to some differences in the linguistic
domain.
447
The actual text that led to such reaction from Schweigler came from the FU
Berlin-based professor Ziebura and his team's research project proposal in 1974. While
Ziebura's team aimed at a theoretical contribution to IR that could go beyond the US
approaches, it is their language, which gets criticized by their colleague. The project
statement aimed to (in Schweigler's translation): “attempt to analyze, as the decisive
determinant of foreign policy behavior, the power relationships within world societal
processes, for example in the framework of uneven international division of labor and the
resulting structures of interdependence and dependence, and the transnational and
societal interactions within these structures.”
448
However, reading the text does not
necessarily point to a German divergence in linguistic usage. Rather, it shows the way the
discipline of IR got accustomed (also in West Germany) to using a more “scientific”
language that at times turns into a jargon which can also be influenced by some
contemporary ideological tendencies.
Compared to the analyses from the 1950s and 1960s, it becomes possible to
recognize actual changes that have taken place within West German IR, when one turns
his/her gaze to language-provided insights. As a member of the second generation of
post-1945 scholars, Ziebura had taken over the IR chair at FU Berlin, and with members
447 Schweigler, 1976: 144 fn. 82.
448 Schweigler, 1976: 100.
266
of his team (part of the third generation) he was able to turn West German IR toward a
more scientific footing, while also presenting analyses that were closer to Marxist
positions. It is noticeable how a more realist-philosophical language was now being
challenged by Marxist-inspired approaches with their emphases upon structures and
interactions. In fact, these two diverging tendencies, which one could label, following
Bleek, as normative-ontological (its major figures were Bergstraesser and his students
from the “Freiburger School”) and dialectical-critical, had a third counterpart in the form
of empirical-analytical approaches. While one could interpret the first one as
ideologically conservative and the second as progressive, even revolutionary, the last
theoretical approach was seen by many as a bourgeois social science, the role of which
was to support the status quo (hence comments on its “system-affirmative” nature).
449
On
the other hand, others assert that with the development of German political science in
general, the various “schools” lost much of their presumed influence, and there arose “a
pragmatic diversification” in the professionalization phase of the 1970s and 1980s.
450

This later development does not weaken the impact of the much heated atmosphere of
late 1960s and early 1970s, which was marked by debates across the three major
approaches that were further complicated by concomitant problems arising from
generational and ideological differences.
It is interesting to note such a tripartite structure used in the categorization of West
German political science, as one is reminded of the American version that included
449 Bleek, 2001: 360-361.
450 Lietzmann, 1996: 45.
267
categorizations first in the form of realists-idealist-Marxist approaches and later as
neorealist-liberal-constructivist divisions, presenting a similar differentiation.
The actual development of political science and IR in West Germany is also visible
through looking at certain numbers. With the increase in the overall numbers of
university students in the 1960s, the Otto Suhr Institut at FU Berlin alone witnessed a rise
from around 300 to 900 students within a few years. In the area of IR there was a clear
transformation with the number of courses offered by political scientists increasing
dramatically, from 30s in early 1960s to 114 by 1968, whereas law scholars, economists
and historians did not show an increase in absolute numbers. For this reason, Schweigler
points to 1965 as a turning point for IR in West Germany, the first time that political
scientists were offering more courses in IR than their historian colleagues and scholars
from other disciplines.
451
A report for the German Research Foundation (DFG) by Mario Lepsius had
recommended the establishment of one IR chair for each political science department.
This was not the case in early 1960s, when there existed only around a dozen IR chairs.
The Lepsius report of 1961 was influenced by the post-World War II UNESCO decision,
made at its 1948 Utrecht conference to have at each university at least one chair devoted
to IR studies.
452
Titled “Memorandum on the Condition of Sociology and Political
Science,” Lepsius' report was not just the product of the author himself, as he was guided
by senior scholars including Arnold Bergstraesser. One important aspect of the report was
451 Schweigler, 1976: 72-73.
452 Rittberger and Hummel, 1990: 30-32.
268
to emphasize the need for more analyses in the fields of foreign policy and international
organizations, thus pointing to the weak state of West German IR within a political
science discipline that was itself not much advanced.
In the mid-1960s, the West German IR scene would not provide a very rich picture.
In 1964-1965 academic year, out of 665 courses on IR, close to a half were offered by
political scientists, whereas economists provided some one fourth and international law
scholars shared the rest with historians and geographers. With regard to lecture numbers,
West Berlin alone provided some one third of all offerings.
453
The special position of this
enclave in Berlin should not come as a surprise, due to the high impact of the Freie
Universität Berlin with its Otto Suhr Institute. In the university's political science
department, there were already two IR chairs (out of 11 in political science in total) by
the early 1960s, a point in time that witnessed the lack of other IR specialized chairs in
West Germany.
454
In Otto Kiminich's mid-1960s analysis, it became evident that only 5
percent of all IR courses taught by political scientists pertained to IR theory. The greater
focus was on issues of world politics in general and foreign policy. An important result
emerging from his data presents a picture which it is possible to call the political
scientification of IR. This is visible when one notes the three-fold increase of political
science-connected IR courses.
455
Such a change demonstrates that already by 1965 there
was a close connection between political science and IR, thus making the situation
similar to its American counterpart, where political science had largely incorporated the
453 Kiminich, 1965: 707-708.
454 Gantzel-Kress and Gantzel, 1980: 204.
455 Kiminich, 1965: 709-710.
269
study of world politics. Compared to 1960s, the changes in the 1970s were significant.
From 24 political science chairs in 1960 at 18 West German universities, with 10 of them
at FU Berlin, the figures increased to 133 professors of political science by 1975.
456

This dimension of numbers was important because individual scholars mattered a lot
in the early years of West German IR. In a 1976 report prepared for the Ford Foundation
(the existence of which shows the continuing interest of American philanthropies in the
discipline's development), Gebhard Schweigler from the DGAP would write for instance
that Gilbert Ziebura's leaving the FU Berlin had created a major lack there and that
frequent academic moving away is a challenge for university research.
457
The actual
problem was not a professor's move to another location but the difficulty in replacing
him/her, an aspect of no relevance for the US IR community with its bigger size that
made replacements a rather easy thing to accomplish.
An important task of post-1945 West German political science was to function as a
tool for creating democratic Germans. Thus, many political science majors were to
become teachers of civic classes in schools, increasing both the number of courses and
students in political science. It is in this context that one notes once again the role of
Bergstraesser, as he was among the most insistent on advocating a separate school course
of civic education (Sozialkunde). The correct assumption was that having such an
established class in schools would guarantee more influence and increase in numbers for
the discipline of political science. One of his relatives, also a former DHfP scholar and
456 Bleek, 2001: 310-313.
457 Schweigler, 1976: 101.
270
member the of federal parliament, Ludwig Bergstraesser used his position within the
parliamentary committee for the protection of constitutional order to similarly
recommend political education as a school course with its own teachers. While it was
only in the 1960s, following certain anti-Semitic attacks by young people that general
measures were taken to introduce these courses in all states of West Germany, the process
itself was marked by debates between, on one side, the political scientists and their
sociologist colleagues, and on the other, the traditionally influential historians. The
relative success of the “newer” disciplines was significant for political science, as it was
now able to have the necessary resources for its further development.
458
How did IR as a discipline position itself by the late 1970s, a period in which one
could assert both its institutional establishment and scholarly intensification, due to the
increase of faculty size, departments with IR chairs, and closely following (carrying over
and for some, trying to go beyond) US IR? An answer can be found by looking to results
of a survey by Werner Link (with Werner Dörr). In the mid-1970s, Link surveyed IR
specialists in West Germany asking questions about their ongoing/recently completed
research projects. Based on 71 projects, it became clear that the majority of projects
consisted of an analytical-descriptive approach, whereas mainly theoretical ones
remained at a low 10 %. In between were the projects that had followed a historical-
comparative perspective with 30 %, with another 15 % consisting of both historical-
comparative and analytical-descriptive approaches.
458 Bleek, 2001: 316-324.
271
Again, allowing for multiple answers, the issue areas mainly focused on included
security (30), foreign trade and world economy (27), development policy (15), détente
(14), “Eastern policy” (Ostpolitik) (11), with arms control being the subject of 5 and
“Westpolitik” of only four. When asked whether their issue choice was influenced by the
goal of having practical relevance, some 60 % responded positively, and only one
researcher said that such a quest for relevance had played no role at all in the selection of
the research issue. However, when answering the question of “whether the study should
provide options or directions for practical politics,” for 25 % a clear “no” was the reply.
While 31 % thought that their studies should serve such a role, another 27 % said “yes
with limitations.” This shows that a majority was also in favor of providing “useful”
knowledge for politics.
Of course, these answers themselves do not give us further information as to whether
the scholars had in mind a more pro-status quo adviser role or a position as critical
scholars aiming to change the given policies by opening up new perspectives. However,
answers to this issue are provided by other sections of the survey. For instance, 39 % of
scholars said that the addressee of their research was mainly the scientific community.
This group, though, is countered by 36 % of their colleagues, whose research was mainly
aimed for social and political groups. A third group (some one fifth) saw both their fellow
scholars and social and political groups as their audience.
Another question provides further clarification about scholars prioritizing
presentations to social and political groups over a role of advisor, with more than 57 %
272
opting for the former in case they are asked to turn their research results into practice.
Only 34 % of scholars choose advising as the primary means of making practical use of
their research. In order to better understand the position of the West German IR
community, a final question deserves our attention. It is about how they perceive a
scientific adviser position (if they have it or would have it). One quarter sees it as a
positive-instrumental function, whereas 37 % of scholars interpret it as carrying a critical
function. These two functions follow a model based on Hans Albert's distinguishing
between guiding (Steuerung) and enlightening (Aufklärung), with the former pointing to
positive-instrumental functions of science in its ties to policy and practice. The
enlightening role is the instrument of the critical function.
459

As a result, it becomes possible to conclude from this survey that the West German
IR community of the 1970s had a certain preference for a critical role as a scientific
community. However, the fact that one third of scholars did not answer the last question
demonstrates that the influence of critical scholars was of a limited nature, the actual size
of their non-critical colleagues depriving them of a dominant status. In this context, it is
possible to see a divided community, with many scholars finding policy-relevance
relevant, but also insisting on having the scientific community as the main receptor of
their research. Although a plurality exists for critical approaches, they remain in the
minority. This reflects, in a significant fashion, the general conditions prevalent in West
459 Link, 1978: 485.
273
German IR by the 1970s, with more Marxist groups set against more liberal and
conservative scholars who developed different research priorities and methods.
460
IV .9. (West) German IR: Analyzing the Past, Looking to the Future
In this last section, I will first discuss a proposition by Johan Galtung on the
supposed existence of certain thought styles that influence (national) academic
communities. I will do this by elaborating on the conflicts that affected the German
community of political science and IR scholars. Then the focus shifts to important
positions developed by Ekkehart Krippendorff which I compare to influential suggestions
put forward by Stanley Hoffmann whose 1977 article on IR's American character has
shaped the discipline's self-understanding for its American and wider communities. As
sovereignty plays a significant role for explaining the existence (or the lack) of interest
shown in world political studies in many analyses, there follows a comparison of German
and Scandinavian participation in IR. The emerging picture is important, as it rejects the
much emphasized role of sovereignty. In this framework, I also point to the role of
hybridity in having generated the discipline of International Relations in West Germany
in a way that rejects path-dependency claims.
When looking at the issue of the general characteristics of a national academic
community, it is important to question whether there exists a certain style of thought.
Johan Galtung's interesting approach to this issue has provided some helpful ways to deal
with this. According to Galtung, scholars' texts and thoughts can be understood with
460 See Link, 1978: passim and for results especially, p. 495ff.
274
reference to their national culture, at least to a certain extent. Styles of thought and
presentation of thinking together build a comprehensive intellectual style and for our
purposes, one of the main styles he provides an explanation for pertains to the German
academic culture, which can be called, following Galtung, a Teutonic intellectual style.
This Teutonic style is “a matrix in which extremist political ideologies can easily be
embedded.”
461
Extremist views contain here both Nazi and extreme-left positions.
Among the features that Galtung associates with the Teutonic intellectual style, are a
large focus on deduction, a lack of humor, the rather unimportant position given to
empirical reality which is replaced by the all-importance of system, a single truth that is
incontestable, and an inner circle of people who have knowledge of the core insight.
Separate academic groups follow their own terminology, which is completely distinct
from the language of competing groups. This brings about the impossibility of dialogue
within the academic community. For Galtung, the Teutonic intellectual style could be a
result of the family structure with its authoritarian upbringing and the social structure
with its feudalism and consequent developments.
462
Later, he would further develop this
analysis by including other intellectual styles like the Gallic, Saxonic and Nipponic.
However, the main points of relevance, in this context, are his distinction between the
academic and the social contexts. For Galtung, it is not among ordinary people that a
Teutonic style prevails but among the scholarly community.
463

461 Galtung, 1979: 2.
462 See Galtung, 1979: passim.
463 Galtung, 1979: 2.
275
This commentary provides a useful means for looking at the general picture of
German political science/IR community. While Galtung himself as well as many scholars
who refer to his comments accept the rather general and topical analysis provided by his
assumptions and thus its inherent limitations, significant divisions that played an
overwhelming role among the West German political scientists illustrate that at least
some aspects of Galtung's portrait reflect certain problematic aspects of the German
scientific mentality. The fact that DVPW witnessed a division with many of its members
leaving (including one of its presidents) to form an alternative association demonstrates
the overall perception among West German colleagues about the impossibility of a joint
institutional engagement. However, this situation of a general division among West
German IR (and political science) scholars, which one does not see to the same extent in
the case of French scholarship (as will become visible in the next chapter), points to the
relevance of international and national political pressures which resulted from the Cold
War's direct influence on West German state and society. This further points to the
general impact of transnational dynamics that shaped the trajectory of IR's development
in this country marked by the larger geopolitical divisions of the Cold War.
The general tripartite differences among German scholars with hermetic boundaries
between varying approaches discussed earlier can be seen as indicators of a Teutonic
style, although the decreased relevance of these ideologically motivated intra-academic
debates has to be noted, especially in the context of the late 20
th
and early 21
st
centuries.
Bleek also refers, in his history of German political science, to Galtung's assertions in an
276
approving manner. When the Norwegian scholar tries to summarize the Teutonic style
with reference to its supposed question of “how can you deduce this stringently,” Bleek
recognizes in Galtung's approach a much better analysis of German scholars than in
certain studies that deal only with parts of German scholarship.
464

However, when taking into consideration Galtung's ideas about distinct intellectual
thought styles that prevail in certain cultural-regional entities, an important dimension is
ignored. This is the role played by factors the roots of which are found in transnational
interactions. As seen in Lebow's explanation of German-Jewish scholars' contributions to
American political science, and specifically in the case of realist IR, social sciences
provide an area open to hybridities. In this regard, questions about “actual” origins lose
their significance. Their obsoleteness is due to the heterogeneity that results from multi-
sided influences they have upon each other. To what extent is US realist IR indeed
American, or (West) German post-1945 IR in fact (West) German if the very scholars
who contributed to these “national” communities carry in their ideational bag experiences
both from American and German history including their own life experiences? The
answer becomes visible as the interaction-based background testifies to the need for
overcoming national characterizations. At least, it becomes obligatory to acknowledge
various levels of scholarly and ideational communication that lie in the origins of
nationally categorized thought patterns and research agendas. In this context, a German-
Jewish scholar who is influenced by his German education can witness a different
approach in the US, while him-/herself making an impact on US scholarship.
464 Bleek, 2001: 411.
277
The earlier influence of Prussian university reforms of the Humboldtian spirit on the
US and the consequent role of earlier German emigrants who established US political
science must be noted also. Furthermore, following the end of the Second World War, the
same scholar returns to his/her country in order to contribute to founding a science of
politics that could provide one of the basic educational tools in combating a return of
totalitarian tendencies in the (West) German state and society, that is, through a
Demokratiewissenschaft. Noting significant degrees of opposition from other disciplines,
but also the heterogeneous nature of political science that is constructed in West Germany
as a result of interaction between US authorities and foundations, and taking into account
German politicians, returning emigrants as well as re-engaging scholars, the emerging
picture is one of contingencies.
None of the actors can be said to have reached an incontestable success in their quest
for pushing forward their preferred version of political science. For many actors, there is
in fact no settled idea about political science, as their previous and current experiences
get intermingled and their engagements are not necessarily means of dictating a certain
version but for trying to find a workable structure for the discipline. The implicit aim is to
establish a disciplinary structure that would be acceptable for all pro-political science
groups, while managing to deal with significant opposition consisting of circles that
rejected a bigger influence for the discipline.
According to Krippendorff, there is a basic difference between American and
European understandings of social sciences and their functions. Whereas the latter sees in
278
them means of critically engaging with existing society, the US case is about promotion
of the existing civic values, not aiming for social change. Political science was
developed in the US for educating a democratic public.
465
However, such an approach
overlooks the rather similar nature of European and American developments, ranging
from the Verein für Sozialpolitik in late 19
th
century Germany to the British Social
Science Association and to US associations all of whom had similar policy goals in mind.
Furthermore, the post-1945 development of West German political science has been
marked by similar concerns for civic education of the population so that civic values can
be established among a de-Nazified West German society. In this regard, Krippendorff's
assumptions present too strict a distinction between the two sides of North Atlantic which
did not exist to such a great extent. However, when he approvingly refers to Fred
Halliday's point about “the Kissinger syndrome” he is following a path that carries much
more weight in the context of US-European differences. This syndrome pertains to the
rather covert desire of IR scholars to have some impact on real politics at some point.
466

In fact, this has been a much emphasized part of the US IR community, unlike the
situation in Europe, where such revolving door practices between the scholarly and
political/governmental world have been rare.
While Krippendorff mentions the “1919 process” as the birth of IR, his bigger focus
is on the post-World War II era when IR was born a second time in a more serious way.
The actual cause for IR's post-1945 empowerment was, according to him, the new
465 Krippendorff, 1987: 209-210.
466 Krippendorff, 1987: 209.
279
superpower status of the US so that it was in need of people with relevant world political
knowledge, thus making IR more connected to the foreign policy processes of the US.
Similar to Hoffmann, Krippendorff sees in the flexibility of the US university structure an
opening that paved the way for an easier establishment of separate IR studies, a condition
not present in Europe. As seen in the West German case, strong opposition even to
political science as a discipline showed the inherent difficulties of creating new programs
that would provide “new ways” of dealing with (world) politics. However, while a major
part of Hoffmann's general framework pertains to the openness of foreign policy making
and the impact of a democratic society thereon,
467
Krippendorff takes a skeptical position
and interprets the actual development of American postwar IR using the idea of arcanum
imperii. This concept deals with the secretive nature of state affairs, as a realm “that
should and must be protected from 'democracy'.”
468
The exact opposition of the two explanations is interesting. The reason for this is not
to be found only in the more critical stance of the West German scholar but in the very
ambiguity of IR as a discipline. While both authors underline the impact of the US in the
development of a science of world politics, it is the way they prioritize different actors
that their frameworks tend to vary so greatly. For Krippendorff, the policy-oriented
character of IR's general features leads in turn to its functioning as a tool for foreign
policy decision-makers. In Hoffmann's analysis, on the other hand, emerges a more
pluralistic picture in which governments are only one of the players, making use of
467 See Hoffmann, 1977.
468 Krippendorff, 1987: 211.
280
scholars' own predispositions and existing institutional opportunities. It is not the case in
his explanation that scholars are disconnected from the policy world; Hoffmann's general
focus is about IR scholars being intellectually dependent on the status of their country.
469

However, the difference of perception is tied to the functions of a democratic country
with its scholars providing ways of dealing with new challenges of the post-1945 world,
whereas for Krippendorff, these functions are part of a lack of democratic foreign policy,
where IR specialists merely become tools of an imperial American superpower.
The problem arises, from an academic perspective, due to what he calls “the Great
Lie” of US IR, with its “seductive search for a theory that can qualify as 'scientific' by
positivistic standards.” Its constant quest for a theory that should be valid for all times
and places is, for Krippendorff, merely a means of “mak[ing] the United States as the
world power disappear behind the smokescreen of a seemingly scholarly and objective
academic language.”
470
This statement is a very serious critique of US IR, but is it
possible to take Krippendorff's assertion as valid for all times? The answer is negative
because later developments in US IR have shown that there has not been a single path on
which all scholars were to coalesce. To the contrary, it was the US realists who were to
lead a critical campaign at the time of the George W. Bush presidency, opposing the Iraq
War. Among the names signing the relevant petition was also Kenneth Waltz, usually the
favorite target of anti-realist scholars in the US and abroad. He is easily associated in
their eyes with a neorealism tied to the Second Cold War of the Reagan years,
469 Hoffmann, 1977: 224-225.
470 Krippendorff, 1987: 213.
281
notwithstanding his Theory of International Politics' publication date which had in fact
preceded those developments, a fact later emphasized by critics of the critics.
One dimension that should not be disregarded in this context is the actual influence
of a country's conditions, including its power and possibilities, on the scholarly agenda
and IR research. Both scholars share the view that US post-World War II superpower
status was the leading element in triggering an unquestionable American supremacy also
in the study of world politics. As Hoffmann asserted, countries that lacked power or were
not much engaged in world politics, in turn, were the ones that failed to engender
significant IR communities. Scholars in such states would then deal more with domestic
politics or other political science fields, but not focus on foreign policy or international
affairs. Germany is mentioned as a pertinent example in this regard with its limited
possibility for power application, so that its scholars would not “have the motivation or
receive the impulse necessary to turn individual efforts into a genuine scientific
enterprise.”
471
The context at this junction is clear, as postwar West Germany was associated with a
status of limited sovereignty under the control of the Allies. In this regard, it is natural to
understand West Germany as a state that lacked uninterrupted access to the international
arena due to its position and its responsibilities within the Western bloc. However, there
arises a major question from this assumption about the connection between a state's
power and IR's disciplinary development when one turns to the influence of the
Scandinavian IR community, especially in the last three decades. Following the
471 Hoffmann, 1977: 224.
282
significant contributions made in the area of peace research and conflict resolution
(thinking just about the impact of their peace research institutes such as Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute [SIPRI] or Peace Research Institute Oslo [PRIO]
presents a strong institutional picture in addition to their level of representation in
American publications), it is not easy to overlook the fact that there has been a significant
over-proportional participation from Scandinavian IR specialists in the discipline leaving
other continental European communities on the sidelines.
472
Of course, the British role is another European example of active engagement, but
this is a different case for at least three reasons. First, the UK was one of the first
countries in which IR as an academic discipline took shape. Depending on one's
approach, it can be interpreted as either the first or the second place where the academic
study of IR emerged. A second feature reflects its great power status that continued into
the post-World War II years. Another point would be its sharing of the English language
with the current leader of the disciplinary (re-)production, that is the US. Therefore, the
British prominence is a natural consequence of these various factors as well as their
combined impact, whereas none of the three elements provides a direct explanation for
the Scandinavian exception. As an important explanation of the Scandinavian closeness
to the US, it is useful to turn to Jörg Friedrichs' approach that sees the Nordic openness
for “multi-level research collaboration” as the decisive tool in having reached a “uniquely
successful integrated periphery” position.
473
472 See Breitenbauch's comparison of French and Scandinavian IR in Breitenbauch, 2008 and explained
below in the French section.
473 Friedrichs, 2004: 27.
283
Adapting US social scientific practices to a certain extent without following a very
distinctive model, while also providing some alternative insights seems to serve as a
helpful means for becoming a regional IR community the influence of which reaches a
global level. Based on this idea, the way for a critique of Hoffmann's suggestions is
opened. If the Scandinavian case helps to refute the argument about state power-
disciplinary influence connection, then it is also possible to question his suggestion about
the German situation. The reasons for the relative weakness of (West) German IR
therefore lie not necessarily in the limited power projection of (West) Germany. One
could not, obviously, assert that the Danish or Norwegian states, even in their status as
NATO members and fully sovereign Nordic countries, had and have more impact than a
sovereignty-wise limited West Germany.
An alternative explanation can be derived from the cultural limits of an IR
community's readiness for integration into scientific expectations of a leading US IR
community. While post-Cold War reunified Germany is seen as being better adapted to
the US model than in its pre-unification period, and even criticized for its exclusive focus
on the US (and generally Anglophone IR),
474
a major goal in the West German period had
been to try to develop alternative approaches. As West German IR's development, which
was discussed in the preceding sections, has shown, the tendency was to go beyond the
US models. It was not only critical IR scholars who perceived such a necessity, but also
normativists like Bergstraesser were aiming for new insights which would be useful for
postwar West Germany. The fact that no simultaneous following and imitation of US IR
474 Holden, 2004: 458.
284
theories took place in the period of 1950s to 1980s, notwithstanding the impact of the US
via its local officials in Germany and the emigrant scholars, as well American
foundations demonstrates that there was still no insistence on seeing US IR's actual
research as the ideal to be approached. Although the way the American discipline had
developed was interpreted positively in the sense of its success, there was no obligation
to use the same methodological and epistemological approaches in studying world
politics. Not much of behavioralism or neorealism was evident. Even Morgenthau's work
was closely followed by only a few West German scholars like Karl Kindermann.
In this context, the emerging difference can be explained by the role of hybridity,
which decreases the significance of any elaborations focusing on path-dependency alone.
There is no direct line that connects West German political science and IR to its prewar
conditions, not even the symbolic role provided by the institutional rebirth of DHfP.
Certain tendencies shifted to new paths when the impact of the Nazi period brought about
radical changes. At the same time, the relative untaintedness of political scientists
contributed to start a new period, which did not resemble American IR in the sense of an
exact copy. The reason for West German IR's relative weakness was not the lack of power
alone, as this factor has been shown not to have played such a role in the case of Nordic
IR. More important was the existence of a divided scholarly community whose members
lacked means of dialogue due to their separate approaches that prioritized either
normative, empirical or critical models. Unlike the case of the US or Scandinavian IR
communities, there was a quantitative uneasiness that arose from the inability of any one
285
group of these competing approaches in reaching the majority of scholars, creating as a
result a constant tension that was to prevent the development of a coherent mainstream
which could, in turn, have the representative capacity for cooperation with its US IR
counterparts. Therefore, I find the reasons for West German IR's relative weakness much
more in its divisions than in the country's foreign policy or relative powerlessness, a
condition that would not differentiate it from the Northern neighbors.
One suggestion provided by German commentators on the development of world
political study and research in postwar West Germany goes beyond presenting a basic
prioritization of domestic politics above international affairs as the explanatory variable.
In this regard, Schweigler extends such assumptions by emphasizing the reconstruction
efforts in the country, the effect of which was to push interest in world politics to the
backstage.
475
In his proposition, there appears at least a factor that would explain the lack
of interest in IR proper. However, in my interpretation, even such an extended form of
clarification fails to inform about the reasons of IR's relatively lower degree of influence.
If one has to consider the impact of political forces at play, then, notwithstanding the
lack of sovereignty, West Germans' interests necessitated remaining attuned to world
political developments. As was seen in 1953 on East Berlin streets, it was not workers
opposing the Communist authorities who were to determine the short term future of East
Germany, but Soviet tanks present on the streets of East Berlin. On a functional level,
similar conditions prevailed in West German society. Their very future and its form
depended on decisions made by the Allied powers, including France, the neighbor to the
475 Schweigler, 1976: 71.
286
West, and the US with its newly found superpower position. Under such circumstances,
the argument that international affairs were less relevant to West Germans provides a
rather weak explanation. As shown in the discussion of Bergstraesser's propositions,
according to many scholars the significance of world political knowledge and hence of a
well-developed IR discipline was indeed a clear necessity for sovereignty-less West
Germans.
While it is true that Fraenkel's theory on pluralism or the contemporary fashion of
totalitarianism theories took the upper hand in West German political science, they cannot
be explained just by the supposedly higher concerns of domestic issues. This means that
even these theoretical approaches (of a domestic political or comparative political nature)
had direct ties to the external environment or resulted from a tightly interwoven
connection between the domestic and the international. At a time of non-sovereignty, with
no Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1951, it was certainly difficult to look for a broader
focus on world politics. However, the domestic context and contemporary theories
providing explanations about it were themselves repercussions of the general
international scene. The totalitarian Soviet Union replaced the totalitarian Nazi era, and
challenges of Weimar Germany's social and political divisions were now to be overcome
in a pluralistic and democratic West Germany that took the Western democracies as its
model.
This happened not least due to emigrant scholars' return from the US where they had
become familiar with different mentalities, which provided alternatives to their previous
287
ideas on the German socio-political context. Therefore, it is possible to assert that the
deeper reason for a lack of IR was not in fact a lesser involvement in world affairs, but
the narrower confines into which this possibility was pushed. Lacking a coherent
institutional setting, which would develop into a broader structure only in the 1960s,
presented another major setback. An additional negative impact derived from the focus
on geopolitics that had prevailed from 1920s to 1940s, now tainted by its Nazi
connections. The fact that there was even an exaggerated reference to Karl Haushofer's
role with his geopolitical studies on the Nazi imperialism, with imagined great research
centers in Munich, further delegitimized this type of research in postwar Germany.
The lack of a great power status that was at the origins of Anglo-American
prominence in the discipline provides an additional element for explaining IR's weakness
in postwar (West) Germany. Here, I need to underline that this status dimension is not a
sufficient explanation by itself. As shown in the above juxtaposition of Scandinavia to
Germany, the post-World War II successes of Scandinavian IR demonstrated that great
power status itself was not necessary to produce IR scholarship with a global impact.
Rather, in the Nordic case, it was their scientific and methodological following of the
Anglo-American approaches that paved the way for an advanced community of IR
scholars in the region. In the West German situation, however, the impact of returning
scholars did not suffice by itself to readjust the political science/IR community toward an
American way of doing social science.
288
One of the reasons for this was to be found in the still continuing weight of German
scholarly traditions, both with their varying methodological choices and the more
powerful opposition from historical and legal scholarship that was not eager to welcome
disciplinary competition in the form of political science or IR. As a result, German IR's
temporal backwardness could only be overcome after initial steps taken in the
institutional-structural realm showed their impact. The consequent increase in West
German sovereignty, in parallel to its economic growth in the postwar years, was to
provide the political-contextual pavement for this new route of the West German IR
community, but was not by itself sufficient to explain the advances in its scholarship. In
the conclusion, I will return to this aspect in a broader analysis.
This chapter has provided the developmental trajectory of (West) German IR in terms
of its institutional and scholarly-agential dimensions. I analyzed the role of DHfP and
Arnold Bergstraesser in advancing IR studies, and pointed to the important role of US
foundations as well as American military and government officials in institutionalizing
political science and IR in the post-1945 period. By explaining the structural deficits of
West German IR studies, especially its late academic establishment and the opposition it
faced from more traditional academic disciplines, I emphasized that it could only emerge
as a hybrid IR community in which the transnational dynamics created a discipline that
did not become an exact replica of the dominant American model. Important to note is
that even German scholars familiar with US IR scholarship took steps that led the
discipline to more critical and alternative directions, as seen in the example of Marxist-
289
influenced approaches and a critical peace research agenda, and the lack of quantitative
studies and behavioralist tendencies.
By historicizing the pathways of IR's (West) German journey, this chapter the
transnational dynamics that lay at its origins and establishment. Even more than the case
of France that I will analyze in the next chapter, Germany presents an example of
hybridity. The Nazi years, and earlier Prussian experience, forced many scholars to leave
their home country, interacting as a result with the American ways of doing social
sciences. At both instances, the impact was visible in the US and German contexts, when
the mutual influence generated contingent outcomes. Jewish-German refugee-scholars
helped American IR to take a fresh wave of continental European infusion, while the
returning and visiting refugees would shape German political science and IR to a great
extent. The detailed analysis of Bergstraesser's engagement showed how such individual
roles could determine the prospective pathways of the new discipline. Unlike the usual
focus of IR disciplinary histories on the American center, I turn the focus to the two
continental European cases so that the discipline can be approached in a broader
understanding that would also bring new insights about its function(s) and its future role.
It is in this sense that the next French chapter looks to another major scene in which
transnational dynamics gave birth to a different IR scholarly community.

290
CHAPTER V: THE DISCIPLINE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN
FRANCE
The developmental trajectory of IR's pathways in France show the extent to which
transnational dynamics engendered a hybrid social science whose direction was not one
determined by the impact of national legacies or international structures alone. Like in the
German case, American and international actors played an important role in determining
the future shape of the new discipline in France.
Before emphasizing the main points of French IR's disciplinary history (which I
explain in detail in the subsequent sections) that demonstrate its distinct trajectory, it is
useful to present a brief framework of the politico-historical context under which this
new discipline came into being. In the late 19
th
century, the Third Republic provided
another turning point in the long revolutionary-reactionary struggles that had marked the
country since 1789.
476
Its relatively long existence would come to an end in 1940 when
the Nazi troops occupied half of the country and left the other half to a collaborationist
regime under Marshall Pétain, a national hero of the First World War. In a more
teleological fashion, it could be asserted that France has succeeded only in the aftermath
of the Second World War in overcoming the great political conflicts that distinguished its
19
th
and 20
th
century developments. According to Pierre Birnbaum, the French “Republic
476 For a generations-based account of the continuing confrontations that marked 19
th
and early 20
th

century French society and of the conflictual legacy of the French Revolution see Gildea, 2008.
291
has renounced utopian dreams,” while its long-time opponents (e.g. the Catholic Church)
have also “forsaken its ancient intransigence.”
477

Compared to the German case, French developments present a different frame in
terms of their “Western” nature. Whereas it is possible to interpret German history as
marked by moves that opposed values associated with the West, France sided in both
world wars with its British and American allies. The divided nature of its society and
politics made it different, but its general choice was to remain a partner of the Western
powers, without significant tendencies of expansion and irredentism in Europe. This
aspect puts it into a different category from Germany in the context of the pre-1945
period. At the same time, the legacy of the Second World War paved the way for France
to feel itself more secure (especially once the decolonization process and its wars were
over), while the West German state had to consider the prospects of its survival. It is
important to understand this difference when analyzing the developments that led to the
establishment of political science/IR in France. In a country marked by a traditional
university structure and a relatively less problematic foreign political agenda, the focus
on studying the international had a decreased importance.
Due to the close connections of the IR discipline to political science, it is important
to start the analysis of IR's developmental trajectory in 20
th
century France by first
turning to the emergence of the influential Parisian institute of higher education, that is
Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques (ELSP, Free School of Political Sciences). In
analyzing the developmental trajectory of this important school, I explain how American
477 Birnbaum, 2008: 281.
292
foundations, French scholars and politicians, and their interactions led to transnational
dynamics that shaped the pathways of political science and IR in France. French interest
in American ways of “doing” political science and IR, combined with the influence of a
more pluralistic and interdisciplinary French approach paved the way for French
scholarship that did not resemble its American counterpart.
A detailed analysis of French IR's “founding fathers,” with a special focus on Pierre
Renouvin and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, and a critical engagement with Raymond Aron's
role, serves to explain how some scholars succeeded in establishing a new discipline.
Looking at its associations, publications, meetings, and debates, it becomes possible to
understand how all these scholarly and institutional actors shaped political science and
IR. I also analyze French perceptions of US scholarship. Such an approach provides
helpful insights for gaining a better understanding of French IR's transnational
development. The concluding section underlines the French lack of prioritizing theory in
IR, a feature so important to American IR. These explanations help understand how IR
can take different forms in different countries.
The main points that distinguish French IR can be summarized in four points. First,
American foundations' initiatives in supporting the development of social sciences, and
French scholars' visits to the US played a major role in determining the shape of IR.
However, this American influence did not mean that a complete imitation would be the
result. The outcome was a hybrid discipline that continued to preserve many aspects of its
interdisciplinary character that was the case of European IR studies. Unlike the US,
293
disciplines such as law, geography, and sociology had a great impact on IR's French
trajectory.
Second, the founders (both in scholarly and institutional terms) of the discipline had
roots in other disciplines, i.e. history, sociology, law. This was a natural consequence that
derived from its newly established academic status – no previous experience was
required. Like the British historian Herbert Butterfield in the UK, French historians
Renouvin and Duroselle contributed to the development of the discipline in France. Ties
to American foundations provided a useful means that helped them to advance French IR.
Third, the weak status of political science, which was a consequence of its late
establishment as a distinct field of study (in the singular version of science politique)
influenced IR's French pathways in a negative way. While IR became (most prominently
in the US) a subdiscipline of political science, its French trajectory could not be built
upon a well-established political scientific basis because no such structure existed. It was
only in the 1980s that IR could emerge with a powerful research agenda, mostly thanks to
a new generation of French IR specialists with sociological approaches.
Fourth, IR is not the only way of dealing with the international. Geopolitical analyses
are a major specificity of French scholarship and publications that look at international
phenomena and global processes. At the same time, French IR does not resemble its
American counterpart that is marked by a continuing search for grand theories. All these
features demonstrate that the discipline's French trajectory differs from American
scholarship. This difference is at the same time a promise for an alternative that could
294
bring new insights to the study of the international by a more sociologically informed and
interdisciplinary approach. The hybridity of French IR, a result of transnational dynamics
that shaped its development, serves to highlight the plurality that is inherent to the
discipline's global and divergent trajectories.
V .1. From the 19
th
to the 20
th
Century: The Origins of French Political Sciences and
the ELSP Years
In this section, I analyze how institutional developments paved the way for enabling
the gradual establishment of, first political sciences and only later the singular political
science. The period until 1945 is marked by the prominence of the former, plural
understanding of political sciences. An analysis about the development of political
science prepares the ground for the following sections that turn more directly to
International Relations studies. Their often interwoven nature and the lack of IR's
independence explain the frequent overlaps between their topics of study. Such
conditions explain why a disciplinary history of IR also necessitates a detailed analysis of
general political scientific developments in order to create a proper context for focusing
on IR.
V .1.a. Before Boutmy: Earlier developments in 19
th
century French political science
Whereas Emile Durkheim saw in 1890 in political science only “bastard
speculations, half-way theoretical and half-way practical, half-way science and half-way
295
arts,” the weakness of this new social science against its competing disciplines of
economics and sociology would be overcome to a large extent in the second half of the
20
th
century.
478
However, the general conditions prevailing in the 19
th
century did not
provide the most suitable environment for the emergence of political science(s).
The most important body for the early development of French social sciences in the
institutional area was the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (ASMP, Academy
of Moral and Political Sciences) founded in 1832. In fact, it represented the re-opening of
the Institut de France's (the main French academic mechanism) second class, the branch
focusing on moral and political sciences, which had not survived the Napoleonic
pressures of its time. Given the liberal atmosphere of 1830s, its founding members like
Guizot and Cousin were able to play a role in an academic body that would precede the
establishment of university disciplines in the late 19
th
century. ASMP symbolized the state
liberalism influential at the time of its creation. The academy members originated from
urban and liberal elites, with their dual opposition both to workers' movements and to
reactionary conservatives, which put them into a distinct space marked by a secular,
centrist position within the French society. The close connection to the regime becomes
directly visible by considering the percentage of its members who had a political
position: 75 %, the highest number among all the academies, branches of Institut de
France.
479

478 Wagner, 2001: 25.
479 Heilbron, 2004b: 145-148.
296
It is important to understand the distance the academicians had from the natural
sciences. They were not looking for ways to follow models provided by these sciences.
Furthermore, academicians at ASMP rejected the concept of “social science,” as its
origins were connected to the time of the French Revolution and the concomitant values
of materialism and scientism. However, in the mid-19
th
century, these academic stances
were already under heavy attack from scholars and philosophers like Ernest Renan and
Hippolyte Taine. For them, a more scientific approach to sciences was necessary. Taine's
opinion was that one should follow the model set by natural sciences so that the two
scientific enterprises could be brought closer. This meant that political sciences would be
modeled on natural sciences.
480

An important aspect of all these debates was that Taine was later to become the
person whose ideas and influence determined to a great extent the way Emile Boutmy
would develop his conceptions about the goals and structure of ELSP, the Parisian school
for political sciences he would found. Therefore, at the roots of Boutmy's later desire to
create a place for the education of the Republican elites, there was the plan to use the
scientific expertise for increasing the current elite's power under changing conditions.
Interestingly, the anti-ASMP attitude of Taine would continue to exert its influence at the
time of ELSP when Boutmy, Taine and their friends were eager to create an institute
which would be devoid of dogmatic approaches. This was to be expected, as it was
thinkers like Taine who asserted that the academy's position and the way it dealt with
moral sciences was not scientific; to the contrary, the influence of ASMP was merely a
480 Heilbron, 2004b: 148-153.
297
consequence of its connection to the doctrines officially propagated.
481
Ironically, ELSP
would find itself under a similar critique in the 20
th
century, as its doctrinaire liberalism
generated heavy criticism.
The early years of the Third Republic, which arose out of the 1870-1871 catastrophes
of war, defeat and the Paris Commune, were marked by similar projects aimed at
bringing about a modern institutional structure for the study of society. In 1872, the
Association française pour l'avancement des sciences (French association for the
advancement of sciences) was founded, followed a few years later by the Société de
l'enseignement supérieure (Society for higher education). This showed that improving the
scientific conditions had become a shared interest. The academy lost its ground in the
later 19
th
century when Boutmy's ELSP took political sciences under its realm, whereas
humanities were covered by faculties of Letters, and economics became a subject to be
studied at faculties of Law.
482

According to Pierre Favre, the development of political science in the last third of the
19
th
century was triggered by the autonomization of politics, the growth of modern state
apparatus, and the secularized and democratized nature of politics. Under these
conditions, the need for people educated in aspects of political relevance increased, as
they were the ones to fill the new positions from which they could engage with a
changing society and state.
483
The founding of ELSP was a French response to deal with
481 On this aspect see Heilbron, 2004b: 153.
482 Heilbron, 2004b: 153-157.
483 Favre, 1989: 10ff.
298
new conditions and to give political studies a much needed impetus that was not provided
by the academy or university structures.
In the early 20
th
century, it was also the work of Emile Durkheim, one of the most
significant French sociologists, that provided early signs of interest in the international
dimension. His analyses preceded the French sociological approaches that successfully
contributed to the advancement of French IR scholarship in the last decades of the 20
th

century. As part of his interest in world politics, he wrote at the time of the First World
War on Germans and their mental approach to international affairs. A limitless German
will for power was responsible for their war-proneness in world politics. It was due to the
general international reality that Germans would later realize “the impossibility of
hegemonic empire,” Durkheim suggested, without foreseeing the continuation of a
similar project in two decades' time.
484

In the case of the idea of international society, Durkheim thought that such a society
had not yet come into existence, while he saw in the international milieu “a collection of
laws” that were of both a legal and moral content.
485
Most importantly, for him, no single
state can “maintain itself when it has all the humanity against itself.” Moderation and
moral law are important aspects of international relations, with “the will to power” being
an unacceptable way of acting in that realm. However, it is important not to understand
Durkheim as an idealist avant-le-mot because he rejects the idea that humanity as such
exists. There would most probably never arise a single state in the world; thus his
484 Ramel, 2004: 498, 503.
485 Ramel, 2004: 498, 506.
299
attention is on the relevance of states, while accepting the limiting influence of the
international environment. The primary means for people's identification lies in their
patrie, in their state.
486

When dealing with international issues in the pre-First World War period, Durkheim
tended to approach this rather skeptically. “No defined law” was visible, and even if such
laws existed in the study of world politics, “they [would be] difficult to discover.” Before
these comments in 1903, he had asserted in 1887, when talking about the range of
subjects sociology should deal with, that he has not focused either on the military or the
diplomatic dimension, although these were “social phenomena” which should be
scientifically researched. However, “this science does not exist yet, not even in the
embryonic state.” According to Frédérick Ramel, these positions that changed during
Durkheim's lifetime do not provide substantial bases for seeing him as the first IR
scholar. However, Durkheim's analyses sufficiently demonstrate his later interest in the
area of world politics that was triggered by the First World War and the characteristics of
German understanding of war and international affairs.
487
This shows, in turn, that world
political constellations had an important impact on shaping Durkheim's approach toward
the study of the international dimension. Notwithstanding his questioning of the
possibility of a science that would deal with international affairs, Durkheim was
interested enough in creating a work that aimed to explain the reasons for German
aggressive behavior that was seen as the reason of the ongoing war, as his book was
486 Ramel, 2004: 507-511.
487 Ramel, 2004: 512, 514.
300
published in 1915. However, an effective means for developing study and research in the
area of (world) political studies was an institutionalized setting, one that was provided by
Emile Boutmy in the early years of the Third Republic.
V .1.b. A Boutmy project: ELSP from 1872 until 1945
The most important French institution for the teaching of (social and) political
sciences, Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques (ELSP) opened in early 1872 following the
initiative taken by Emile Boutmy. The founder, Boutmy, was an intellectual working at
that time as an instructor at the Parisian architectural school, with a family background
that had led him to accept a liberal worldview. His broad scholarly interests and
simultaneous connections to French liberal elites would pave the way for engaging in the
difficult task of opening a private institution of learning that dealt with a sensitive area,
the teaching of politics and related areas.
The French state's disinterest in the subject made it easier to undertake such a project.
In fact, there had been earlier attempts to establish a school of administration, but the
revolutionary and reactionary waves that shook the French political order of the late 18
th

and 19
th
centuries had presented obstacles that could not be overcome. At the same time,
faculties of Law were even in those earlier periods opposing such separate institutes
where administrative or political sciences would be taught, fearing a decrease in their
significance.
488
488 Damamme, 1987: 35-36.
301
The initial courses offered at ELSP were geography and ethnography, diplomatic
history, history of economic doctrines, history of finance, and history of social reform
theories. The demand being for more practical courses, Boutmy could not implement his
original idea about a school of general advanced studies. “Scientific curiosity” by itself
would not suffice for attracting the ideal number of students. Later in the same year, the
decision was taken to create diplomatic and administrative sections so that students
interested in related careers could focus on specific study areas. The socio-political
conditions of the period were shaped by the French defeat of 1871 by Bismarck's Prussia
and the subsequent Commune experience in Paris. Under these circumstances, Boutmy
had to change his initial idea, turning away from plans for an institution that would be
like an “encyclopedia of 'sciences d'Etat'” (sciences of state), and accepting the
realization of a school focusing more on shaping administrative cadres for the future.
489

The founder of ELSP was motivated by the goal of creating a ruling class that would
be competent and thus able to perpetuate its dominant position in the French society and
state. While France was undergoing a difficult process filled with conflicts between
reactionary and revolutionary forces, Boutmy aimed to present his new institution as a
liberal means of keeping the power in the hands of elites who could succeed in presenting
their position as a via media between two extremes. In his opinion, a few dozen men
educated at the school would be able to influence society and thus keep the power
position of the liberal bourgeoisie intact. The major figure of influence on Boutmy was
Hippolyte Taine. The thought of this important intellectual played a big role in triggering
489 Damamme, 1987: 31-32.
302
Boutmy's plans for ELSP. Interestingly, Taine suggested that science led to prudence. In
line with this, studying was supposed to diminish the role of theoreticians – and thus of
revolutionaries. In this quite sui generis conceptualization of the impact of studying and
science, Taine saw a means for a more moderate public.
490
As a consequence, ELSP would be shaped by the influence of Taine who was the
main personality behind the Boutmian visions for the school's future role. Taine saw there
a means of opening another anti-Jacobin front in French society. His follower Boutmy
would emphasize the importance of method for science and recognize in the issues that
were to be studied phenomena that have their difficult and complex aspects. Therefore,
separate analytical categories had to be created when dealing with them in a scholarly
manner. According to Dominique Damamme, the whole project was one that aimed to
give power to experts. In this construction of ELSP and the concomitant prominence of
political sciences, it is important to recognize the presence of political “sciences at the
service of the political for a politics at the service of the science.” The various groups
associated with the school, through their teaching or studying experiences, would in due
time shape the general scene of “political producers,” be it the politicians who were
educated there, the high bureaucracy whose overwhelming majority were ELSP alumni
or the new political scientific intellectuals.
491
It was the last group that would evolve in
the course of the mid-20
th
century into actual political scientists, a time when the French
490 Damamme, 1987: 33.
491 Damamme, 1988: 9, 12.
303
would finally start to use the label of “politiste” instead of the English word “political
scientist.”
As stated in the case of DHfP in Germany, the university reforms in early 19
th

century Berlin provided a significant point of reference because for Boutmy it was these
educational initiatives that had enabled the German victory in the 1870-1871 Franco-
Prussian war. He thought that the new focus on education in France, in the advancement
of which his school was to have a major role, presented the means for giving those
classes, which had up to that point political dominance, a different way of keeping their
(now challenged) power. In this regard, he spoke of “the empire of the spirit” and “the
government by the best.” A democratizing society was challenging the bourgeoisie, so the
latter had to keep its power base by using the educational system, instead of legal or
political settings, to continue its privileged position. Competence was becoming the new
tool for social hegemony, a capacity that could be furthered by education alone. After the
days of the Commune, Boutmy saw the necessity of educating the future cadres who, in
turn, would be capable of shaping the public opinion. His views did not take shape in an
ideational vacuum. One of the most important politicians-statesmen of the time, Jules
Ferry suggested that it was “science alone that could teach to democracies like us that the
real queen of the world was not reason alone, but reason regulated by knowledge/science
[le savoir].”
492
Whereas the role of ELSP would be greatly emphasized on the other side of the
Rhine in the later years, Charles Dupuis, the secretary general of the school since 1895,
492 Damamme, 1987: 33-35.
304
would inform in a text for the German public that ELSP had in fact failed to realize
Boutmy's original ideas about creating an enlightened leadership in France, one that
would have undergone the broad teaching at the school. As a result, the school had been
more successful in the training of administrative and diplomatic elites.
493

The school's founding took the shape of a share-holders' association, with members
of the Société d'économie politique providing the framework of ELSP supporters.
Important liberals of the period such as the politician-thinker Guizot and Taine
contributed to the process by activating their networks in order to promote Boutmy's
initiative. The business world with many industrialists and bankers as well as Protestant
and Jewish minority groups played a significant part in the creation of Sciences Po.
According to Dominique Damamme, the presence of all these groups points to the
significant social capital held by Boutmy who was able to make use of it at such an
important turning point in French history. These groups stood at an intersection where
economic, intellectual and political fields mingled together. Such diversity also enabled
Boutmy to assert the non-partisan nature of his school, trying to feed the image of the
school as a national project standing above political questions.
494
However, this should
not lead one to overlook the immanently political nature of this whole scholarly-
institutional enterprise. It was not surprising that similar conditions prevailed at the time
of the German DHfP's creation, with liberal businessmen like Robert Bosch financing the
493 Bock, 1996: 195-196.
494 Damamme, 1987: 39-43.
305
founding of the new institution, whose initiators were also intellectuals-scholars close to
the most important name of German liberalism of the period, Friedrich Naumann.
According to Damamme, ELSP succeeded in using its instructors' influence for
subsequently creating its own influence in France. For instance, in the 1899-1900
academic year, one could look back and see 76 people who were (or had been) active at
Sciences Po. 35 of them were higher state officials, 18 were university professors. Eleven
of its instructors served as members of various French academies.
495
There were some
100 students in its initial years, reaching more than 800 in the 1910s. In the aftermath of
the First World War, the number was stagnating around the same figure, including close
to 150 foreign students, and six female students.
496
Within ELSP, there emerged four different sections, one of them being the diplomatic
section. This department not only offered high-quality courses, but also taught many of
them “in the spirit of 'International Relations.'” However, the courses offered in the late
19
th
century could not be put under IR as the very label did not exist at that time.
497
The
number of students receiving diplomas at ELSP's diplomatic section ranged from 17 (out
of 76) in 1900 to 65 (out of 274) in the last pre-World War II academic year. Compared to
these numbers, the economic and financial studies triggered the interest of more students,
while the administrative section had a similar number of students as to the diplomatic
section.
498
The rise in the number of diplomas, concomitant with a higher standard of
495 Damamme, 1987: 45.
496 Bock, 1996: 200.
497 Chapsal, 1951: 90.
498 Rain, 1963: 102.
306
admission (as after 1931 the entering students were required to be already in possession
of a university degree) demonstrate the school's success in establishing itself as a major
educational actor in France.
499
Boutmy kept underlining the independent character of his school, asserting that they
were “of no party” but only “the party of science.” According to Damamme, however,
this supposed impartially did not reflect the true state of affairs, as a pro-science position
was deeply connected to the liberal worldview of the era. Progressive conservatives also
joined this position, materializing in the form of ELSP an ideational coalition that
pursued its own interests by using the educational system as a means of keeping its
advantages. In this general framework, political sciences were very important, as also
acknowledged by Boutmy, for purposes of providing the bourgeois elites with a culture
générale (similar to the Anglo-Saxon idea of liberal arts).
500
When it came to world
politics, this was not a dimension foreign to Boutmy. For him, studying non-French
issues had been a part of his intellectual interests, also shown in his work on the political
psychology of the English people. In that study, he based his approach on the idea of the
collective spirit (l'âme collective) of nations.
501
In the interwar years, the liberal orientation of ELSP had already started to pose a
problem. During the Popular Front coalition government of 1936, the new minister of
national education proposed plans to nationalize the school in order to get rid of what was
perceived as its privileged position within the French higher education system. This was
499 Rain, 1963: 80.
500 Damamme, 1987: 46.
501 Damamme, 1987: 38-39.
307
due to ELSP's perceived influence in the higher public offices and the state's main
bureaucracy. The numbers themselves suffice to point to the incredible influence of the
school. In 1935, the school brochures were filled with self appraisal, indicating that out of
117 Conseil d'Etat staff admitted 113 came from Sciences Po. The figure was 246 among
the 280 officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
502
The school's success at educating
future state cadres showed that its power was only furthered by its production of higher
bureaucrats.
503
At the same time, the orthodox-liberal concepts that dominated the
school's economics teaching and thus the students' education were disliked by left-wing
politicians, as they wanted to go beyond ideas generated by such a influential
institution.
504
The fact that many bureaucrats prepared ELSP students for their respective
ministry's/organization's entrance exams in informal study groups only furthered protests
against a Parisian elite that had managed to find ways of perpetuating itself in state
organs. In the eyes of left-wing parliamentarians, ELSP was not only “anti-democratic”
but also “a tool of powerful interests.”
505
The maneuvers of the ELSP administration against the minister's nationalization
plans read like an adventure novel, proudly shared in the narrative of Pierre Rain, the
establishment's long-serving librarian. Using their parliamentary and bureaucratic
contacts, the school succeeded in cutting the more challenging aspects of the plan.
However, the outbreak of the Second World War pushed this latter deal into irrelevance.
502 Rain, 1963: 90.
503 Damamme, 1987: 46.
504 Bock, 1996: 200-201.
505 Nord, 2003: 125.
308
In the meantime, the hero of the previous world war, Marshall Pétain was invited to teach
at ELSP on issues of national defense. In the post-Munich context, when the European
political order was shaken, he would be the ideal means for the school to symbolize its
attachment to the national cause. In early 1939, Pétain was already delivering his
inaugural lecture.
506

The World War II years play an important role in explaining the evolution of ELSP
and the reasons for its quasi-nationalization in the war's aftermath. Interestingly, the years
marked by the war and occupation seem to be sealed off from the larger history of the
school. In an important book, written by Rain, there is a short section provided by
Jacques Chapsal (at the time of the book's writing the IEP director) who provided a very
short narrative about the war years. A more detailed story comes from a non-French
scholar, Philip Nord. This dimension of scholarly research is not irrelevant, as it is
another example of French unwillingness to deal with the World War II period in a more
(self-)critical fashion. Unlike the German scholars who provided important studies on the
wartime developments at DHfP or in the broader area of social sciences, for French
scholars, especially in the context of ELSP, this period presents a much neglected aspect
for research.
When the Nazis occupied half the country and enabled the creation of a puppet
regime in the form of Pétain's Vichy state, the school entered into turmoil. First, the
Germans closed it down, as many of its courses were disliked due to their supposedly
anti-German character. It should not be forgotten, either, that ELSP was in the eyes of
506 Nord, 2003: 126.
309
many Germans the epitomized version of French intellectual capacities with regard to
scholarly capacities that involved the learning and deciphering of the other. Therefore, the
school was a center that enabled the French to gain better knowledge about their
neighbors, including the Germans, as well as the broader world, including specific
emphasis on colonial matters. The remarks from DHfP's founding period, which pointed
to the French victory in the First World War being a consequence of Sciences Po's
successes, build the background of the German perception that prevailed in the summer
of 1940.
In the war years, it is possible to see at least two strategies followed by the ELSP
leadership. They developed a certain closeness with Vichy circles, which would shift in
the later war years toward Gaullist positions. According to Nord, when the country was
finally liberated, “the Ecole found itself in alignment with the [Gaullist] technocratic
current.”
507
In Chapsal's account, on the other hand, no significant changes had taken
place in occupied Paris. The school opened a branch in Lyon, that is, in the area under the
official control of Vichy France. The balance was definitely in favor of the Resistance,
with the school's willingness to withstand the wishes of the Vichy regime and
collaborators, according to Chapsal. Its suffering, with regard to the ELSP scholars and
students killed in the war, is elaborated at most in a short footnote. No explicit reference
is made to people killed because of their Jewish background.
508
Neither does the text by
Chapsal (who in 1939 became the secretary general of the ELSP and was the director of
507 Nord, 2003: 117.
508 Chapsal, 1963: 105-110, see also the footnote on p. 110.
310
Sciences Po from 1947 to 1979 and the administrator of FNSP) include much about the
difficulties of ELSP's Jewish members, such as Jacques Rueff, who not only lost his
position as deputy president of the Banque de France but also could no longer teach at
ELSP and had to leave Paris.
509
When the school was finally allowed to reopen in the fall of 1940, Pétain was still on
its administrative council. Simultaneously, pro-Vichy figures became affiliated with
Sciences Po. After the Nazi occupation of southern France, there was a visible turn,
demonstrated most effectively by leaving the Marechal outside the council, as well as a
refusal to reemploy the former justice minister of the Vichy government as an
instructor.
510
The last period of the war witnessed a cleaning of ranks, as pro-Vichy
people went and a world-famous scholar, André Siegfried was made the president. The
ELSP leaders, Siegfried and Roger Seydoux would even participate in the San Francisco
Conference, while communists had already started to attack the school as early as
February 1945, seeing in it a tool of “the global trusts.”
511
Such attacks were rejected by
the school administrators for whom the end-of-war cleansings of Vichy-affiliated scholars
was a useful means of demonstrating their rightness.
512
509 Nord, 2003: 129.
510 Nord, 2003: 132.
511 Nord, 2003: 137-138.
512 For such a rejection see Chapsal, 1963: 121.
311
V .1.c. Self-Perceptions – I: The 1937 Report on Social Sciences in France
What was the state of French social sciences in the interwar period? In the earlier
years of the post-First World War period, the answer lay in a perception that was
dominant among French scholars. They attributed the origins of German power, which
they witnessed in the war years, partially to the Wilhelmine Empire's positive emphasis
on the teaching of social sciences.
513
This seems to be an overstatement, especially when
taking into account the concomitant arguments used by German scholars for the
establishment of the DHfP, which pointed to the French Sciences Po as their model. As a
result, the general picture was one of reverse attributions on both sides of the Franco-
German (scholarly) divide, with the two parties seeing the other as more successful in the
area of social sciences. These images mattered for the two countries because social
sciences were seen as being of great relevance for the two nations' future. However, the
divided nature of French social sciences was already a problem, furthered by a lack of
resources.
In 1937, an important report on the state of French social sciences was published.
The study group responsible for this work was located at Centre d'Etudes de Politique
Etrangère (CEPE) in Paris. In the volume that brought together experts from a great
number of disciplines, ranging from history to linguistics, from art history to economic
sciences, sociology and ethnology, there were two separate chapters of political sciences
(still in plural) and International Relations. The distinction is important as it shows the
way political science and IR were handled by independent accounts, in the form of two
513 Mazon, 1985: 311.
312
areas with distinct structures and interests. The justification for the report was provided
by an important name in the French university system, the director of ENS, Célestin
Bouglé. He referred to the 1900 World Exposition and the concomitantly organized
international congress on the teaching of social sciences. Now it was time for Bouglé to
present a similar undertaking with regard to French social sciences at the time of the 1937
Parisian World Exposition, as another international conference on social sciences would
follow the exposition.
514
In his preface, Bouglé mentioned the helpful role played by two
American foundations: Rockefeller and Carnegie. Like their US and British counterparts,
French scholars had found in the American foundations one of their main supporters. In
his opinion, the project of these philanthropies aimed “to prepare in all countries a kind of
coalition of scientific spirit with international spirit.”
515
In that context, one should
remember the name of the journal published by the European Center of the CEIP in Paris:
L'esprit international, “international spirit.” Pierre Renouvin, a name whose importance
will be explained below, also participated in the work of the journal. In 1925, he
published a book that dealt with the way democratic governments behaved in times of
war. One of the supporters of the volume was none other than CEIP's Parisian branch.
516

It becomes clear that Bouglé himself was sharing the internationalist position of
CEIP, as he added that the 1937 report had the goal of determining whether French social
sciences had contributed to “the formation of an international spirit.” Still seeing IR as an
amalgamated version of various social sciences and humanities, Bouglé briefly mentions
514 Bouglé, 1937: 4-6, 11.
515 Bouglé, 1937: 7.
516 De Lannon, 1977: 10.
313
the Lyon chair in peace, occupied by Jacques Lambert and then goes on to state that there
are other ways of doing IR studies beyond the existence of designated chairs. Thus,
history, law, economics, etc. could jointly provide ideas on “nations' interdependence
today.”
517
The suggestion about interdependence, written in the late 1930s, is significant,
as it points to the fact that such statements using the same concepts were not a late 20
th

century practice.
Augustin Jordan, in his contribution to the same 1937 report's section on political
sciences, began by emphasizing an earlier definition of the study of political sciences. In
Henri Hauser's 1903 book L'enseignement des sciences sociales (The Teaching of Social
Sciences), such a study intended “to consider under a certain angle and with a special
goal sciences (history, geography, law, political economy), conserving on the other hand
their proper individuality and their absolute independence.” For Jordan, such broad
definitions of political sciences were no longer ideal, as such an approach would signify
making all the subjects discussed in this 1937 report a part of political sciences.
518

Demonstrating a perceptual shift with regard to the way political science(s) is (are)
conceived, he proposed a different definition, while still retaining the plural in the name
of political sciences. In Jordan's list, studying political sciences included such topics as
the constitutional and administrative organization of a state, its social, economic,
ideological foundations, political movements, the psychology of peoples as well as
international relations and international political organization.
519
While such an agenda
517 Bouglé, 1937: 8.
518 Jordan, 1937: 276.
519 Jordan, 1937: 277.
314
continued to include a large number of items, its focus on the state provides a visible
narrowing-down of political sciences compared to their early 20
th
century definitions.
Therefore, while the name in plural stayed the same, it is perceivable that the actual
contents were on a path toward singularization, with the state becoming a starting point
of studying politics.
In Jordan's account, the study of International Relations was not ignored, as it was
shown to be part of the topics to be studied, according to his list of topics for political
sciences. He further asserts that this study area's importance “has given birth to an
individualized science under the name of international relations.” This new science was
about “the study of immediate international events by scientific methods,” events that
until then had been left to journalists or higher government officials.
520
These
explanations are of much significance, underlining the way a newly emerging discipline
was being understood in the French academic universe of the late 1930s. That Jordan
spent a considerable part of his text also discussing the role of IR, notwithstanding a
separate report on IR in the same volume, demonstrates the increased relevance of world
political studies by that time. This can also be interpreted as a sign that the new
International Relations discipline was already clearly interacting with political science.
The only question remaining was whether it would be a relation of equals, or whether
political science(s) would be the larger circle that included the study of the international.
When Jordan elaborated issues relevant to the study of International Relations, in
addition to discussing works on the League of Nations or non-state actors like the
520 Jordan, 1937: 287.
315
Catholic Church, he also turned his attention to studies dealing with the future of Europe
and the white race as well at the continent's competition with the US.
521
This way of
choosing the kind of studies to discuss when it comes to IR showed that IR had a visibly
Eurocentric origin and that looking at the state of the world (affairs) was highly
motivated (also in the French context) by concerns of the Western/European nations.
Their future depended on a world that had already started to witness challenges posed by
actors from the non-Western world. It was only natural under these circumstances that
Jordan pointed to the significance of studying colonial issues at ELSP. Not only were
colonial matters covered across all sections (not just in the diplomacy section) of the
school, but also by the late 1930s there was a special certificate for colonial studies,
which students could get after passing an exam set just for this subject.
522

The 1937 French report on social sciences had a separate section on IR authored by
Jacques Lambert, the holder of the peace chair at Lyon University's Faculty of Law.
Interestingly, he started his observations by underlining the fact that the majority of
people involved in International Relations did not tend to use the term (International
Relations) itself. More importantly, Lambert added that they also refused to see it as a
science. In his view, IR was more of a space of coordination, which involved multiple
social sciences instead of a distinct science. Its agenda covered the problem of intergroup
relations, the structure of international society as well as its institutions.
523
521 Jordan, 1937: 288-291.
522 Jordan, 1937: 293.
523 Lambert, 1937: 302, 317.
316
The general idea of IR was to be found more in its function, namely the goal of
finding ways for organizing peace. Nonetheless, an important step for this early period of
IR was that Lambert was also cautious about the way the results of IR research were to be
applied. For him, it was necessary to separate the application phase from scientific
research. This is a noteworthy dimension, as it demonstrates that notwithstanding his
status as the holder of a university chair on peace, Lambert put emphasis on separating
the scientific study from its practical or normative consequences. Obviously, his position
did not emerge out of nowhere. It was a time when peace groups were also the ones
undertaking research on the phenomenon they were trying to understand in order to
secure its establishment. The study groups of pacifist circles were in many instances
doing work that could be retrospectively interpreted to have been of a rather scientific
nature.
524
In this context, one is reminded of the framework provided by Krippendorff in
his analysis of the development of IR as a discipline. In that approach discussed in the
German section, he referred to the important contribution of pacifist groups to scientific
IR.
What distinguished the situation of French IR from its American or British
counterparts was, in Lambert's opinion, the non-existence of IR departments in France.
However, he was quick to suggest that the subject was not neglected, but studied at
different places under various labels. It did not help either that no associations existed,
which could match on the scholarly and practical levels the impact of the British Royal
524 Lambert, 1937: 306-308.
317
Institute of International Affairs/Chatham House.
525
However, certain establishments
created in the interwar period were of considerable relevance. The Nouvelle Ecole de la
Paix, a center founded in 1930, was active in the area of peace studies. Louis Joxe, the
secretary general of Centre d'Etudes de Politique Etrangère (CEPE, on which more
below), was also the center's secretary and oversaw the publication of its journal Europe
Nouvelle.
V .2. Americans in Paris – I: Interwar US Influence on French Political Science and
IR
In the development of the social sciences, and in this case more specifically, of
political science and IR, French-American cooperation has been an important factor. In
order to present a detailed account of American influences on the emergence in France of
distinct disciplinary areas like political science and IR, it is useful to deal with this
separately. I deal first with the interwar period. In this context, starting with the earlier
20
th
century is a helpful means of seeing the general context out of which American-
French dynamics would create a new hybridity. It was at that point that important steps
were made in creating links to the US scholarly world, when the German university
system was being perceived as exerting a great deal of influence on other countries. A
separate section follows later in this chapter, focusing on American influence in the
aftermath of the Second World War.
525 Lambert, 1937: 305, 307.
318
University exchanges between Berlin and its American counterparts like Harvard and
Columbia triggered the French to institutionalize a similar scheme. The University of
Paris got involved in this program, cooperating with the same two US universities, thanks
to the support of Albert Kahn too, who was a French-Jewish businessman personally
involved in philanthropic work, providing grants for young university graduates to spend
time in different parts of the world under his Autour du monde fellowship. The exchanges
showed the ongoing cultural rivalry between France and Germany, as both countries
aimed to increase their influence. The Sorbonne also broadened its activities, following a
policy set by the French Foreign Ministry, inviting scholars from small and neutral
countries to France as visiting scholars at the time of the First World War.
526
In 1929, the president of University of Chicago's political science department,
Charles Merriam visited Europe on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation. The tour
included a stop in Paris, but in his later report he recommended to the foundation that it
focus more on the UK and Germany for the further development of social sciences.
527

This observation provides an important means of understanding the weak position of
France compared to its two neighbors. The rather complaining tone of Merriam's report is
clear: “I planned a chart of the situation, but left the task to my successor, as the
complexity of the case seemed to increase the more I looked at it.” In these words he
undertook to describe the conditions prevailing in late 1920s French scholarship, with the
diverse institutional nature of its academic world, ranging from the University of Paris to
526 Charle, 1994: 43-46.
527 Mazon, 1985: 320, also Saunier, 2004.
319
Collège de France, from ELSP to Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS). According to
Merriam, the French were difficult for Americans to understand. He preferred to write
more about the brighter prospects of another scholarly institute focusing also on world
politics, IHEI Geneva that was co-founded in the interwar period with the help of another
American foundation, the Carnegie Endowment. However, the idea of establishing a
similar institute in France was also present. The possibility of an Institute of Social
Research was mentioned in his report. When it came to the IR dimension, Merriam
rightly reported the prominence of historians, diplomats, and legal scholars studying
these issues. He suggested that modern approaches should be developed. Economics,
psychology, and biology were mentioned as possible extensions of research in the area of
international relations, while political science was not directly referred to as another
important field to extend into IR.
528
Notwithstanding the difficulties explained by Merriam's report, the Rockefeller
Foundation decided to go ahead with its project of developing social sciences in the
French case also. An intense interaction took place between the foundation and one of the
French social scientists of the era, Marcel Mauss, who would gain fame as a sociologist
only in later years. However, his bigger institutional projects were rejected by the
Americans. There existed a certain distance towards him, as, in the eyes of the
Rockefeller officials, he was too close to the left. Therefore, American attitudes one
would associate with the Cold War period were in fact already present and showing their
impact; being close to leftists or one of them made it difficult to receive American
528 Saunier, 2004: 151-155.
320
support. The foundation shifted in turn towards cooperation with the Rector of the
University of Paris, Sébastien Charléty, a historian. While supporting the founding of a
separate Faculty of Social Sciences, Charléty knew that opposition from the faculties of
Law or Letters would hinder such a move.
529

The intermediate solution between no change and radical moves was found in the
creation of Conseil universitaire de la recherche sociale (CURS). This council brought
together various university institutes in order to be able to present the RF with a clearly
defined structure for research in the area of social sciences. The new organism paved the
way for the arrival of RF funds, and it was responsible for decisions regarding how to
distribute the money among various research bodies.
530
The 1930s had been times of demise for German cooperation with the US
foundations, as Americans tended not to cooperate with German scholars after the Nazi
takeover. On the French side, however, the same period witnessed a significant amount of
American aid to their social scientists through the continuing presence of the trans-
Atlantic partners. It was in that context that RF developed a more distinct interest in IR,
and Bouglé (who became the ENS director in 1935) and Charléty played an active part in
talks about the establishment of an institute for the study of international relations. The
result was the founding in 1935 of the Centre d'Etudes de Politique Etrangère (CEPE,
Center for Foreign Policy Studies). In this new French institute focusing on world
politics, Charléty became the first president, while his secretary was Pierre Renouvin.
529 Mazon, 1985: 321-329.
530 Mazon, 1985: 330ff.
321
The funding by RF would not stop with the start of the Second World War, as the
foundation wanted its French contacts to study a specific phenomenon: war. Research
was conducted in the context of social sciences to witness war's effects on French
society.
531
While scholars like Renouvin would look for a coordination body of social and
political sciences in the post-World War II period in newly emerging bodies like EPHE's
(Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes) 6
th
section (later transformed into EHESS, Ecole des
Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), this question of a mechanism that could serve as a
platform for interaction was already present in the late interwar period. Some saw in
CEPE a possible means of filling the gap of a coordinating body. As this institute was
both providing regular public lectures and bringing together experts who worked in
various study groups, CEPE became a place for scholarly networking, while
simultaneously acculturating the French into a certain kind of engagement with political
sciences and world affairs.
532

In the general framework of the interwar years, the Rockefeller Foundation was an
important US actor in France that wanted to contribute to the development of French
social sciences, continuing in Europe with the investments it has made for the
advancement of these sciences in the US, symbolized most visibly in financing
University of Chicago's Social Science Building. In the specific case of France, the
foundation's total aid for social sciences was bigger in the 1934-1940 period than the help
531 Mazon, 1985: 335, 338.
532 Jordan, 1937: 300.
322
provided by the scientific organs of the French state. The fact that Rockefeller support
was meant more for research purposes increased the significance of its contributions, for
it was thanks to this inflow of money that the research dimension of the social sciences
could be furthered. Moreover, French scholarly publications were also supported by the
foundation, which contributed to the creation of three journals in the areas of economics,
sociology, and international affairs. In this last area, Politique Etrangère was a product of
CEPE that had been established by Rockefeller contributions.
533

According to Ludovic Tournès, CEPE was expected to serve as a center that would
pave the way for using methods that were scientific in nature and not to approach its
study material from abstract expectations but by connecting to real world experience.
Taking into account the state of IR as a newly emerging study, the center served primarily
by connecting people from various scholarly and public dimensions and by focusing on
work through which initial insights could be gathered for studying world affairs. Its other
regular publication, Chronologie politique internationale provided circles interested in
international politics with primary data. As the Rockefeller Foundation was also
interested in works that dealt with real world problems, the position of CEPE with its
journal and other publications was in line with the expectation of their American
supporters. In this regard, articles in the journal often analyzed Nazi Germany, while
colonial issues were also on the agenda.
534
533 Tournès, 2011: 214, 224.
534 Tournès, 2011: 231-241.
323
When one turns to the role of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, after
the end of the First World War it was to reactivate its European Center located in Paris. In
the pre-war period, this American foundation was already engaged in international affairs
through cooperating with pacifist circles in Europe. In 1920, University of Paris created
an Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales which focused mainly on issues of
international law. Later, CEIP contributed to the university for advancing the work
undertaken there. It was in this institute that Renouvin would start teaching his courses on
the history of international relations, thus also “label-wise” ending the diplomatic history
approaches of the period.
535
What was the scope of activities undertaken by the European Center of the Carnegie
Endowment? Its aim was to reach the (educated) public through lectures. In 1930-1931,
for example, it included various series of lectures on the role of the Catholic Church in
the international pacifist movements, the significance of the Mediterranean region for the
European continent, the philosophy of international law, and Europe's position in world
politics.
536
It was there that from 1925 until 1939 lectures were given by André Tibal, the
holder of the Carnegie Chair for the study of international relations.
537
Interestingly, the
center decided to cancel its practice of enabling the audience to ask questions and provide
an atmosphere for discussion. According to Tibal, such a method was “little known in
535 Tournès, 2011: 210, Tournès, 2010b: 19.
536 See CEIP European Center's book Cours 1930-1931, passim.
537 Renouvin, 1950: 563.
324
France.”
538
This demonstrates the various stylistic-scholarly attributes that generated
differences between the US and French cases.

V .3. Creating the New out of the Old: The Founding of Institut d'Etudes Politiques
(IEP) Paris and Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (FNSP)
In the last phase of the Second World War, the two leaders of Sciences Po, Siegfried
and Seyroux were able to meet de Gaulle in order to emphasize the significance of their
private establishment to the new authorities. By then, they had already undertaken an
internal process of de-Vichyfication through a commission chaired by Siegfried. Finally,
there emerged an agreement through which both the new (Fourth) French Republic and
the school administration could partially realize their aims. On the one hand, ELSP was
turned into an Institut d'Etudes Politiques (IEP, Institute of Political Studies) Paris as a
school and into a Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques as a research mechanism
(FNSP, National Foundation of Political Sciences). On the other hand, the foundation was
not put completely under direct state control, with both new entities witnessing the
creation of directorial councils that carried over many members from the previous ELSP
establishment. The consequence was the end of the private ELSP and its simultaneous
survival in the form of a foundation. However, the Sciences Po people were still not
disadvantaged since they managed to get the most important positions, with Siegfried
taking over the FNSP presidency, and Seydoux becoming IEP Paris' first director.
539

538 Zimmern, 1939: 158.
539 Nord, 2003: 140ff.
325
At the same time, the new Republic's willingness to invest in social and political
sciences was shown by the creation of some half a dozen IEPs outside of Paris, including
one in Algiers, still part of France. An old idea was also revived and realized: the
establishment of a national school for training future state officials: Ecole Nationale
d'Administration (ENA). This was to be a center for educating university graduates in
order to prepare them for future jobs in higher state apparata. Simultaneously, this
reflected the fulfillment of a long project for having a high-quality state school to
generate its future cadres.
The positive contributions of ELSP and its legacy even found their place in the legal
document that brought the school's formal existence to an end. The arrangement, which
was published in the Journal Officiel de la République, emphasized the major role the
school had played, throughout its history, in the development of political studies in
France, while also mentioning the active participation of ELSP students and scholars in
the Resistance, and the war-time suffering this had generated.
540
The role of FNSP was supposed to be one of directing general research in the area of
political sciences in the plural. In this regard, the foundation's constitutive text referred in
its first article to the task of “enabling the progress and diffusion in France, in the Empire,
and abroad, of political, economic, and social sciences.”
541
The instructors were still a
mixed body in the 1950s. At the Parisian IEP, out of 85 people, 39 were university
professors, while 24 were functionaries, in addition to 16 business people. This situation
540 Chapsal, 1963: 152.
541 Chapsal, 1963: 131.
326
demonstrated that the old ELSP features continued to shape the post-1945 Sciences Po
for a long time, as there existed a great number of non-academic instructors transferring
their specific expertise to IEP Paris students.
542

Looking at anniversary celebrations serves as a useful way of understanding actors'
self-evaluations and ideas about their respective institutes. When it comes to ELSP, or its
legacy in the form of IEP Paris, the 100
th
anniversary was an important occasion. Two
presidents of significant organs were present: Georges Pompidou, the French president,
and the IPSA president, Stein Rokkan. The former remarked in his speech not only his
Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) background that had led him during his student years to
perceive ELSP counterparts as bourgeois and superficial. Although this harsh wording
could be interpreted as problematic, the French president continued by stating that his
own later study at ELSP as well as his teaching experience there, had led him to change
his view. He mentioned this experience as a most useful preparation for his future entry
into politics.
543

The president of IPSA, Rokkan mentioned in his short speech that “France has
always played a prominent role in the development of our discipline,” adding that France
has been active in processes leading to political science's international establishment. Not
only was the role of ELSP, with its 19th century origins, emphasized, but also the spatial
connections due to IPSA's founding at a meeting held at Sciences Po in 1949. According
to Rokkan, a later organization for continental political scientific cooperation, the
542 See in RFSP, 1952: 200.
543 Allocutions, 1972, Pompidou's speech.
327
European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) had its roots in meetings held at this
school, demonstrating its influence in the European context.
544
The ideological position of ELSP, which has been too close to liberalism from its
start, was acknowledged by one of the most important names at Sciences Po, François
Goguel (the IEP Paris' president of council of direction and president of FNSP) in his
anniversary speech. According to Goguel, the school had been too close in the interwar
period to principles of economic liberalism, an approach that failed to consider the role
that the state could have in the economic affairs. However, this was now overcome. He
was also proud to announce that a much criticized dimension of Sciences Po, namely its
image as an exclusive private institution for Parisian bourgeoisie, was now changing,
with one third of its students coming from French provinces.
545
In the post-World War II period, the restructuration of ELSP into IEP Paris and FNSP
resulted in a four-part division of its study program. There was one public service section
for future public functionaries, while those students interested in private sector careers
could choose the section on economic and financial affairs. The section on international
relations was also a continuation of ELSP's long tradition that had started with the
establishment of the diplomatic division in the 19
th
century. For research purposes, there
existed now the political, economic, and social section that focused on political scientific
studies. Important to note is the fact that the international section at Sciences Po has not
necessarily been the most popular one, with only 14 % of students choosing it in the early
544 Allocutions, 1972, Rokkan's speech.
545 Allocutions, 1972, Goguel's speech.
328
1990s.
546
Of the school's three obligatory courses, one was on economic geography, while
the other courses on international law and international relations in the modern (post-
1871) era emphasized the international dimension. Unlike the Parisian IEP, the provincial
IEPs still lacked IR departments in 1950, where they were founded only in the later
decades.
547
This further underlines the distinct position of Sciences Po in France.
The most important place for the development of French research capacities in the
context of IR was Centre d'étude des relations internationales (CERI, Center for the
study of international relations) under FNSP, established in 1952. Duroselle, who had
taken part in its initial foundation, was to play an important role following his return to
Paris in the second half of the 1950s. It was then that he became the CERI director.
The important contributions of American philanthropies to French establishments of
social science and more specifically political science are visible in this specific context
when looking at the Ford Foundation. Its contributions to CERI reached 25 million
Francs, compared to the French Foreign Ministry's two million Franc support in the
1958-1963 period.
548
This was at a time when Duroselle had become the CERI director
and was in close contact with his US counterparts, a task that was made easier thanks to
earlier experiences with both the RF and CEIP, which enabled him to understand how to
deal with the Ford Foundation that was gradually filling in the void left by the departure
of other American foundations from the European social sciences scene. When Duroselle
asked US foundations for money, he was careful not to use it in a way that could be
546 Bock, 1996: 213.
547 Chapsal, 1951: 90ff.
548 Scot, 2001: 52.
329
interpreted as pro-American from a political point of view. He did not want to expose
himself to accusations of following American goals. For this reason, he did not propose
projects that dealt with subject matters such as Latin America or Middle East.
549

Interesting to note, within the Sciences Po-FNSP structure, the label used for regional
studies was not the French aires culturelles but the American concept of Area Studies.
550

This shows the extent to which American approaches had a certain influence there.
In its 20
th
year report, CERI was described as a place where “contemporary
international politics” could be studied. The text also underlined the nature of the
research undertaken there as being of a political science character. Furthermore, it
emphasized the main motivations shaping its approach, one that consisted of going
beyond the “hexagone,” i.e. France.
551
The fact that Duroselle would preside over the
Center in this new period of Ford support should also be interpreted in the context of his
long-term cooperation with the Americans, which had started at the time of his study
visits to the US.
However, one should be careful not to overstate the IR-relevance of the center, as it
was also an institute at which area studies were a major part of the research agenda. It
was perhaps for that reason that the 1973 anniversary report included the curious
statement that the center could be called “more explicitly: centre d'étude des pays
étrangers et des relations internationales” (Center for the study of foreign countries and
549 Scot, 2001: 53.
550 Scot, 2001: 113. Even nowadays, the Sciences Po library has on its wall information table that
shows the location of books on various subjects in French, while the exception of Area Studies usage
(in its original English wording) continues.
551 CERI, 1973: 5ff.
330
international relations).
552
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the name was
changed in the second half of the 1970s to Centre d’études et de recherches
internationales (Center of international studies and researches). The name change
illustrated on a symbolic level the fact that IR was not the sole area of research at the
center. According to some, it would be even more appropriate to add “and comparative
(et comparatives)” to its title in order to make it clear that the Center was also doing
research of a comparative nature.
553

The impact of CERI would be much bigger in the 1980s and after, when it came to
the narrow disciplinary area of IR. Scholars like Marie-Claude Smouts and Bertrand
Badie as well as Didier Bigo and Zaki Laïdi, all associated with the Center, would
provide important theoretical contributions to the discipline, their influence still
continuing in the early 21
st
century. According to John Groom, their approach can be
labeled as political sociology of global society.
554
The fact that the majority of scholars
advancing French IR at home and abroad were working at Sciences Po/FNSP's CERI
demonstrates that the Center has managed to cover not only comparative and area studies
but also the domain of International Relations.
Some perceive IEP Paris as still the place where the “production of the dominant
ideology” is pursued. In Pierre Bourdieu's analysis, for instance, it becomes an institution
that asserts the independence of scientifically guided experts from class interests.
555
With
552 CERI, 1973: 7.
553 Constantin, 2002/2003: 66, fn. 11.
554 Groom, 2002/2003: 113.
555 Leca, 1982: 676.
331
regard to the specific condition of Sciences Po cadres, Luc Boltanski and Bourdieu focus
on its instructors who (tended to) hold multiple positions as they also (used to) work at
other Parisian institutions, like the Sorbonne history professorships of Renouvin and
Duroselle. The fact that Sciences Po continued to have instructors from the non-academic
world also in the post-1945 period (in its IEP Paris era) has made it possible for the
school to provide “a sample more or less representative of different fractions of the
dominant class,” as it includes professors and intellectuals, business people and high
officials among its body of instructors. For Boltanski and Bourdieu, the conditions
prevalent at Sciences Po meant that reasonable pragmatists joined more liberal sections of
conservatism in reaching a compromise that furthered both sides' interests in the
academic-political world.
556
According to Boltanski's and Bourdieu's focus on the “dominant ideology,” the role
of Sciences Po is very important in strengthening the pragmatic conservatism that is also
recreated at establishments like the LSE and the Harvard University's Kennedy School of
Government. These are “veritable neutral places bringing together enlightened leaders
and realistic intellectuals, [which] legitimate the thought categories and ways of acting
developed by advanced sections of the dominant class.”
557
As recognized by an analysis
of Jean Leca, however, Boutmy, the founder of ELSP did not hide his idea of using the
new school as a means of keeping the elites' power, keeping them in power by giving
them tools of survival in a modern democratizing society, one in which educational
556 Boltanski and Bourdieu, 1976: 66-67.
557 See Boltanski and Bourdieu, 1976, the English summary and in the French article itself, 62.
332
privileges had become the new feature of distinction. While for scholars like Bourdieu it
was important to question the role of ELSP/IEP-like institutes, by pointing to the
interconnectedness of their scholars to the larger political-social world in France,
according to Leca, this aspect was not at all problematic in the eyes of Boutmy, who had
this exact power position in mind when setting the founding stone of his institute in 1872.
Thus was born what Bourdieu would perceive as the place in which prevalent ideological
attitudes were engendered.
558
The school also helped to develop the publication of journals dealing with social and
political sciences. Thus, Annales de l'Ecole Libre de Sciences Politiques, established by
the alumni and scholars associated with ELSP would form the seeds of the later French
political science journal after 1951. In its lifespan, this publication was also called Revue
des Sciences Politiques and after 1937, just Sciences Politiques.
559
This journal set up the
basis upon which to found Revue Française de Science Politique (RFSP).
According to some scholars, IEP Paris was not created to advance political science
“in terms of academic knowledge production.” More like ENA, which was founded in
1945 as the administrative school for training higher bureaucratic leadership of the post-
World War II France, the position of Sciences Po presented another place where the
French “generalist civil servant” would be educated.
560
However, as will be elaborated
below, the school leadership and its most important scholars have been looking for ways
to improve their academic standing from early on, be it by taking US experiences into
558 Leca, 1991: 331-332.
559 See Rain, 1963: 50 and Jordan, 1937: 296.
560 Breitenbauch, 2008: 67.
333
account or by receiving support from American foundations. Perceiving Sciences Po as a
mere state administrative institution, as an ante-chamber of ENA would be to overlook
this dimension of its scholarly progress that started as early as the mid-1940s.
In an analysis of courses offered at Sciences Po in the 1947-1962 period, Henrik
Breitenbauch assesses that some 40 percent of more than 1500 courses were at different
levels connected to issues dealing with the international dimension.
561
While these
numbers provide a quite significant share of Sciences Po courses on the international, it is
important to note that Breitenbauch also counted courses dealing with international
geography and international economics, as well as international law and colonial
relations, in addition to more typical IR study areas such as foreign policy or area studies.
In 1956, the establishment of the forthcoming doctoral program by FNSP was
announced in the pages of RFSP. A structured research dimension was the most important
aspect of this third cycle program, that is the postgraduate research level. No uniform
program would be implemented, but students would have one general seminar. The
program was to include many non-French students, and the entering students were to
come from various institutions, not just from Sciences Po or the Faculty of Law. They
had to write a mémoire on a political science subject before finishing this research study.
Scholars such as Maurice Duverger, Alfred Grosser as well as Duroselle were among the
directors of study associated with the program. Research conferences in line with the
respective director's research work would be organized, with Duroselle leading work on
post-World War II Franco-American relations. The functioning of the program was under
561 Breitenbauch, 2008: 69-70.
334
the guidance of a committee in which representatives from main university institutes
were present, including the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Letters. The significance of
the new stage reached by French political science was already known by the initiators, as
the article pointed to these initiatives as difficult but important steps that were being
taken.
562
This program of the “third cycle of studies” was an important milestone for French
political science/IR. Its importance was also due to the fact that it presented the first
social science area in which a doctoral program was implemented. In its first year the
program already had 30 students, with ten of them coming from abroad.
563
A significant
aspect of this new scholarly opportunity related to the use of American teaching methods
that included offering seminars on issues of methodology and research, something not
previously featured in the French social sciences.
564
The significance of the 1956 founding of the advanced studies program under FNSP
(cycle supérieur d'études politiques) is also underlined by Ludovic Tournés who sees the
new program as marking “the official birth of international relations in France.” Intensive
support from both Rockefeller and Ford foundations to CERI would contribute to this
research center's role in the advancement of IR and related areas like comparative and
area studies.
In the process leading to the founding and funding of the new CERI program,
Duroselle (then the CERI director) would write to Shepard Stone, the Ford Foundation
562 RFSP: 1956.
563 See the report in RFSP, 1957: 149ff.
564 Scot, 2001: 106.
335
official, pointing out to him that given the lack of a separate faculty of social sciences, the
FNSP system could provide the most suitable means for developing social and political
sciences in France. The non-university position of FNSP was presented as an advantage
to be made use of. A meeting was held on November 10, 1956 in Paris under the
guidance of Jacques Chapsal, the Sciences Po director and FNSP president. The list of
participants included very significant names like Aron, Renouvin, Duroselle, Grosser,
Duverger from the French community of scholars, the director of the French body on
higher education, as well as Kenneth Thompson representing Rockefeller Foundation's
Division of Social Sciences, and Shepard Stone. In Tournès' account, the meeting brought
these people together because the institutionalization of International Relations was to be
formalized. The two foundations, in their turn, agreed to come forward with significant
sums of money, which made up some 70 percent of CERI's resources in that period.
Starting from such a position, FNSP was able to increase the size of the Center, from 18
members in 1958 to more than double in 1962 including its associate researchers. The
significance of the establishment of this “third cycle of study” originated from its paving
the way for subsequent doctoral studies in the area by first teaching advanced students
certain ways of doing (social and) political scientific research.
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Once again, it was the
transnational dynamics that were influencing the future path of IR (and political science),
securing to a certain extent its academic future in the French educational system.
In the meantime, the French Foreign Ministry would understand the importance of
Sciences Po and ask it to establish a program on African issues. This was also a means of
565 Tournés, 2011: 337-339.
336
having American students who would be introduced to French ways of perceiving Africa,
thus presenting a counter-position to US scholarly criticism directed at French
colonialism. The Ministry also wanted to increase the overall number of foreign students
at the school thereby gaining possibilities to raise future foreign leaders of other countries
in France.
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V .4. Americans in Paris – II: Post-1945 US Influence on French Political Science and
IR
The involvement of American philanthropies in the development of the French social
sciences, and specifically in the case of political science and IR, continued not only in the
post-World War II era, but also during the war itself. In this section, I will focus on these
developments that shaped the emergence of political science and IR studies in France as
well as the effects the US foundations had on the institutional aspects of these processes,
looking in detail to certain “Americanization” discussions at the post-1945 Sciences Po,
that is in IEP Paris and FNSP. This section makes clear how the American involvement in
the 1956 founding of the advanced postgraduate program at FNSP, discussed above,
could take place, showing the extent of transnational dynamics' role in the development
of French IR.
At the time of the Second World War, it was the Rockefeller Foundation that
prepared a list of scholars who should be evacuated from Europe should their country fall
under Nazi occupation. There was already some discontent with what the foundation
566 Scot, 2001: 138-140.
337
officials perceived as the scientifically insufficient level of some (emigrating) scholars
who had come to the US in the late 1930s with Rockefeller support. For this reason, they
would prioritize scholars who could significantly contribute to US intellectual life,
leaving aside humanitarian concerns. The list included the famous author Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry, philosopher Henri Bergson, Henri Bonnet (the director of the IIIC),
Sébastien Charléty (rector of the University of Paris), Etienne Dennery and André
Siegfried (both professors at Sciences Po, Siegfried also at Collège de France), and
sociologist Marcel Mauss. After subsequent changes made in the list, there were 34
French scholars who benefitted from RF's support, including three political scientists. In
exile, these scholars worked at the establishment, in New York, of L'Ecole Libre des
Hautes Etudes that functioned as a University of Free France. Unlike their German
colleagues, only three of these emigrant-scholars would remain abroad.
567
This showed
that the postwar conditions affecting Germa