‘The First Major Test’: The UN Secretary-General and the Palestine Problem, 1947–9

The Palestine problem was one of the first conflicts the newly formed United Nations (UN) was obliged to contend with. Secretary-General Trygve Lie played an active part in the proceedings, and his consistent support for the partition plan and Israeli UN membership has led to charges of Zionist sympathies and that his actions were based on this personal political bias. What explains the UN Secretary-General's actions in regard to the Palestine problem? This article argues that Palestine represented a threefold ‘test’ for the new world organisation: a test of its ability to solve regional conflicts; a test of its ability to bring about agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union; and a test of the Secretary-General's ability to protect and promote the UN. Due to the timing of the Palestine problem, as well as the attention it attracted from both the media and the general public, the UN's handling of the matter would have consequences for the organisation's standing in the world. In Secretary-General Lie's opinion, Palestine was ‘the first major test’ for the UN, and his perception of the high stakes inherent to the organisation's approach in Palestine provided the primary motivation for the Secretary-General's actions.     

The awkward years: defining and managing famines, 1944–1947

Abstract

Famines in the years immediately after World War II occurred during a period of global flux, as international famine response evolved from its ambitious, early twentieth century goals toward more modest, technocratic objectives during the second half of the century. For economists, social scientists and politicians immersed in the world of emergency food aid, these were uncertain, awkward years for famine relief. Herbert Hoover’s idealistic large-scale projects of famine relief that had dominated the first three decades of the century had been proven to be expensive and of limited efficacy, but Cold War loyalties had not yet taken over as the primary logic behind large-scale humanitarian assistance projects. Ultimately, when faced with famine conditions between 1944 and 1947, states and experts balanced a call to action against pragmatism that recognized famines were also politically expedient events that could weaken rural resistance to governance and simplify wartime and postwar administration. Ultimately, both science and humanitarian concerns learned to orient themselves toward economic expediency in these awkward years.     

Italy and the World Bank: The European Foundations of Development Lending, 1947–51

Foreign financial assistance for economic development and the discipline of development economics have traditionally been associated with US Cold War policy toward the Third World. This article, however, suggests that these practices were also shaped by the experiences of foreign aid for European reconstruction after the Second World War. The article traces loan negotiations between the World Bank and the Italian government, and argues that this process played a substantial role in shaping not only the World Bank's lending policies, but also the way its staff understood the institution's mission. The article emphasises Europe's significance as a site in the early history of development, suggesting new ways of understanding the evolution of development ideas, practices, and institutions after 1951.