POLS2409

International Relations of the 20th Century - UQ

Concert Diplomacy - Definition

• A system of diplomatic regulation and power-balancing among the major European powers

• Followed the Congress of Vienna (1815) to maintain political stability and prevent war in Europe

Concert Diplomacy - Why It Matters

• Demonstrates an early form of multilateral security governance based on Great Power management rather than binding institutions

• Eventual breakdown in the 19th- 20th century was driven by rigid alliance blocks and imperial competition

• Removed the primary diplomatic buffer keeping European powers from escalating regional disputes which directly paved the way for the multilateral crisis of WWI

Sick Man of Europe - Definition

• Refers to the Ottoman Empire (originally encompassed parts of the Balkans, Middle East, and Africa)

• 1878 onwards, lots of territory was lost, as certain areas became independent (Greece, Bulgaria)

• Term derived from the considerable unrest within the empire during this time

Sick Man of Europe - Why It Matters

• Dwindling power led to conflict due to a power imbalance created by the OE’s decrease in influence

• Other European states wanted the states previously part of the Ottoman Empire for power and influence

• Realists’ idea that a balance of power is required to maintain international order, where an imbalance creates potential conflict

Hague Conventions of 1899 - Definition

• A series of international treaties negotiated at the First Hague Peace Conference

• Codified laws of war, war crimes, and legal mechanisms for peaceful international dispute resolution

• Creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration

Hague Conventions of 1899 - Why It Matters

• Represents a pivotal shift in International Law toward constraining state sovereignty through normative rules and formal dispute mechanisms

• Serves as a foundational milestone for Liberal Institutionalism

• Illustrates early attempts to mitigate structural anarchy

• Set precedents later expanded upon by the LoN and UN

Scramble for Africa - Definition

• Rapid invasion, colonisation, and partition of African territory by European powers between 1881 and 1914

• Formalised at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885

Scramble for Africa - Why It Matters

• Reshaped global power dynamics by tying imperial prestige and economic capacity directly to colonial holdings

• Generated friction points (Fashoda incident) that heightened pre-WWI European tensions

• The arbitrary borders drawn during this period disrupted indigenous political structures, created structural vulnerabilities, weak state institutions, and ongoing territorial disputes across post-colonial Africa

Russo-Japanese War - Definition

• War fought between imperial Russia and imperial Japan over conflicting territorial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea

• Decisive Japanese victory

Russo-Japanese War - Why It Matters

• Altered global racial and imperial hierarchies and perceptions by proving a non-Western nation could defeat a European Great Power

• Defeat severely destabilised the Tsarist regime (sparking the 1905 Russian Revolution) and diminished Russian military prestige in East Asia

• Forced Russia to reorient its expansionist ambitions back towards the Balkans, sharpening imperial friction with Austria-Hungary

Bosnian Crisis 1908-1909 - Definition

• Major diplomatic crisis triggered when Austria-Hungary unilaterally annexed the former Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Incited fierce opposition from Serbia and Russia

Bosnian Crisis 1908-1909 - Why It Matters

• Humiliated Russia who was forced to acquiesce under German threats of military intervention

• Permanently embittered Serbian nationalists against the Habsburg Monarchy

• Crisis solidified the Austro-German alliance, prompting Russia to embark on military modernisation while refusing to back down in the Balkans again

• Structurally locked Europe in rigid crisis dynamics that came to a head in 1914

Blank Cheque - Definition

• Germany’s unconditional guarantee of diplomatic and military support delivered to Austria-Hungary on July 6, 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Blank Cheque - Why It Matters

• Emboldened Austria-Hungary to issue an uncompromising ultimatum to Serbia, converting a localised Balkan conflict into a general European war

• Classic demonstration of moral hazard and extended deterrence failures where unconditional alliance backing encouraged weaker allies to undertake reckless diplomatic escalations

Chain-Ganging - Definition

• Structural realist concept describing a tight network of defensive alliance commitments

• States tie their security so closely to their allies that any conflict involving one partner automatically drags all members into war

Chain-Ganging - Why It Matters

• Explains the structural systemic mechanism that converted the localised 1914 July crisis into a global military confrontation

• Great Powers perceived their alliance partners’ survival as vital to their own balance of power

• Surrendered diplomatic manoeuvrability, causing defensive mobilisation to escalate uncontrollably across the entire European system

6 April 1917 - Definition

• Date the US officially declared war on Germany

• Formally entering WWI on the side of the Allied Powers

6 April 1917 - Why It Matters

• Ended a century of official US isolationism

• Decisively shifted the economic, industrial, and military balance of power against the Central Powers

• Broke the Western Front stalemate

• “Male the world safe for democracy” - Woodrow Wilson
  Established liberal internationalism as a competing visionary framework for post-war international order

Locarno Treaties - Definition

• Series of seven agreements negotiated in 1925

• Germany mutually guaranteed its western borders with France and Belgium, backed by British and Italian security guarantees

Locarno Treaties - Why It Matters

• Brief high-water mark of interwar reconciliation: “Spirit of Locarno”

• Paved the way for Germany’s entry into the League of Nations

• By intentionally omitting guarantees for Germany’s EASTERN borders (Poland and Czechoslovakia), Eastern Europe was exposed to future revisionism

• Revealed the fatal vulnerability of partial collective security agreements

Treaty of Lausanne - Definition

• 1923 peace treaty between Allied Powers and the newly established Republic of Turkey

• Replaced the unratified and overly punitive Treaty of Sèvres (1920)

Treaty of Lausanne - Why It Matters

• A rare successful revision of the post-WWI Paris Peace Settlement

• Driven by armed nationalist resistance under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

• Established modern Türkiye’s sovereign borders and institutionalised compulsory population exchanges between Greece and Türkiye

• Established a legal precedent for state-sanctioned ethnic sorting in international law

Point XIV of the 14 Points - Definition

• Woodrow Wilson’s January 1918 proposal calling for a ‘general association of nations’ formed under specific covenants

• Afford mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to states

Point XIV of the 14 Points - Why It Matters

• Direct conceptual blueprint for the League of Nations (and later the United Nations)

• Replacing secret diplomacy and realpolitik balance of power arrangements with collective security

• IR theory - it is a foundational text for Liberal Institutionalism, asserting formal international institutions can mitigate anarchy and preserve peace

Manchukuo - Definition

• Japanese puppet state created in North-Eastern China in 1932

• Following Imperial Japan’s military invasion of Manchuria in 1931

Manchukuo - Why It Matters

• Exposed fundamental weaknesses of the League of Nations when confronted by an aggressive Great Power

• Japan’s outright rejection of the League’s Lytton Report and its subsequent withdrawal from the institution demonstrated that collective security lacked coercive enforcement mechanisms

• Encouraging subsequent territorial aggression by Italy and Nazi Germany

Hoare-Laval Plan - Definition

• Secret 1935 proposal by British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare and French Prime Minister Pierre Laval to end the Abyssinian Crisis

• Partitioning sovereign Ethiopia and giving two-thirds of its territory to fascist Italy

Hoare-Laval Plan - Why It Matters

• Public exposure revealed the cynicism of British and French diplomacy

• Demonstrated that major powers preferred traditional appeasement and sphere-of-influence bargaining over upholding the League principles

• Scandal fatally discredited the League of Nations as a collective security body

• Accelerated Benito Mussolini’s alliance with Adolf Hitler

Creditanstalt Collapse - Definition

• Bankruptcy of Austria’s largest bank in May 1931

• Ignited a severe banking and currency panic across Central and Eastern Europe

Creditanstalt Collapse - Why It Matters

• Transformed the American Wall Street crash into a systemic global financial crisis

• Spread panic through European credit systems and forced major economies off the gold standard

• The resulting economic collapse severely weakened European democracies, particularly accelerating political polarisation in Weimar Germany that fueled the rise of extremist parties

Young Plan - Definition

• 1929 agreement that revised Germany’s WWI reparations burden

• Decreased it by 20% and stretched payments out over 59 years

Young Plan - Why It Matters

• Intended to stabilise interwar international finance, the plan instead was seized upon by German right-wing nationalists and Nazi political campaigns to fan anti-Versailles outrage

• Organising against the plan allowed Hitler’s NSDAP to forge key political alliances with mainstream conservative elites

• Legitimised Nazi political opposition nationwide

John Maynard Keynes - Definition

• Prominent British economist who wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919)

• Developed macroeconomic theories advocating state fiscal intervention during economic downturns

John Maynard Keynes - Why It Matters

• Accurately predicted the draconian reparations imposed on Germany at Versailles would destabilise the European economy and foster revanchist political extremism

• Theoretical work reconfigured modern International Political Economy (IPE)

• Shaped the post-WWII Bretton Woods financial architecture and the development of the modern welfare state

Black Tuesday - Definition

• 29th October, 1929

• US stock market collapsed catastrophically on Wall Street

• Marked the beginning of the Great Depression

Black Tuesday - Why It Matters

• Caused American capital and international credit flows to dry up

• Paralysed world trade and exported massive deflation globally

• The collapse severely undermined public confidence in liberal democratic government and free-market capitalism

• Directly drove states toward autarky, fascism, and militaristic economic policies

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act - Definition

• US federal legislation passed in 1930

• Raised American import tariffs on over 20,000 foreign goods to record high levels

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act - Why It Matters

• Ignited a wave of retaliatory trade barriers across the globe

• Accelerated the breakdown of multilateral trade and deepened the global severity of the Great Depression

• In IPE, it remains the prime example of “beggar-thy-neighbour” protectionism

• Illustrates how trade wars can break down global economic interdependency and foster hostile economic blocs