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Between the crisis of democracy and world parliament: the development of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in the 1920s*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2012

Martin Albers
Martin Albers*
Affiliation:
Christ's College, St Andrew's Street, Cambridge CB2 3BU, UK E-mail: ma461@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

The Great War created new challenges for the proponents of pre-1914 cosmopolitanism. This article explores this theme by studying the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an international association of members of parliament active in the interwar period. The IPU is first taken as a case study to discuss the difficulty of clearly differentiating between national politicians and agents of international civil society during the years between the wars. The article then shows how pre-war liberal internationalists had to reorient after the First World War, and how socialists and nationalists brought new agendas to the realm of international cooperation at the non-governmental level. These new perspectives shaping the international system even led to far-reaching plans for a world parliament. However, the IPU's history also shows how domestic political polarization contributed to the failure of interwar internationalism.

Keywords

Inter-Parliamentary UnioninternationalismLeague of Nationsparliamentary democracyworld parliament
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 2012 , pp. 189 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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4 Key sources were the archives of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the League of Nations Archives in Geneva, and the papers of the prominent German IPU members Walther Schücking and Eduard David, kept at the University of Münster and the Archiv der sozialen Demokratie in Bonn respectively. I would like to thank all these institutions for their generous support.

5 Ralph Uhlig, Die Interparlamentarische Union, 1889–1914, Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1988Google Scholar; Claudia Kissling's dissertation also includes a summary of events in the Union between 1914 and 1945, based on IPU publications: Claudia Kissling, Die Interparlamentarische Union im Wandel, Rechtspolitische Ansätze einer repräsentativ-parlamentarischen Gestaltung der Weltpolitik, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2006, pp. 31–143Google Scholar.

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19 See n. 3, and also Karina Urbach, ed., European aristocracies and the radical right, 1918–1939, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007Google Scholar.

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21 See, for example, Alejandro Colas, International civil society: social movements in world politics, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002, pp. 1ffGoogle Scholar.; David L. Brown, Creating credibility: legitimacy and accountability for transnational civil society, Sterling: Kumarian Press, 2008, p. 1Google Scholar; Gideon Baker and Charles Chandler, ‘Introduction: global civil society and the future of world politics’, in Gideon Baker and Charles Chandler, eds., Global civil society: contested futures, London: Routledge, 2005, p. 2Google Scholar. See also Jürgen Kocka, ‘Zivilgesellschaft als historisches Problem und Versprechen’, in Manfred Hildermeier, Jürgen Kocka, and Christoph Conrad, eds., Europäische Zivilgesellschaft in Ost und West: Begriff, Geschichte, Chancen, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2000, pp. 19Google Scholar, 21–6.

22 Today, the IPU does not have individual politicians as members, but the parliaments as organizations: see Statutes of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Article 3, 2009, http://www.ipu.org/strct-e/statutes-new.htm (consulted 7 January 2011).

23 Quidde was only a national parliamentarian during the time of the Weimar Constitutional Assembly in 1919 and 1920, but remained active in the IPU throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.

24 In 1921, for example, the WILPF secretary Emily Balch asked the IPU Secretary-General Christian Lange to use his influence in order to persuade Fridtjof Nansen to become a member of the League of Nations’ Permanent Commissions on Mandates. IPU Archives, Box 35, Balch to Lange, 11 February 1921; Lange to Balch, 16 March 1921, Geneva. See also, for example, IPU Archives, Box 748, International Federation of Trade Unions to Inter-Parliamentary Union, 13 November 1922.

25 For a case study, see Adams, Christine, ‘In the public interest: charitable association, the state, and the status of utilité publique in nineteenth-century France’, Law and History Review, 25, 2007, pp. 283–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 For Schücking, see Andreas Thier, ‘Walther Schücking’, in Hans Günter Hockerts, ed., Neue Deutsche Biographie, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007, vol. 23, pp. 631–633Google Scholar. For Thomas, see Fine, Martin, ‘Albert Thomas: a reformer's vision of modernization, 1914–32’, Journal of Contemporary History, 12, 1977, pp. 545–564CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Inter-Parliamentary Union, Compte rendu de la XXVIe conférence tenue à Berne et Genève du 22 au 28 août 1924, Geneva: Bureau interparlementaire, 1925, pp. 569–72. For Spears, see ibid., pp. 20, 146, 152f., 252–60. All three remained active in the IPU after having left parliament.

27 See, for example, Berkovitch, From motherhood; Joll, Second International, pp. 30–55.

28 See Inter-Parliamentary Union, Rapport du secrétaire général au conseil interparlementaire pour 1913, Brussels: Bureau interparlementaire, 1913, p. 7; Uhlig, Interparlamentarische Union, pp. 900ff.

29 See, for example, Gorman, Daniel, ‘Ecumenical internationalism: Willoughby Dickinson, the League of Nations and the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches’, Journal of Contemporary History, 45, 1, 2010, pp. 51–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laqua, Daniel, ‘“Laïque, démocratique et sociale”? Socialism and the Freethinkers’ International’, Labour History Review, 74, 3, 2009, pp. 257–273CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Owing to budget surpluses, the IPU secretariat had accumulated a reserve fund of 100,000 Belgian Francs in 1914.

31 See, for example, Arno Mayer, Political origins of the new diplomacy, 1917–1918, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959Google Scholar, ch. 9.

32 David Hunter Miller assumes that the Smuts proposal was inspired by a socialist resolution, but the design of the assembly that Smuts proposed was much closer to the IPU proposal. See David Hunter Miller, The drafting of the Covenant, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1928, pp. 218ffGoogle Scholar., 272–5; IPU Archives, Box 258, Christian Lange, ‘The Inter-Parliamentary Union and its place at the League of Nations: popular representation at the League’, unpublished memorandum sent to Zimmern, 5 February 1919, London.

33 See, for example, Tosstorff, Reiner, ‘The international trade-union movement and the founding of the International Labour Organization’, International Review of Social History, 50, 2005, pp. 399–433CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Ibid. See also Jasmien Van Daele, ‘Engineering social peace: networks, ideas, and the founding of the International Labour Organization’, International Review of Social History, 50, 2005, pp. 456ffGoogle Scholar.

35 Götz, Norbert, ‘On the origins of “parliamentary diplomacy”: Scandinavian “bloc politics” and delegation policy in the League of Nations’, Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association, 40, 3, 2005, pp. 263–279CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Charnovitz, Steve, ‘Two centuries of participation: NGOs and international governance’, Michigan Journal of International Law, 18, 183, 1996–1997Google Scholar, p. 222.

37 IPU Archives, Box 491, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Commission pour l’étude des questions politiques et d'organisations, Comité de rédaction pour le développement de l'Union, Annexe à la circulaire de convocation, “Développement de l'Union”’, 26 August 1926, Geneva, p. 3.

38 IPU Archives, Box 8, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Procès-verbaux du conseil interparlementaire’, 7 and 8 October 1919, Geneva, p. 2.

39 IPU, ‘Développement de l'union’, p. 2.

40 IPU Archives, Box 491, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Comité restreint de rédaction du comité d'organisation’, 1 February 1926, Geneva, p. 9.

41 Ibid.

42 IPU Archives, Box 416, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Procès-verbal de la commission pour l’études de questions politiques et d'organisation’, 27 August 1926, pp. 9ff.

43 IPU Archives, Box 387, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Commission d'organisation, institutions des commissions permanentes’, 26 April 1922, pp. 1–3.

44 IPU, ‘Développement de l'Union’, p. 9.

45 See, for example, for minorities and colonies, IPU Archives, Box 419, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Procès-verbal de la commission des questions ethniques et coloniales’, 6 and 7 April 1923, Basel, p. 60.

46 For the role of international forums such as the IPU in the conceptions of German racialist groups, see Bastiaan Schot, Nation oder Staat? Deutschland und der Minderheitenschutz: zur Völkerbundspolitik der Stresemann-Ära, Marburg: J.G. Herder-Institut, 1988Google Scholar.

47 IPU Archives, Box 418, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Commission pour l’étude de questions juridiques, Procès-verbal’, 27 May 1925.

48 David's idea was to use the opportunity of German dominance in eastern Europe to establish a system of benevolent hegemony with limited self-determination for the peoples concerned. Freed from tsarist autocracy, they could have slowly moved towards prosperity and democracy without challenging German supremacy. See Snell, John L., ‘The Russian revolution and the German Social Democratic Party in 1917’, American Slavic and East European Review, 15, 1956, pp. 339–350CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Eduard David, Die Befriedung Europas, Berlin: Hensel und Co Verlag, 1926Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., pp. 23–31.

51 Archiv der Sozialen Demokratie, 1/EDAG000002, Personal Papers Eduard David, Eduard David, ‘Die Befriedung Europas’ (draft), 1924.

52 E. H. Carr, Internationa relations between the two world wars: 1919–1939, London: Macmillan, 1947, p. 98.

53 See n. 37; IPU Archives, Box 416, Minutes of the Committee on Organizational Questions for the years 1927, 1928, and 1929.

54 In late 1927, the Secretary-General of the IPU, Christian Lange, even managed to convince a League official, Arthur Sweetser, of the David Plan. Sweetser wrote an enthusiastic introduction to a memorandum prepared by Lange, to be presented to the League's Secretariat. IPU Archives, Box 519, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘The Inter-Parliamentary Union and its possibilities of development’, unpublished memorandum, October 1927.

55 See University of Münster, Germany, Nachlass Walther Schücking (private papers of Walther Schücking at the University of Münster, Germany; henceforth NWS), 13/13, 067, Walther Schücking to Christian Lange, 19 January 1929, Berlin(?).

56 David, Befriedung, pp. 13–16Google Scholar.

57 IPU Archives, Box 417, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Procès-verbal, Sous-commission pour l'entente douanière européenne’, 9 July 1926, The Hague and 11 June 1927, Paris.

58 See n. 35; Larsen, Knud, ‘Scandinavian grass roots: from peace movement to Nordic council’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 9, 2–3, 1984, pp. 183–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 See, for example, Wilfried Loth, Entwürfe einer europäischen Verfassung: eine historische Bilanz, Bonn: Europa Union Verlag, 2002, pp. 24–30Google Scholar; Martin Große Hüttmann, ‘Vom abstrakten zum konkreten Systemgestalter: die Rolle des Europäischen Parlaments in den Regierungskonferenzen bis Nizza’, in Andreas Maurer and Dietmar Nickel, eds., Das Europäische Parlament: Supranationalität, Repräsentation und Legitimation, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2005, pp. 35–45Google Scholar.

60 Republican Party, Platform of the Republican Party of the State of New York, New York: Republican Party, 1920, pp. 2ff.; League of Nations Archives, IPM/IPB Archives, Box 309.

61 For the French attempts to create a general staff or an international army at the League of Nations, see for example Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers: the Paris conference of 1919 and its attempts to end war, London: John Murray, 2001, pp. 101ff.; Ruth Henig, The League of Nations, London: Haus Histories, 2010, pp. 36f. The best-known proposal to create an international police force from outside official circles came from Lord David Davies: see Porter, Brian, ‘David Davies: a hunter after peace’, Review of International Studies, 15, 1989, pp. 27–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Inter-Parliamentary Union, Compte rendu de la XXIIIe conférence, tenue à Washington du 1er au 7 Octobre et à Ottawa le 13 Octobre 1925, Geneva: Bureau interparlementaire, 1926, pp. 459–521; Inter-Parliamentary Union, Compte rendu de la XXIVe conférence, tenue à Paris 25 au 30 août 1927, Geneva: Bureau interparlementaire, 1928, pp. 168–78, 460–521; IPU Archives, Box 418, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Procès-verbal de la sous-commission pour la codification du droit international’, 2 and 3 April 1927, Geneva.

63 Henri La Fontaine was the only socialist politician of any importance who worked in the IPU before 1914. Eduard Bernstein did not attend any conferences but had become IPU Secretary-General Lange's interlocutor during the latter's attempts to invite German socialists. Bernstein had cordial relations with other bourgeois pacifists as well. After 1918, he became an active member of the German group. See, for example, IPU Archives, Box 235, Christian Lange to Eduard Bernstein, 8 July 1913, Brussels; NWS, 1/1, 032, Eduard Bernstein to Walther Schücking, 14 July 1915, Berlin.

64 ‘Interparlamentarische Konferenz’, Arbeiter-Zeitung, 29 August 1922; ‘Interparlamentarische Union’, Arbeiter-Zeitung, 31 August 1922.

65 See, for example, IPU Archives, Box 417, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Procès-verbal de la commission pour l’étude des questions économiques et financières’, 30 and 31 August 1926, pp. 3ff.

66 In 1925, for example, the prominent right-wing politicians Kurt Graebe and Karl Tinzl attended the IPU Conference as members of the Polish and Italian Groups, but their main contribution to the debate was to blame their respective governments for discrimination and to call for a common defensive front of the (German) minorities against ‘Bolshevism’. Inter-Parliamentary Union, Conférence 1925, pp. 563–8, 711–15, 729–32.

67 Ralph Erbar, ‘Heinrich Schnee’, in Hockerts, Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 23, pp. 280ff.

68 Schnee, Heinrich, ‘Zur 25. Konferenz der Interparlamentarischen Union in Berlin’, Der Weg zur Freiheit: Halbmonatsschrift des Arbeitsausschusses Deutscher Verbände, 8, 1928Google Scholar; IPU Archives, Box 419, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Procès-verbal du comité de rédaction de la commission des questions ethniques et coloniales’, 4 and 5 April 1924, Geneva, pp. 1, 4, 7ff.

69 Inter-Parliamentary Union, Conférence 1925, pp. 570ff.

70 IPU Archives, Box 491, Ludwig Quidde (?) to Walther Schücking and Christian Lange, 8 May 1925, Munich.

71 IPU Archives, Box 491, Ludwig Quidde to Christian Lange, 26 June 1926, Berlin.

72 By the end of 1926, the countries where an authoritarian regime had triumphed over attempts to install a liberal representative constitution included Russia, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, and Portugal. Of these, Poland, Hungary, and Italy sent numerous IPU delegations.

73 See IPU Archives, Box 8, Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Procès-verbaux du conseil interparlementaire, XIX’, 21–29 August 1924, Bern, p. 14; Inter-Parliamentary Union, Conférence 1925, p. 119.

74 See Inter-Parliamentary Union, The development of the representative system in our times: five answers to an enquiry instituted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Geneva: Bureau interparlementaire, 1928.

75 Inter-parliamentary Union, Compte rendu de la XXVe Conférence tenue à Berlin du 23 au 28 août 1928, Geneva: Bureau interparlementaire, 1929, p. 349; Carl Schmitt, Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1926, pp. 5–23Google Scholar.