Being international in times of war: Arthur Sweetser and the shifting of the League of Nations to the United Nations

Transnational actors are increasingly surfacing when it comes to understanding the global dimensions of the modern nation-state. Thinking of the modern state from the diversity of its personnel and its many intersections with private and semi-private actors or institutions with a transnational reach, the new diplomatic history acknowledges the embeddedness of states in border-crossing agencies. What has been conceptualized as ‘network diplomacy’ grasps both the role of transnational epistemic communities for the making of particular policy fields and the perception of diplomats as an integral part of transnational initiatives. Taking the League of Nations as a case study, this article analyses how its personnel attempted to spell out ideas of network diplomacy and to make their exposed position at the intersection of transnational civil society, state politics and international institutions work to effect political change. We focus on the transnational career of Arthur Sweetser (1888–1968) who, as a journalist, a long-term member of the League secretariat, the UN staff and the US administration, was at the forefront of developing new techniques of diplomatic practices beyond institutional mandates. Sweetser’s trajectory allows us to illuminate the mechanisms of network diplomacy by probing into multi-layered negotiation processes that engaged state practices, international institutions and the border-crossing agency of individuals. Characterizing him as transnational enables one to interlink his mobile trajectory with a particular scope of action that unfolded beyond the political demarcation of the nation-state and its instituted logics of rule and diplomacy. We further carve out the main features of a diplomatic practice that was formally non-existent yet crucial to the transfer of League principles, practices and personnel to the new United Nations.