Carr -- IR

Question 1

• 1892-1982
• British diplomat, historian, professor
• Chair of IR at Aberystwyth, 1919
• Major work: “The twenty years’ crisis” (2 versions) 1939/1946
• Other work: 14-volume History of the Soviet Union
• realist, * (lowkey critical theorist)

Answer 1

E.H. Carr

Question 2

Carr’s “realist” critique of liberal premises

Answer 2

• (extremely polemical writer)
• Theories stem from, & serve, practical goals
• (lowkey critical theorist)
• Morality reflects the interests of the dominant
• Harmony of Interests only for the rich/powerful
• There are revisionist (want to change the international order—Germany & soviet union: outsider in 20s & 30s?) & status-quo powers (want to keep order how it is & protect it)
• Failure of utopians is their pseudo-universalism
• If all is relative, only power arbitrates
• (in his book he says) “Utopians” were a beginning of international relations; “realists” can turn it into a science

Question 3

Contemporary critiques of Carr’s book (liberals strike back)

Answer 3

• The 30 Years’ Crisis is a “completely mischievous piece of sophisticated moral nihilism” that gave “aid and comfort in about equal degree to the followers of Marx and the followers of Hitler” (N. Angell)
• The book presents a “veritable gold mine for Dr Goebbels” (N. Angell)
• he left one “in a moral vacuum and at a political dead point” (A. Toynbee)
• “never clearly demonstrates (…) why their [the “utoplians”] objectives and policies were impossible of attainment” (L. Woolf)

Question 4

Carr (1939!) on “appeasement”…

Answer 4

“if the power relations of Europe in 1938 made it inevitable that Czecho-Slovakia should lose part of its territory and eventually her independence, it was preferable… that this should come about as the result of discussions round a table in Munich.” (…, 1939 version)

Question 5

This quote showed you shouldn’t trust what Carr writes..
* (side note: states don’t go to war bc it is not in their best interest, not profitable, not bc its in their treaty, dumb way to make money is go to war)
* (Germany had been restricted & given a status below is possibilities)
* (That’s the philosophy of appeasement -> give Germany what it wants)

Answer 5

“The negotiations which led up to the Munich Agreement of Sept 29, 1938, were the nearest approach in recent years to the settlement of a major international issue by a procedure of peaceful change.. The change in itself was one which corresponded both to a change in the European equilibrium of forces & to accepted canons of international morality.” (… 1939 version)

Question 6

Problems with Carr’s view

Answer 6

o “Utopians” do not call themselves that; it is a “realist catgory of abuse” (P.Wilson)
o Many different strands of liberal thought under attack
o Who are the “realists”, apart from Carr?
 (actually him the realist)
o What is naïve about trying to manage conflict?
o Carr almost invents a realist camp that confronted and in view of WWII superseded (replace something older) the “utopians”
o The “balance of power” remains obscure at best

Question 7

Constructed by E.H Carr

Answer 7

Great Debate, yes/no if the debate should have that name, it wasn’t exactly a debate but realist and liberalism did face off against each other, helps us tell story of beginning since they are (liberalism & realism) topics to debate ab