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When war broke out in the summer of 1914, the Danish government responded by declaring the country neutral. This decision marked the beginning of a particular neutral Danish war experience. This article analyses how Danish politics and society were affected by and responded to the war. It explores four themes in particular: the relationship between neutrality, trade and economic warfare; internationalist and humanitarian practices; political and redistributive responses to the war and the particular 'neutral' cultural processing of the war in Denmark. It argues that while the material and human consequences of the war were negligent compared to those experienced by belligerent societies, the war did have substantial effect on the Danish state and society, creating new diplomatic and political practices, reshaping economic relations and shifting domestic power balances.

In the 20th century and since 1945 in particular the institution of diplomacy has changed. While traditional bilateral diplomatic relations have expanded rapidly as a consequence of decolonisation, other developments have challenged the very nature of existing diplomatic practices. The overall aim of this paper is to reflect on how, from a historical starting point, one can grapple with the changes diplomacy has undergone in an increasingly interconnected and institutionally integrated world. It argues that in order to do so it is necessary to bring the historical study of diplomacy into dialogue with recent transnational perspectives and to draw inspiration from the political and social sciences. It tentatively attempts to develop such a new historical approach and it conducts a pilot study into how increased regional European economic cooperation in the 1950s and 1960s contributed to reshaping diplomatic roles and patterns of actions in the Danish Foreign Service.

Cover -- Title Page -- Contents -- Foreword (Michael Møller) -- Introduction -- The League of Nations- Perspectives from the Present (Haakon A. Ikonomou And Karen Gram-Skjoldager) -- Bibliography -- Part 1-Inside The League -- The Men Behind the Man: Canvassing the Directorship of the League of Nations Secretariat (Torsten Kahlert And Karen Gram-Skjoldager) -- Three Generations -- The Directors in the Institutional Setup of the Secretariat -- Founding Fathers -- The Firs T Generation(1920-1927) -- The Insiders -- The Second Genera Tion(1928-1932) -- The Third Generation (1933-1946)

Skildring af dansk udenrigspolitik fra den internationalistiske tænknings indtog i 1880'erne frem til den 2. verdenskrig. Der tegnes et billede af en balancegang mellem et idealistisk engagement i Folkeforbundet og en stærkt tilpasningsorienteret politik

This article reintroduces the League of Nations Secretariat as a fundamentally significant object of historical study. By drawing on key insights from three generations of historiography on the Secretariat, the authors explore how historians can use a Bourdieusian conceptual framework to study this first major international administrative body. Each generation of literature has emphasized one of three professional archetypes – the bureaucrat, the diplomat and the technocrat. Moving beyond these archetypes, and applying Antoine Vauchez's concept of 'weak fields' and the notions of import, brokering capacity and hybridity, we see how the professional templates that were being imported into the Secretariat were culturally specific (mainly to Britain and Northern Europe) and how they were merged and reinvented to secure the smooth running of a multilateral, multinational and multivalent organization given charge of a series of new functions, thus producing new, specific forms of expertise exclusive to the Secretariat. Accordingly, we capture both the complexities of what kind of professional cultures came to dominate the Secretariat and the novelty of some of the types of expertise it rested upon: an important step towards a deeper understanding of the characteristics and role of international public administration in international politics in the twentieth century.

AbstractScandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) is frequently seen as a democratic 'island of peace' in international politics and the three states are seen as ardent supporters of an 'international community' under the umbrella of the United Nations as well as its predecessor, the League of Nations. This article seeks to challenge this idealised, unitary conception of Scandinavian peace politics by exploring how different strands of internationalism, as transnational phenomena, developed from the outbreak of the First World War until the three states became members of the League. Initially, that development was more or less independent of official foreign policy. The article explains how and to what degree new internationalist ideas were eventually merged with traditional neutralist Scandinavian foreign policies.