'Families of mankind': Liberal idealism and the construction of twentieth century internationalism.

摘要

This dissertation examines the philosophical underpinnings of twentieth century internationalism and the relationship between this philosophical heritage and internationalism's attachment to a concept of the nation as a family. It argues that those scholars most intimately involved in the construction of post-World War One internationalism (what is commonly referred to as the “idealist” approach to International Relations) were heavily influenced by the “liberal idealist” tradition in Britain. First formulated by T. H. Green in the nineteenth century, liberal idealism (also known as both “New Liberalism”) strove to combine a liberal appreciation for the individual with an Hegelian influenced notion of community and “Mind.” The result, according to Charles Taylor, was an “oddly transposed variety” of Hegelianism. Following Foucault, this dissertation argues that a genealogical probe into the origins of liberal idealist thought reveals a number of theoretical and political contradictions clustered around the unresolved tension between the individual, the state, and the community. Several important liberal idealist thinkers endeavored to transcend these contradictions through organicism and a vision of the family as an ethical “cell” in the social body.; It was disciples of Green who became some of the most influential voices in the formation of the League of Nations and the discipline of International Relations, thus bringing liberal idealism into the international arena. Like their nineteenth century predecessors, thinkers like Alfred Zimmernand Cecil Burns attempted to transcend liberal idealism's fundamental contradictions on a global scale by appealing to the unifying potential of both “Mind” and the “international organism.” The resulting discourse of internationalism placed a heavy emphasis on the morality of the national family.; Historical circumstances made this approach to internationalism particularly appealing to many of the Great Powers at the Paris Conference who then enshrined its philosophy within the institutional structure of the League of Nations. This dissertation thus argues that, on an international level, we still live in the shadow of 1919. It maintains that understanding the contemporary relationship of the nation to internationalism requires an historically situated, philosophical engagement with liberalism and idealism as they appeared in late nineteenth and early twentieth century British social theory.