Samoa on the World Stage: Petitions and Peoples before the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations

One of the innovative aspects of the mandates system of the League of Nations, the oversight regime applied to the former German and Ottoman territories seized by the Allied Powers in the First World War, was that it included a right of petition. Inhabitants of any territory governed under mandate, or any interested outsider, could petition the League of Nations if they believed that the stipulations laid down in Article 22 of the League Covenant or in particular mandate texts were being violated. This article explores the origins, development, politics and scope of the practice of petitioning under the mandates system, arguing that it was much more significant, extensive and consequential than has previously been recognised. Petitions rarely offered petitioners redress; instead, they made visible the assumptions about racial and civilisational hierarchies, and the realities of power, on which the system was based. Yet petitions were not only revelatory of political relations but also altered those relations in turn, as petitioners used the opportunity of appeal to learn the skills of claim-making, international lobbying and political mobilisation. The article looks closely at one dramatic case—that of the mass movement against New Zealand's administration of the mandated territory Western Samoa in the late 1920s, which involved numerous petitions to the League—to illustrate these points.     

Communists and the 1948 War: PCP,Maki, and the National Liberation League

This paper analyzes the way in which Palestine's Jewish and Arab communist parties, the PCP-Maki and the National Liberation League, acted during the 1948 war. Both groups made separate and different efforts to make the two-state solution a reality as originally conceived in the UN partition plan. Ironically, the decisive Jewish victory in the war resulted in an asymmetry between the Jewish Communists the Palestinian Communists when they were unified toward the end of the 1948 war. Despite Maki's labors for an Israeli victory, its standing in the nascent Israeli political system toward the end of the war remained marginal. The concept of Jewish–Arab cooperation under the aegis of the USSR was seen by the Zionist establishment as dangerous and subversive.     

Comparative and transnational perspectives on the introduction of multiculturalism in post-war Sweden

In the 1970s, Canada, Sweden and Australia became the first countries in the West to adopt formally the idea of multiculturalism as a basis for the political management of immigrant settlement. This article compares the introduction of the idea and politics of multiculturalism in Sweden in the 1960s and 1970s to the introduction of multiculturalism in Canada and Australia during the same time period. The emergence of a politics of multiculturalism in Sweden shares many similarities with the emergence of Canadian and Australian multiculturalism: ‘white’ and ‘European’ immigrant minority groups; ethnic lobbying; expert and academic advocacy; multiculturalist public officials; and effectual claims-making based on the innovative idea of multiculturalism. The comparative perspective on the birth of Swedish multiculturalism furthermore highlights Finland as an important historical and transnational factor in the introduction of official multiculturalism in Sweden. The article contributes to research on the history of multiculturalism, the politics of ethnic diversity in Sweden and comparative research on modern Swedish history.     

'Into every home, into every body': organicism and anti-statism in the British anti-fluoridation movement, 1952-1960

This article argues that the anti-fluoridation campaigns in the 1950s stemmed from concerns about both the increasing 'chemicalization' of food and the growing authority of the state over the private home and individual body. The British Housewives League (BHL), an organization typically thought insignificant after the late 1940s, was in fact at the centre of these campaigns. Steeped in the beliefs of inter-war and wartime organicism, the housewives believed that government intervention in food production and distribution was producing a post-war diet laden with harmful chemicals. The Ministry of Health's proposals to test water fluoridation in select communities in the early 1950s only further convinced the housewives that the state was harming the nation both physically and politically. More and more citizens would have no choice but to drink impure, potentially harmful water, they argued, and the burgeoning state would continue encroaching on private homes and bodies. While scholars have already demonstrated that what we now think of as 'leftist' environmental ideas were popular among 'rightist' movements of the 1930s and 1940s, the anti-fluoridation campaigns show that the BHL continued in the post-war years to intertwine our present-day notions of 'left' and 'right' ideologies.     

The symbolism of the Arab flag in modern Arab states: between commonality and uniqueness*

ABSTRACT. The national flag, anthem and emblem are the three symbols through which an independent country proclaims its identity and sovereignty. Although each state has its distinctive flag, there are similarities in the flags of certain countries, such as in Scandinavia (the cross) and Africa (colours). These symbolise certain propinquity in terms of ideology, culture and history. Similarity is also to be found in the flags of the Arab countries: out of the twenty‐two current members of the Arab League, ten share the same colours on their flags (green, white, black and red), while a certain Islamic symbol (eagle, star) in some flags represents the uniqueness of that country. Of the other twelve countries, most rely on one colour of the four (usually red or green) while nine use Islamic symbols (stars, crescent and sword) on their flags. In spite of the importance of this national symbol, the study of the modern Arab flag is almost non‐existent. This article explores the modern evolution of the Arab flag and the reasons for the similarities in many Arab flags. In particular, it will deal with the pan‐Arab flags of the Hashemites Kingdom of the Hijaz (1916–26), Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Egypt.     

‘Bitterness towards Egypt’ – the Moroccan nationalist movement,revolutionary Cairo and the limits of anti-colonial solidarity

This articles analyses the campaign conducted by the Moroccan nationalist movement in Cairo after World War II aiming to enlist the Arab League in its anti-colonial struggle. Although the Maghribi activists initially celebrated several successes, they ultimately failed to obtain any diplomatic support, especially following the Egyptian revolution of 1952. Drawing on Moroccan as well as French, Spanish, and US sources, this article argues that Nasser and his colleagues refused to support the Moroccans due to irreconcilable ideological differences, thus laying the foundation for the scepticism towards the Arab world that characterised Morocco’s foreign policy during the Cold War.     

‘The Standard Work in English on the League’ and Its Authorship: Charles Howard Ellis,an Unlikely Australian Internationalist

Charles Howard (‘Dick’) Ellis, born in Sydney in 1895 and a Great War veteran, was working as a journalist in Vienna and Geneva when he wrote one of the most comprehensive books of the time on the League: The Origin, Structure and Working of the League of Nations (1928). Dedicated to the progressive literary figures of the era and showing a particular debt to the writings of the British Labour left, Ellis argued that the internationalism of the age marked a necessary rejection of the anarchic conditions that brought forth the Great War. The League and its associated institutions constituted ‘the first step toward a world society’ that would facilitate the suppression and ultimate removal of the causes of conflict. A remarkable work in itself, this progressive volume was written by a member of British intelligence who had already made a reputation in this sphere and was to go on to hold very senior positions in the 1940s. The question is considered whether the ideas expressed were a product of Ellis's genuine beliefs, or whether they were a mask for his substantive professional role. The circumstances around the writing of this book are also reviewed in an attempt to answer this question, especially given the hitherto accepted scholarly view that Konni Zilliacus of the League Secretariat was the actual author.     

Alcohol and the family in Canada

In the context of the family in Western society, alcohol often has been viewed as a problem. This article traces how the use of beverage alcohol in Canada related to the family in the transition from the preindustrial to late-twentieth-century era. Powerful temperance movements in the nineteenth century, and divisive prohibition policies in the early twentieth, attempted to protect the material and moral health of the family. Although liquor laws and social attitudes became more open starting in the 1930s, the medicalized discourse on alcoholism in the 1940s and 1950s was linked to notions of the family. Liberalization of retail and on - premise sales of alcohol in the 1960s and 1970s attempted to portray moderate drinking by adults as "normal" family activity. In the last quarter of the century, a neotemperance movement, reacting to issue such as impaired and driving and teenage drinking, suggested that alcohol's relationship to the family remained highly ambiguous.     

“六日战争”对美国犹太人族群认同的影响

20世纪60年代,"大屠杀"话语的传播引发了美国犹太人对族群命运的担忧。在"六日战争"前,面对阿拉伯国家的反犹宣传及其对以色列的重重围困,美国犹太人担心"再次大屠杀"会发生,从而促使美国犹太人对以色列的生存产生深度忧虑。美国犹太社团逐渐把维护以色列的特殊利益和争取美国社会对以色列的同情与支持,作为游说活动的主要目标。美国犹太游说组织通过舆论引导、公开呼吁、经济动员等方式积极进行游说。"六日战争"后,美国与以色列之间的特殊关系迅速发展。美国犹太人的民族自信心和自豪感显著提升,并自觉地将以色列与自身的命运紧密相连。他们在归属意愿、宗教情感、对以色列的文化兴趣、青年群体族群意识等层面表达对以色列的认同,以色列在美国犹太人族群认同中发挥的作用凸显。     

Retreat from the Global? European Unity and British Progressive Intellectuals, 1930–1945

Abstract

This article sets out to explain how four British progressive thinkers—G.D.H. Cole, Henry Noel Brailsford, Kingsley Martin and Leonard Woolf—came to believe that European unity, and regional integration more broadly, could provide a solution to the economic and political crisis of the 1930s–1940s. Having become increasingly disenchanted with the League of Nations, these authors maintained that only the abandonment of the principle of absolute sovereignty and the establishment of a supranational framework binding countries with similar political and economic institutions could lay foundations for a lasting peace. In retrospect, their work significantly contributed to a more nuanced understanding of economic factors in IR theory and to shift discourses on Britain as a world power away from the centrality of Empire.     

Citizens of Empire: Education and Teacher Exchanges in Canada and the Commonwealth, 1910–40

This article examines how one group of actors actively infused education, citizenship and Canada’s international relationships with a sense of empire in the first third of the twentieth century. Making use of archival and published sources from collections in Canada and Britain, it focuses in particular on imperial citizenship teaching in Canadian schools, a number of education conferences held in the United Kingdom and the exchanges of elementary and high school teachers and school inspectors between commonwealth countries. In this period, politicians and bureaucrats in Canada and other dominions actively connected their education systems to an imperial network at the very moment that others were striving to attain more economic and political autonomy from the British government. Education came to occupy a significant cultural space alongside the trade agreements and constitutional changes that slowly recalibrated the nature of the British imperial system in the interwar period. Imperial education projects were an important feature of the cultural politics of a fading empire, but they were driven by actors in both the imperial centre and the self-governing dominions. This article argues that between 1910 and 1940 teachers and politicians in Canada drew on an international support network, actively fostered new ideas of citizenship, and strove to assert the country’s belonging in the British Empire.     

Canadiana Abroad: The Department of External Affairs' Book Presentation Programmes, 1949–1963

This article examines one aspect of Canada's early cultural diplomacy. During the late 1940s, the Department of External Affairs frequently received requests for Canadian books from foreign libraries. At the same time, many officials were eager to promote Canadian culture abroad. The Annual Book Presentation Programme was inaugurated with the intention of creating “repositories of Canadiana” which might stimulate interest in Canada among foreign readers. Although the budget for the program was always modest, over the years the department's book gifts did fulfill their aim, creating a basis for the later growth of Canadian studies in universities abroad.     

Introduction: not a normal election: roots and consequences

The March 2018 Italian general elections can be described as a historic turning point, another watershed moment in the turbulent history of contemporary Italian politics. After a stormy and complex legislative term, characterized by a variety of institutional and political phenomena, Italy has faced one of the most important electoral challenges since the return of democracy in the mid-1940s. After examining the major political events that led to the latest general elections, this introductory article presents and analyses the rules, the actors and the outcomes of the electoral contest that has seen the victory of two anti-establishment parties: the Five Star Movement and the League. In the concluding section, the article discusses the potential tensions that may emerge from the clash between the populist attitude of the new governing parties and the constitutional constraints of a liberal democratic regime.     

9 April revised: on the Norwegian history tradition after Magne Skodvin on Quisling and the invasion of Norway in 19401

The Norwegian tradition of historiography on the invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940 was first and foremost established by Professor Magne Skodvin (1915–2004) with his doctoral thesis in 1956, numerous books and articles, and through his teaching at the University of Oslo, which inspired many students. In this article, four of Skodvin’s positions are reviewed with arguments that demand a revision of the historical validity of these viewpoints. The four positions consist of Skodvin’s opinion concerning the role of Quisling in the events leading up to 9 April 1940, his view of Quisling’s role in Norway on 9 April 1940, his presentation of the Allied invasion plans before 9 April 1940, and his claim that Quisling had next to no followers amongst Norwegian military officers. Finally, this criticism is placed in context by looking at the historical directions of the development of the Nasjonal Samling (NS), both prior to these events and in the aftermath.     

In the National Interest: Dominions' Support for Britain and the Commonwealth after the Second World War

Was British confidence that the Commonwealth could bolster its international status and extend its global reach after the Second World War a product of self-delusion or nostalgia? This paper examines three crucial aspects of relations between Britain and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in the 1940s – diplomacy, economics and defence – to show the extensive and tangible support that the ‘old dominions’ extended to Britain. They opted to back Britain because it served their individual national interests well. British hopes that the post-war Commonwealth would be an effective association were founded on ample evidence, although the British desire to lead and dominate was confounded by the fact that Ottawa, Canberra, Wellington and Pretoria were national centres in their own right.     

从“第二党”到后备军:共产党与青年团早期关系的演变

中国共产党在自身组织之外,另设青年团独立存在,原意是为其臂助,发挥助手与后备军的作用。然而,党团双轨机制具体如何运作,在中国尚属首创,无先例可循,党团关系的确立颇为周折。由于中共与青年团成立早期的特殊历史背景和客观条件,青年团产生了第二党的倾向。实际运作过程中,党团之间常为争夺组织资源与政治资源,互不相让,时起纠纷。青年团重建后,中共干脆放弃青年团保持组织独立性这一传统,使青年团在政治与组织上完全从属于共产党。     

British Lobbying in Newspaper and Parliamentary Discourse, 1800–1950

Lobbying is a significant component of the modern politics industry in Britain, but we know relatively little about its historical origins and evolution. This article draws on parliamentary debates and three databases which together account for 51 newspaper titles, in order to explore how lobbying was discussed in parliament and the media between 1800 and 1950, and to gauge the growing professionalisation of lobbying. Perceptions of lobbying became somewhat less negative over the period; there are relatively few reports or allegations of corruption associated with lobbying; and lobbying by the railway industry seems to have been less substantial, while public sector lobbying was more significant, than is commonly supposed. Direct advocacy with policymakers is overwhelmingly the dominant tactic used by lobbyists of the period, with few reports of coalitions or grass‐roots campaigns. Particular concerns were expressed about the influence of lobbying around private bills. While lobbying back‐bench MPs and parliamentary committees (rather than ministers and civil servants) accounted for over 80% of the activity revealed across the whole period, there are signs by the middle of the 20th century that the focus of lobbyists is beginning to turn away from Westminster and towards Whitehall. The article paints a detailed view of the scale, scope, and significance of lobbying as it was developing into a national and systematic industry.     

Beyond an Imperial Foreign Policy?: India at the League of Nations, 1919–1946

ABSTRACT

This article argues that India’s role as the only non-self-governing member of the League of Nations provides a largely unexamined entry point into understanding the nature of Indian nationalism and public discourse during the first half of the twentieth century. Using previously unexplored archival documentation of India’s relationship to the League of Nations throughout the duration of the League’s existence, this article exposes the varied and contradictory perspectives through which imperial officials and Indian political figures engaged with international society within the framework of the British Empire. Through the distribution of League publications and the circulation of petitions seeking redress for imperial abuses, a wide range of Indians actively sought to stage India as a clearly defined nation at the level of the international in a way that was not possible within the subcontinent itself.     

‘A Puppet,Even Though He Probably Doesn't Know So’: Racial Identity and the Eisenhower Administration's Encounter with Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Arab Nationalist Movement

This article demonstrates that US beliefs concerning racial identity guided the Eisenhower administration's encounter with Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Arab nationalism during the 1950s. It establishes that US texts propagated certain racial-identity assumptions about Arab peoples. The most important of these included the assertions that Arab peoples were irrational and easily manipulated or deceived. Policy-makers utilised these beliefs to explain and contextualise Arab actions, especially those of Egypt and its Arab nationalist government. Officials within the Eisenhower administration believed that Arab irrationality prompted Egyptian leaders to adopt a neutralist position in the cold war. The assumption that Arabs were susceptible to deception and manipulation convinced policy-makers that this position was unacceptable. The Soviets would ultimately, they believed, prey upon Arab manipulability and subjugate Egypt, the Arab nationalist movement, and the entire Middle East. These concerns made the Eisenhower administration's decision to contain Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the Arab nationalist movement seem logical and necessary.     

Cartographies of supranationalism: Creating and silencing territories in the “Arab Homeland”

In the predominately Arab states of north Africa and southwest Asia, a geopolitical entity exists that is rather uncommon elsewhere in the world. The “Arab Homeland,” as it is referred, is a readily accepted cartographic discourse throughout much of this extensive region. The construction of this entity emerged at the same time as the pan-Arab movement of the mid-twentieth century, which was fueled and motivated by 20th century geopolitical conflicts between Arabs and European imperialists, and between Arabs and Israelis. Through a critical reading of its cartographic construction since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1919, I provide unique insights into the numerous, complex, and even contradictory geopolitics of the construction of the Arab Homeland. My analysis of several hundred maps produced in eight different states of the Arab Homeland reveals that from the mid 1950s onward that the Arab Homeland was not only commonplace, but also how this supranational territorial entity confused and at times defied generally accepted divisions of the world. Expanding upon literature on supranational entities and the state, I show that territory is not only still important in our globalized world, but that it also has a complex and at times contradictory relationship with the concepts and scales of the state and the supranational. In emphasizing the role of territory in its construction, I also inject the importance of geography and territory for the pan-Arab movement, which is a factor that has been greatly under-theorized.