3 - Some nineteenth-century examples

Summary

This chapter is concerned with the use of the domestic analogy in the period after the Napoleonic Wars and before the first Hague Peace Conference at the end of the century. Four writers, Saint-Simon, William Ladd, James Lorimer and J. C. Bluntschli have been selected for discussion chiefly because their proposals give a valuable insight into the use of the domestic analogy in international thought. Apart from partly confirming Morgenthau's general statement, noted in the Introduction, that during the nineteenth century important sectors of public opinion demanded the application of liberal principles to international affairs, these four writers also reveal in a striking manner the extent to which one's choice of a particular domestic model is influenced by one's immediate domestic political experience. Moreover, the four authors share a number of characteristics which it is interesting to compare with those of other groups of thinkers from other historical periods.

The similarity of methods used by these authors, however, is not the sole ground for our special attention. What is also important is the divergence in the legal character of the bodies they proposed. Saint- Simon's project appears to involve the federal integration of Europe; Ladd's scheme envisages a rather loose association of states; and Lorimer's and Bluntschli's solutions, despite their disagreements, were confederal. Thus, Hinsley (1967, chaps. 6, 7) has treated these writers among others as representing the three distinct approaches of the nineteenth century to the problem of peace, each dictated by a combination of his specific historical tradition and circumstances.