100 years of International Affairs

International Affairs was founded in 1922 as a written record of events held at Chatham House for those members unable to attend in person.

In these early years the journal included contributors ranging from imperial policy-makers and women’s suffrage campaigners to journalists, philosophers and politicians, reflecting the fledgling discipline of international relations.

Geoffrey Malcom Gathorne-Hardy, a soldier, Norse specialist and one of the founding members of Chatham House, was the journal’s first editor. He established the article and book review sections that remain a hallmark of the journal today.

International Affairs’s position at the heart of the British foreign policy establishment meant that in the journal’s first years, articles appeared, for example, on structures of citizenship within the British Empire and the importance of limiting national self-determination claims. Explore Meera Sabaratnam’s analysis in our Archive Collection on empire and decolonization in the history of the journal.

The horror of the First World War and the conflicts that followed have led to ongoing debate in the journal around ethical, legal and management questions. While in the 1920s contributors looked to eliminate war completely, in the 1930s others began to debate when force could and should be used.

Philip Noel-Baker, a prominent disarmament campaigner who would go on to win the Nobel Peace prize in 1959, was a leading figure in this debate. Following the collapse of the League of Nations Disarmament Conference at the end of 1934, he wrote about the power dynamics that would lead to the League’s collapse.

Speaking at the heart of the British empire, Gandhi addressed Chatham House on the future of India. He was part of an early wave of Indian and Pakistani Independence leaders who would challenge British imperialism, including Muhammad Zafrulla Khan and Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru.

In the 1930s more women came to work at Chatham House. Highly educated women benefited from the institute’s flat hierarchy and were able to progress their careers in an otherwise highly patriarchal society.

One such woman was Margaret Cleeve who played a vital role in turning the journal into something of an outlier in the world of British academia and policy-making throughout the 1930s and 1940s. She featured numerous contributions from women authors, although the majority were still men. Find out more about the contributions of women to International Affairs in our Archive Collection, edited by Katharina Rietzler.

Speaking mere months before he unsuccessfully lead the French army’s defence against German invasion, Maxime Weygand addressed Chatham House on the state of France’s defences. The year before, Arnold Toynbee called the Munich agreement ‘a disaster’ in a speech that unsettled both supporters and opponents of Britain’s appeasement policy.

Margaret Cleeve, who had become Director of Chatham House’s research committee whilst remaining editor of International Affairs, ensured that women played a key, while often ignored, role in organizing Chatham House’s research output during the war. Notably, during 1940 and 1941 Helen Liddell summarized key publications on Britain’s strategic aims during the conflict.

From the outbreak of the Second World War to the gradual entrenchment of superpower conflict at the end of the decade, the military, technological and humanitarian consequences of the deadliest war in human history occupied much of the journal’s attention during the 1940s.

Bertha Bracey was a Quaker and refugee activist. Bracey wrote on the challenges facing displaced people in the immediate aftermath of the war. Read our Archive Collection on refugees and migration for a century of analysis on the treatment of refugees.

The post-war landscape was marred by uncertainty over the international system. Renowned historian and Chatham House Director of Studies Arnold Toynbee reflected on the potential for renewed conflict and cooperation in a rapidly changing international political context.

During the 1960s several anticolonial nationalist leaders spoke at Chatham House and wrote in the journal, including Habib Bourguiba, Léopold Senghor, Mohammed Ayub Khan and Julius Nyerere. Alongside these ground-breaking figures, much of the work on decolonization in International Affairs during this period came from British voices. Explore this topic further in Meera Sabaratnam’s analysis of how empire and decolonization was covered the journal.

Julius Nyerere’s speech to Chatham House was both a watershed moment and a stark example of the pressures faced by anticolonial leaders demanding independence in the capitals of empire.

The 1970s saw a fundamental shift in the journal’s content towards more rigorous academic articles, with leading scholars such as Hedley Bull and Susan Strange writing seminal pieces. Throughout the decade, much of the journal’s work explored the strength of post-war institutions, such as the UN and IMF.

Arguably the most academically influential article in International Affairs’s 100-year history, Susan Strange’s ‘International Economics and International Relations: a case of mutual neglect’ was a central text in the creation of international political economy. Strange would go on to have a seismic impact on the study of international relations, publishing over 80 times in International Affairs between 1950 and 1996.

Throughout the 1980s, Chatham House and International Affairs acted as a key place for senior policy-makers and academics alike to discuss Britain’s relationship with the world. Henry Kissinger reflected on the special relationship, while Dame Helen Wallace analysed Britain’s time as chair of the European community’s council of ministers. Delve into 100 years of UK foreign policy in our Archive Collection. 

Another prominent theme throughout the 1980s and 1990s was the future of Hong Kong. Political scientist and democracy academic Joseph Y. S. Cheng and Michael Yahuda in different ways tackled the complex implications of the upcoming end of British Rule.

During the 1980s, the UK underwent dramatic socioeconomic change. Economist and former Chairman of Chatham House DeAnne Julius assessed the role of both British government policy and international economic shifts.

After much focus on conflicts in Europe, in the first decade of the new millennium the journal invited new perspectives. Naturally, the impact of 9/11 and conflicts in the Middle East still received much attention, but critical perspectives of humanitarian interventions grew, and new topics including global health crises and biodiversity were covered.

Discussions of international environmental politics would pick up steam in the early 2000s with the publication of this special issue. The following year, another special issue was devoted to ‘The climate change debate’.

The US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and Britain’s involvement in both endeavours, were central topics of discussion through much of the 2000s, from Timothy Garden’s immediate response to the invasion of Iraq to Fatima Ayub and Sari Kouvo’s insightful analysis of western intervention in Afghanistan. A later special issue in 2010 looked at the future of ‘Post-American Iraq’. Read our Archive Collection on war and conflict for 20 different perspectives on the topic over the last century.

A special issue revisited the war in Kosovo and reflected the journal’s critical evaluation of humanitarian interventions in the 2000s, following the initial optimism of the early 1990s. Concerns with the limits of intervention and the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect featured throughout the decade, with Alex Bellamy’s 2008 article providing an important analysis of its contested rise to prominence.

From articles on the Paris Climate accord, the 2016 Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump and the growing power of China and the Indo-Pacific, International Affairs began to broaden its focus. Although the journal had published previously on these topics, there was a marked increase in the diversity of contributors, with more global scholars writing on both regional and international issues.

Chatham House and the journal were set up in response to the First World War. A special issue reflected on the war, while a companion issue in 2019 looked at the continued impact of the Paris peace conference.

Andrew Dorman joined as Editor and continues to head up the journal today. During Andrew’s tenure the journal has cemented its attention to all aspects of international relations, from debating the future of the Women, Peace and Security doctrine to new perspectives foreign policy analysis.

As China has grown in economic and geopolitical prominence, the volume of work published on China in International Affairs has also increased, from 11 articles in the 2000s to roughly 59 articles in the 2010s. In particular, the July 2016 issue on Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping was something of a watershed moment for the journal’s coverage. A special issue the following year looked at ‘India’s rise at 70’. Look at the Archive Collection on China’s role in international politics for more on this growing power.