KEY HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN SHAPING INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY
What is still lacking is a clear argument. That can be very simple, as simple as ‘This essay will argue that an international society can be identified and that during the Twentieth Century it was strengthened by two catastrophic world events – the two world wars.
The importance of these two wars for the development of the rules, norms and institutions which make up the international society will be examined.’ The essay will then need to do that make the case that the wars were instrumental in the creation of the international society.
You need to make sure that every point you make about the aftermath of those wars relates to the creation of the international society. You are not providing a general history of what happened, you are making an argument that those wars led to renewed efforts to bring peace and stability to the international system, to the extent that it could now be called an international society, possibly even a global society.
Key to that argument will be Versailles in particular the setting up of the League of Nations and the setting up of the post-war institutions after WW2. Versailles should therefore not be treated separately to WW1, it should be central to that section. Similarly, the UN needs to be central to the section on WW2.
What was significant about the War was the attempts by the allies, from the Atlantic Charter onwards, to plan and design the peace. Look at that design and what its key norms, rules and institutions are. Obviously there is the UN, there is also the economic institutions – Bretton Woods.
There is also the whole human rights regime, starting in 1948 with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That became a key norm in the international system and very relevant to the question of the extent to which the post-1945 system was pluralist, or whether under the management of the liberal democratic powers it was pushed – particularly after the collapse of the communist bloc – towards being more solidarist.
Hopefully you have time today to do some tweaking so that you maximise your mark. Look at every paragraph you have written and ask yourself what it contributes to an understanding of international society. If the answer is ‘nothing’ then replace it, or rewrite it. Put the argument at the core and systematically build up a picture of the developing institutionalisation of international relations since 1918.
