Tradition and Adaptation: the social universe of the French foreign ministry in the era of the First World War (original) (raw)
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Revisiting French diplomacy in the age of globalization
French Politics, 2010
There are a number of good reasons why foreign policy matters to political scientists, most of them related to the dynamics of conflict and cooperation among states and international actors, and to the changing patterns of interaction within the international system. The issues at stake are obviously important and complex enough to justify some form of division of labor, and analysis of foreign policy is logically conducted in the vast majority of cases by scholars of International Relations. However, there is another angle of foreign policy that is critical for a more general understanding of politics, and that should not be ignored by political scientists outside the field of International Relations. Beyond the routines of international institutions and everyday diplomacy, foreign policy and its aftermaths is often critical to determine the structure of political regimes and institutions. Most state collapses and most foundations of new nations occur as an issue of war. Peace is also a prerequisite for the selection and design of new institutions. Through critical junctures brought about by regime changes, the consequences of foreign policy definitely shape state borders and a broad sense of national identity, as well as longlasting trends of ideologies, political cleavages and institutions suitable to accommodate them. France is no exception to this rule. While the academic debate about Europe in the recent years rightly focused on Europeanization, a longer perspective, like the one adopted to consider the 50 years of the Fifth Republic, brings back the relations between France, Germany, the United Kingdom and other powerhouses of the international system. Maybe more importantly, it is worth reminding what the adoption of the new constitution establishing the Fifth Republic owes to the context of decolonization and access to independence for Algeria. When foreign policy is considered we therefore directly or indirectly touch upon the reality of state structures. Of course, foreign policy does not end in constitutional change every day. I mention these elements to indicate that the domestic issues that are at stake with foreign
History Compass, 2006
This article surveys the evolution of the historical literature on France and the origins of the Second World War. It links history writing about French institutions and policy-making to wider trends in French politics and society as well as to various approaches to understanding the history and culture of France. It argues that for many years the historiography was dominated by narratives of decline within France which were rooted in long-standing traditions of interpreting the French past in terms of decline, fall, and renewal. These were exacerbated by wartime and postwar political score-settling and by the increasing political dominance of Gaullism during the 1960s and 1970s. It also identifies a tendency among American and especially British historians to view French history and politics as terminally in a state of crisis as well as a Cold War tendency towards the militarization of historical interpretations of the inter-war period. It then traces the emergence of a fully fledged revisionist view linked, at least in part, to the growing prominence attributed to financial and industrial issues by the international historians of the 1960s and 1970s. It ends with a plea to move towards methodologies that focus on the interrelationship between cultural and material factors as the most promising means of taking the study of this important subject forward.
Relations internationales et droit(s) acteurs, institutions et législations comparées (1815-1914)
2024
He researches the French prefectural corps, municipalities, and the relationship between the Minister of Interior affairs and the departments and regions since the French Revolution. He has published several books on war memories, letters, private papers, and representations. Additionally, he has published history texts on the decisive decade (les dix decisive) of 1869-1879 (2022); « lieux de mémoires » in the Loire Valley and Berry; and Introduction historique au droit (2022). Yves BRULEY is a French historian and senior lecturer at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), in the Historical and Philological Sciences section. He is also a Correspondent of the Institut de France (Académie des sciences morales et politiques). His research focuses on the history of international relations in the 19th century, with particular emphasis on French diplomacy and the history of diplomatic administration, institutions and practices. Yves Bruley contributed to the Dictionnaire du Second Empire and the Dictionnaire Napoléon under the direction of Jean Tulard. He is the author of numerous articles and books on 19th-century diplomacy, culture and religion, such as Le Quai d'Orsay imperial (2012). Walter BADIER is a Lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Orléans. He specializes in the history of the early Third Republic. His doctoral thesis was devoted to the politician Alexandre Ribot, founder with Paul Jozon of the Comparative Legislation Society. It was published in 2016 as: Alexandre Ribot et la République modérée. Formation et ascension d'un homme politique libéral (1858-1895). Raphaël CAHEN is a Senior Researcher at the Justus-Liebig-Universität in Giessen (Germany) as well as a Guest Lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris). His research focuses on intellectual history and the history of international law and international relations. With Elisabetta Fiocchi-Malaspina and Frederik Dhondt, he coedited three special issues on the history of international law
Berlin embassy of James Watson Gerard: Reflections of a diplomatic paradigm shift 1913-1917
1997
American Ambassador James Watson Gerard's embassy in the imperial German capital o f Berlin (1913-1917) directly reflected the remarkable paradigm shift in and professionalization o f American diplomacy occurring around the turn o f the century. Prior to the 1890s, domestic matters absorbed the nation, including post-Civil War reconstruction, settling the West, and building an immensely successful industrial society. Those priorities considered foreign relations unessential, and the nation, therefore, largely disregarded international affairs and neglected its diplomatic and consular services, allowing political patronage to populate them with unskilled amateurs. Beginning in the early 1890s, however, developments compelled the country to leave its isolation and ' increasingly involve itself in world affairs. Explosive expansion of the national economy, a global revolution in communications and transportation technology, rise to world power status, alarm at perceived threats to her shores and her overseas markets, a lengthy economic depression, and loss o f national confidence helped prompt a shift in the nation's foreign relations paradigm that would last into the early 1920s. The country's increasingly purposeful involvement abroad required competent, reliable foreign representatives to serve its widening interests, thus stimulating by the early 1900s initial, though uneven, moves towards the professionalization o f the American foreign services. The First World War's demandsfelt so keenly by the Gerard embassy-laid stark once and for all the inadequacies o f a non-professional diplomatic service, and gave renewed urgency to reform, culminating with the Rogers Act's establishment of the United States Foreign Service in 1924. Coming at the inflection point of these institutional and paradigmatic transitions, the Gerard embassy reflected the transformation o f American diplomacy from nineteenth-century amateurism to twentiethcentury professionalism. The embassy's personnel displayed both vestiges o f the old paradigm and the rising careerism o f the new. Gerard's trials in securing suitable housing for his embassy highlighted a glaring deficiency, even as embassy use of the telegraph, telephone/automobile, cinema, and other new technology accelerated modern diplomacy's pace and changed its very character. And, finally, the sharp increase in work quantity, and its quality abruptly expanding to include such novel issues as human rights, public relations, intelligence gathering, and propaganda, demonstrated the new diplomacy's growing complexity.
‘Jules Develle: deconstructing the Myth of the Obscure Foreign Minister’
The George Rudé Seminar in French History and Culture, Sydney, 2024
In January 1893, the management of French foreign policy was entrusted to Jules Develle, who by then had gained some reputation as a protectionist minister of agriculture. In the French period press, Develle was portrayed as an incompetent amateur who, with virtually no knowledge of protocol and decorum, rose to thehead of the Quai d’Orsay. This ‘black legend’ that arose around Develle was then apparently picked up by modern historiography, where Develle received no close attention but was labelled ‘obscure’. This paper aims to reconstruct the tenure of Jules Develle, the French foreign minister, and deconstruct the myth of ‘obscure’ figure who was entrusted the heading of the Quai d’Orsay in 1893. Based on the analysis of primary sources, namely Develle’s personal and official correspondence, which were so far neglected by scholars, and comparing it with the correspondence of Develle’s colleagues, associates, political partners, and the contemporary French press, the paper aims to present a unique portrait of a politician who has so far been overlooked by modern historiography.
The Evolution of International Relations in France
2021
Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) surveys are important indicators for tapping into the evolution of International Relations worldwide. TRIP reached France in 2011 and has been conducted three times since then in 2011 and 2014. Previous studies led to two articles, respectively in Revue Française de Science Politique (Cornut and Battistella, 2013) in 2013 and in Critique Internationale in 2017 (Balzacq, Cornut and Ramel, 2017). This essay provides an analysis of the third iteration of the survey’s results. It builds upon the previous research on this topic and identifies the global trends and the specificities of this year’s edition. Specifically, the first two articles shed light on what could be considered as French characteristics of International Relations as a discipline, with a growing attention on how French scholarship was being integrated within the “Global” field of International Relations.
This article offers a new interpretation of French policy at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Based on a close reading of the archival record generated by the government of Georges Clemenceau, it argues that the bases of French policy at the Conference have been misunderstood. For the past century the majority of scholars writing about this period have accepted the standard interpretation that premier Clemenceau and his advisors were committed practitioners of Realpolitik who aimed above all at the destruction of German power. The 'realism' of the French post-war vision is typically placed in opposition to the more idealistic post-war visions of the British and especially the American delegations. This essay rejects this standard view. It argues instead that the Clemenceau government's peace programme was based on a Transatlantic vision of post-war order. This vision was based on a fascinating combination of presumed ideological affinities and common common economic and strategic interests.