The regain of international crises and violence explains today's high interest in international relations, which is reflected in public debate by experts in touch with current affairs - political scientists, sociologists, jurists, and geopoliticians... On the contrary, the contribution of history is rather neglected, even though it can "help us to think about the 'complexity' of international relations", as historian Robert Frank highlighted.
This is the ambition of this seminar, to build a framework for problematic reflection in a resolutely historical perspective centered on the short geostrategic 20th century. This century was opened by the First World War and closed by the turning point which, in 1989-1991, resolved the East-West antagonism by the disappearance of the East and the multiform hegemony of the American hyperpower confronted with the global disorder. However, the seminar will not stop from going back to the 19th century, to give a report on the history of globalization and successive European systems and to open up trails toward recent developments.
The approach will be based primarily on the achievements of the French school of international relations: first and foremost, the epistemological renewal impelled by Pierre Renouvin and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, which transformed traditional diplomatic history into a total history, opening it up to the study of the deep forces, rooted in society, that shape international life, to the study of the interactions between domestic political life and foreign policy, and so on; but also the new research directions explored since then, whether in terms of broadening the deep force-field to economy, mentalities and culture, or widening the point of view from the national to the multilateral to the transnational.
To highlight the various problematic axes, the seminar will progress along thematic lines, and we will tackle each of these axes - reading reports, occasional illustrative subjects, the study of documents of various kinds...
Some bibliographical references:
ARON Raymond. Paix et guerre entre les nations. Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1984.
FRANK Robert dir. Pour l’histoire des relations internationales. Paris, PUF, 2012.
KISSINGER Henry. Diplomatie. Paris, Fayard, 1996.
RENOUVIN Pierre, DUROSELLE Jean-Baptiste. Introduction à l’histoire des relations internationales. Paris, Colin, 1991.
SOUTOU Georges-Henri. La guerre de cinquante ans. Paris, Fayard, 2001.
- Teaching coordinator: Dulphy Anne