The year 2019 marks the 100-year anniversary of the Paris Peace Conference and the drafting of the Covenant of the League of Nations. While the peace negotiated in Paris did not last long, the debates over the terms of peace and the effort to create a worldwide international organization left a deep imprint on international politics.

The current issue examines various aspects of the peace negotiations and the legacy of Wilsonianism, named after U.S. president Thomas Woodrow Wilson, one of the leading architects of the treaty and the league. As the essays show, Wilsonianism allows for a wide array of approaches. Some examine ideas behind Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy; others discuss how non-United States actors reacted to Wilson’s ideas and tried to incorporate or resist the so-called new diplomacy. Yet others examine how Wilson’s legacy influenced the trajectory of international politics during the interwar years and through the Second World War and beyond. All in all, the essays demonstrate how Wilsonianism has affected the transformation of international and transnational relations over the years.

As an introduction to the special issue, this article seeks to explain why Wilsonianism has continued to fascinate scholars and pundits and how it has become a reference point when talking about both United States foreign policy and international politics in general. One reason is its relevance. Every generation, starting with the immediate contemporaries of Wilson, has found something relevant in Wilsonianism, either from a laudatory or critical point of view. The 1920s and 1960s were the periods during which “revisionism” was ascendant, whereas the immediate post-Cold War years saw a resurrection of Wilson’s ideas espoused by those favoring multilateral institutions under United States leadership. Another reason for the durability of Wilsonianism grows out of Wilson’s tenacity in defending his principles, such as self-government, democracy, and justice. Recent scholarship tends to emphasize the practical and pragmatic aspects of Wilson’s foreign policy, but while making compromises in Paris, Wilson was adamant that his ideals and principles would become a driving force in the future. Such tenacity and strong belief in his principles might not have ingratiated him to his contemporaries, but they made Wilson a lasting figure to contend with.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed at the end of the First World War. It is said that the cause of collapse was the anti-Habsburg nationalities that inhabited in the Empire and wanted to be independent from the Empire made use of the right of the self-determination that the American president, Woodrow Wilson, declared in his “Fourteen Points” speech in January 8th 1918. But in the article of 10 of the Fourteen Points he insisted that “The peoples of Austria-Hungary should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development”. There was not the word “self-determination”. What does the word “autonomous” mean for the policy-makers of the Empire and the nationalities? This article examines how the policy-makers of the Empire, specially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, understood and utilized Wilson’s principles after the speech of the Fourteen Points in order to rescue their Empire from the crisis of dissolution.

The Fourteen Points seemed to them a tool for the rescue the Empire. So the then Foreign Minister, Count Czernin, made a speech in support of the Fourteen Points at the end of January. In February the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a note in the name of the emperor Charles via Spain to Wilson that the emperor could agree the Wilson’s principles in order to bring a peace to Europe. There was a good situation that a negotiated peace would be carried. But in the spring 1918 the United States changed her course and determined to collapsed the Empire. And the German Empire started the military offensive in the Western Front in March. Moreover the meeting between the leaders of the German Empire and the Austria-Hungary in May seemed to the United States that the emperor of the Austria-Hungary became a vassal. When the German offensive failed in August, the Austria-Hungary planned an armistice and peace-talks with the United States on the basis of the Fourteen Points. The policy-makers of the Empire understood that it is important to solve the South-Slav Question to persuade Wilson.

But in September the United States have already recognized that 1) a state of belligerency exit between the Czecho-Slovaks and Austria-Hungary and 2) the Czecho-Slovaks National Council is a de facto belligerent government. When the Austria-Hungary formally proposed the armistice and peace at the beginning of October, the United States rejected it. The United States insisted that the Fourteen Points was no longer relevant to the future of the Empire. Nevertheless the Austria-Hungary tried to appeal. She declared that she would approve Wilson’s opinion about the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs. At last she determined to abandon her Allied, German Empire, and to propose a separate peace to the United States. But in the around of Empire the nationalities had declared the independence from the Empire on the ground of the self-determination.

On 3^rd November 1918 the army of the Empire concluded the armistice with the Entente and the war ended. This was also the end of the Empire.

This article seeks to outline the entirety of Wilson’s intervention in North Russia and Siberia. It should be presented based on the U.S.’s various motives toward Russia and differences in the characteristics of the interventions in North Russia and Siberia that have been provided by an earlier scholarship. Additionally, both interventions should be considered as not completely separate but intertwined with one other as an integral part of Wilson Administration’s policy toward Russia.

The U.S. was more receptive to intervention in North Russia than in Siberia. President Wilson regarded the intervention in North Russia as part of his war strategy against the Central Powers, classifying it as an essential aspect of the cooperative coalition with the Allies. In Siberia, Wilson approved U.S. expedition to secure safe transportation of Trans-Siberian and Chinese-Eastern Railways, which would contribute to social and economic stability in Russia. Inevitably, he supposed, this condition would enable the Czechs’ eastward passage via Vladivostok while mitigating Japanese territorial expansion in the Russian Far East.

Note that the developments of the Czechs played a key role in the Allied intervention in Russia. In North Russia, the Czech Legion was regarded as an influential figure to restore resistance to the Germans in the East. While in Siberia, the Czechs had to be transferred to the Western Front through repatriation to support the Allies, and their existence was vital to guard the Trans-Siberian and Chinese-Eastern Railways for the stabilization of Russia. As seen in his Aid-Memoir of June 17, 1918, Wilson placed the U.S. expedition in North Russia and Siberia within the whole picture of its intervention in Russia. The nucleus of U.S. intervention in Russia was the existence of the Czech Legion. In that sense, it was tragic that the U.S. and the Allies severely underestimated the divisions among the various anti-Bolshevik groups.

Wilson hoped for the emergence of a liberal Russia based on the free election and self-government. The “unintended consequence (the effect of the armed intervention),” however, baffled his promise for the future of Russia. Confronting confused local information and the untrustworthy Bolshevik government, America’s major concern and priority was to defeat Germany in World War I. Therefore, Wilson had no choice but to consider coalition diplomacy based on strategic coordination with Britain and France. Yet, this blinded the administration to the negative effect of America’s military intervention in Russia. By the very decision of armed intervention in Russia, however, Wilson’s policy toward Russia brought inconsistency in the principle of Point Six of his Fourteen Points Address and resulted in paying a price that he did not expect.

The British Diplomatist Harold Nicolson recorded in his memoires on the peacemaking of 1919 that he “had no doubt [……] that upon the basis of President Wilson’s principles would the peace be founded”, and that his confidence was shared by many of his colleagues. This article examines the “Wilsonian” ideals shared by the British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference.

The basic tenets of “Wilsonianism”, which can be summarised as supporting national aspirations and upholding international cooperation, had roots dating back to the foreign policy pursued by British Liberal administrations in the 19th century. Soon after the war broke out in 1914, proponents of the peace movement sought to design a post-war settlement that would diminish the possibility of future wars and perpetuate peace. These ideas managed to penetrate the echelons of the British government, and by 1916 many prominent members of the Cabinet and Foreign Office were in favour of a drastic redefining of international affairs after the end of the war. The proponents of this new kind of diplomacy, sought to redraw the map of Europe based on ethnographical lines and to create a League of Nations to manage international disputes. These aims developed parallel to and in conjunction with President Woodrow Wilson’s peace programmes on the other side of the Atlantic. By 1918, these “Wilsonian” war aims became official policy of the British government.

At the Paris Peace Conference, the British delegation pursued their goals while in many cases gaining Wilson’s backing. Thus, the League of Nations was established largely based on Britain’s wartime design, and a considerable part of the territorial settlement was based on the principle of “national self-determination”, which the British government generally supported (as long its application was confined to continental Europe).

However, once the general outline of the German settlement became apparent in March 1919, David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, and his entourage became apprehensive that the collective effect of the treaty will destabilise Germany. The revolutionary struggle in Russia, and its perceived encroachment towards Central Europe, put considerable pressure on the British delegation to successfully conclude the conference as early as possible, and to create a bulwark against Bolshevism. This pressure led Lloyd George to try to ease the peace terms on Germany, but his efforts were largely in vain.

The Treaty of Versailles was heavily criticized by the British “Wilsonians”. Yet some of them, such as James Headlam-Morley, defended the treaty as a substantial achievement in forwarding the aims for a liberal international order.

The previous studies have not considered Wilsonianism in relation to French diplomacy, but after the World War I, France played a key role in the League of Nations, from which its advocate, the United States of America, has been absent. Therefore this paper focuses French policies for the League of Nations in order to reexamine “Wilsonianism.” From 1919 to 1924, French leaders at first had bad feelings toward the League of Nations or the “New Diplomacy,” but they gradually have accepted such conceptions.

First, this paper examines French leaders’ attitude for Woodrow Wilson or his idea for peace. In the Paris Peace Conference (1919), French prime minister, Georges Clemenceau, was suspicious of Wilson and his idea, and required the military alliance with the United Kingdom and the United States. And also, he persisted in the military occupation of the Rhineland. On the other hand, at the commission drafting the Covenant of the League of Nations, Léon Bourgeois advocated establishing an international force. However, their proposals were discarded, because the United States had rejected the peace treaty and the Covenant.

Second, this paper considers French attitude for the League of Nations from 1920 to 1923. During this period, France has looked for a more powerful mechanism of the national security, but each of French attempt for the security was deadlocked. However, in 1923, the Draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance (Projet de traité de garantie mutuelle) was submitted to the Assembly of the League of Nations. This draft has tried to enforce disarmament and collective security as one, but it broke down because of the British opposition.

Finally, this paper focuses the Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes (Protocole pour le réglement pacifique des différends internationaux) in 1924. This protocol was strongly supported by the new French prime minister Édouard Herriot. He looked for the alliance with the United Kingdom at first, but British prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, rejected his offer. Therefore, Herriot sought to put his plan into practice at the League of Nations. However, after all, this protocol broke down, too.

As stated above, France has sought to strengthen the collective security, either at the League of Nations or at the bilateral level. From 1919 to 1924, each of French attempt for the security turned out a failure. However, in this period, France gradually accepted the principle of “New Diplomacy.” And in this background, there is the unstable domestic situation, such as the fall of franc or the frequent changes of government. Under the circumstances, for France, the value of the League of Nations has steadily been raised.

This paper aims to examine the international thought of Woodrow Wilson by focusing on the fact that criticism by Carr and Morgenthau is directed toward Wilson’s domestic analogy. Relativizing Wilson’s thought from various labels, including “idealism”, “national self-determination”, “imperialism”, “constitutionalism”, and various other “isms”, reveals that Wilson’s international thought is characterized as a domestic analogy of the principle of “consent of the governed”, which is driven by his progressivism.

Wilson has long been labeled as an idealist for his lack of recognition of the importance of power and his belief in public opinion; however, as the implementation of the Wilson administration’s aggressive “intervention” policy showed, President Wilson certainly recognized the importance of power in international politics and tried to use power in his “effective” way, which was based on the principle of the consent of the governed.

Given that, Wilson and Carr/Morgenthau are not in a binary confrontation, such as law and force or idealism and realism. The difference between them lies in the fundamental question of international order, that is, whether the nation or the people should be prioritized in international society. International Politics, represented by Carr and Morgenthau, could be understood as the attempt to establish a certain set of rules for sovereign states that could be never overridden by the people’s consent, with which Wilson had changed the reality of international politics. Therefore, for Carr and Morgenthau, Wilson’s thought that could be fundamentally against the sovereign state system had to be kept as a “utopia”.

If Wilson’s international thought is understood in the name of “Wilsonianism”, which describes the diplomatic tradition of the United States, then the radical implication against the international sovereign system, which Wilson’s thought originally has, will be dismissed. The fundamental question revealed by Wilson’s international thought is the difficulty of drawing an order that will prioritize the people instead of the state.

Whenever the principle of consent of the governed is extended internationally, the question arises as to who represents and who is represented. Therefore, Wilson devised the “community of power” and sought that the international order be led by the United States, which was at the forefront of progress. The significance of Wilson’s international thought should be understood as a trigger for a fundamental criticism of the existing international order from the point of consent of the governed.

On July 26, 1917, the joint order of the Departments of State and Labor required all non-Americans wanting to enter the United States to hold a visa issued by a U.S. consular official—to clarify their purpose of visit to the United States, and to verify their identity, by presenting a government-issued certificate of identity, typically a passport. Neither the Armistice nor the Treaty of Versailles terminated the visa obligation imposed on foreigners at the U.S. border. On his way back from the Paris Peace Conference, Woodrow Wilson urged the postwar continuation of the visa system.

This article highlights the Wilsonian assumption embedded in the U.S. visa system. Woodrow Wilson understood the power of state-based documentation and nation-based identification. Persons without a government-issued certificate of identity found themselves anomalous in the post-WWI world. The U.S. visa system, never removed from the U.S. border since its wartime installation, has made it extremely difficult for undocumented persons to enter the United States lawfully.

The wartime introduction and postwar continuation of the visa system marked critical developments in the history of U.S. immigration and foreign policy. From the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, the U.S. government built the national apparatus of immigration control. At the U.S. border, immigrant inspectors came to adopt a standard method for identifying foreign individuals, classifying them into different categories, and organizing information as to their admission or rejection. Over time, the list of criteria that was being used for immigrant inspection became longer, including age, sex, family, race, health, and occupational status. Meanwhile, some advocates of immigration restriction demanded the introduction of pre-departure inspection of intending immigrants. However, there was almost no discussion in Congress about passport and visa requirements before the United States joined WWI. From 1917 to 1919, the visa system was designed and implemented by the Wilson administration to safeguard the American nation against its enemies—Germans during WWI and Bolsheviks and other radicals after WWI. In favor of its postwar continuation, Wilson noted that it would also prevent the admission of persons undesirable because of their “origin and affiliations,” hinting its usefulness for immigration restriction. With the establishment of the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, the visa system became a tool for the U.S. government to limit the entry of non-Americans primarily based on their “origin and affiliations.” In the early 1920s, U.S. visa regulations quickly developed into one of the most stringent of their kind in the world.

This article focuses on activities of Japanese officials who worked for the Secretariat of the League of Nations (LN), and their influences in the Secretariat as a whole. Not only two Under Secretary-Generals (Inazo Nitobe, and Yotaro Sugimura) were appointed from Japan, but also many young officers (Ken Harada, Tetsuro Furugaki, and others) worked for the LN Secretariat. However, the number of Japanese officers in the LN Secretariat and the variation of the sections in which Japanese officers in the LN Secretariat engaged was evidently smaller than those of officers from any other permanent council member States. As for Japanese officers in the LN Secretariat, expertise in policy making is not so much important as ability to adapt themselves to Eurocentric environment of the LN Secretariat, and the main missions of Japanese officers in the LN Secretariat were liaison work between the LN Secretariat and Japanese government or Japanese press, and propagation of information about the work of the LN towards Japanese public. However, some Japanese officers were engaged in more various works, such as drafting communiques in some committees of the Assembly, and liaison work between the LN and other Asian nations. Moreover, during their temporary visits of Japan, Japanese officers in the LN secretariat went on lecture trips to promote understanding of the activities of the LN, and Nitobe’s lecture trip from 1924 to 1925 led to the creation of Tokyo branch of the LN Secretariat Information Section, which enhanced propagation of specific information about the work of LN. When the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) invited the LN Secretariat to its conference, Nitobe insisted that this institute and Pan-Pacific movement would be helpful to support the activities of the LN, and Sugimura and other Japanese officers in the LN Secretariats repeatedly insisted the significance of IPR for the LN. In 1927, two officers of the LN Secretariat (One of them was Setsuichi Aoki, the head of Tokyo branch of the LN Secretariat) was sent to the second biannual conference of IPR. In 1929, when the third biannual conference of IPR was held at Kyoto, Sugimura himself attended the conference. However, at the time of this conference, Sugimura tried to invite the LN representative in the conference to Manchuria and Korea, which indicates Sugimura’s intention to lead the LN Secretariat to support the political interest of his home country.

The end of the Cold War, taken as the “victory of liberal values and the United States,” led to the revival of scholarly and practical interest in Woodrow Wilson, who symbolized the liberal tradition of American foreign policy based on democracy, free trade, multilateralism. This article focuses on the liberal interventionism–policies and ideas of protecting or promoting human rights and democracy in other countries by military interventions—that (re-)emerged, along with Wilsonianism, after the Cold War ended.

It is common to call the post-Cold War liberal interventions “humanitarian intervention (HI)” or “responsibility to protect (R2P),” because they seem to have the protection of human rights, rather than democratization, as their mission. This is the reason why very few contemporary scholars and proponents of HI and R2P have paid attention to Wilsonianism or Wilson’s liberal interventionism. On the other hand, one of the components of Wilsonianism is the spread of democracy or liberal democratic internationalization by intervention, rather than the protection of human rights by intervention. However, Wilsonianism was often alluded to, especially in the debates on American foreign policy, when the United States, having become the sole superpower in the world after winning the cold war, began to engage in liberal interventions (mainly called HI or R2P). The characterization of these interventions as Wilsonian was not necessarily misguided, because it was very rare that these interventions pursued only human rights or civilian protection, and overlooked democratization in the target country. Above all, the Iraq war, which was started in 2003 by George W. Bush and justified in terms of promoting democracy and human rights, as well as addressing threats emanating from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and its support of terrorism, represented the complex nature of contemporary liberal interventionism; thus, its justification generated much controversy among not only HI/R2P supporters, but also Wilsonian scholars.

The purpose of this article is to reexamine Wilson’s (original) liberal interventionism—his interventionist policies in Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic in the 1910s—by considering its association with HI/R2P in the post-Cold War era, and its significance and implications for contemporary liberal interventionism. First, I will highlight the similarities and differences between Wilson’s liberal interventionism and HI/R2P in terms of the forms of intervention (unilateral or multilateral) and their main purpose. Second, I will demonstrate how proponents of HI/R2P and Wilsonian scholars, who believed that Bush’s wrong justification for the Iraq war tainted HI/R2P and Wilsonianism and wanted to revive their liberal interventionist projects, respectively, attempted to decouple their genuine and legitimate liberal interventionism from Bush’s illegitimate intervention. Finally, I will indicate what we should really have learned from Wilson’s liberal interventionism by considering the aftermath of the Libyan intervention—so eagerly promoted by supporters of HI/R2P and Wilsonianism—in 2011.