Author: Duncan Darroch Campbell
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Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This thesis springs from the analysis of a variety of approaches to world government presented in Gerard J. Mangone 1 s book M The Idea and Practice of World Government (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), pp. 278. In concluding his review, Professor Mangone poses as a solution, the development of a pattern of life, a universal democratic world culture and its diffusion throughout the world with militant zeal. This would emanate, he proposes, from an active crusading organization. He suggests further that such a missionary movement must be supported by force. It is the purpose of this thesis to examine the development of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in its formative years, 1945-1952, against this proposition. By way of introduction, reference is made to the Economic and Financial Organization of the League of Nations, the International Labour Organization and the League's Organization for Intellectual Cooperation against the background of the League itself. The origin, rationale, objectives and operations of these organizations is briefly surveyed to provide a backdrop of comparison and contrast to Unesco. The narrative traces the development of this new public international agency, Unesco, from its World War II beginnings and suggests some of the diverse influences which operated to shape it. The analysis of Unesco is undertaken in two periods, 1946-1949 and 1950-1952. The approach in each is an examination, chiefly through the verbatim records of the Sessions of the General Conference, of attempts to develop a philosophy for Unesco, of its search for purpose and the formulation of its policies. Noted particularly are the contributions of Julian Huxley, Reinhold Niebuhr and Jacques Maritain, each of whom, in different capacities, were closely connected with Unesco. Specific attempts to formulate appropriate program criteria, policy codes and a basic program are traced in each of the two periods noted above. The many and varying conceptions of Unesco*s function, the great differences between Member States, uncertainties in the Constitution, vested interest of various disciplines, disagreement over the breadth of its program and to whom and how it should be directed, staffing, unsatisfactory public relations and political differences were among the growing pains of Unesco. The thesis concludes that the new movement proposed by Mangone is not strictly comparable to Unesco. It suggests that the essential difference between the two ]ies less in the matter of long-run purpose than in method of approach. It argues further, that on the basis of evidence drawn from its 1945-1952 span of life, the Unesco approach seems on balance to be the more realistic as an avenue leading towards world government.