Internationalism and Engineering in UNESCO during the End Game of Empire, 1943-68

摘要

When UNESCO was founded in 1945 the organization aimed to become a pivotal player in international collaboration in the field of engineering. UNESCO based its engineering initiatives on the World Engineering Conference, an organization espousing a politically motivated "technocratic internationalism" and on the World Power Conference, an organization promoting a business-friendly stance of "engineering internationalism." These competing models for international collaboration curtailed UNESCO's institutional ambitions. UNESCO's position was further weakened by fierce opposition from British engineering institutions that pursued a Commonwealth institutional framework in direct opposition to UNESCO. This article unravels the intricate connections between empire and internationalism that shaped UNESCO's engineering agenda during the first postwar decades. It demonstrates how competing forms of internationalism, mounting cold war tensions, and the continuous influence of a British empire-based opposition ultimately forced UNESCO to abandon its technocratic internationalist ambitions and settle for a modest coordinating role in international technical collaboration.