Routes of Knowledge: Toward a Methodological Framework for Tracing the Historical Impact of International Organizations

Abstract

Recent trends in the historiography of international organizations are occupied with tracing their historical impact on national contexts. There is, however, no consensus on how to conduct this type of analysis methodologically. This article examines the methodological challenges arising from this type of research. While a great deal of inspiration can be gathered from contemporary impact assessment studies, substantial conceptual and theoretical development is needed to make the idea of “impact” operational and feasible in historical studies. It is, we argue, through the focus on impact levels, space, and movement that the idea of tracing the historical impact of international organizations becomes a promising research agenda.

Notes

¹We use the term “regional” to avoid methodological nationalism, i.e., the tendency to understand nations as pivotal, monolithic entities. The term ‘regional’ allows us to describe the nation, regions within a nation and regions across nations and thus the potential multiplicity of impacts associated with IOs initiatives.

²Obviously, certain IO member states—or even agents—may be able to exert an influence by determining the type and scope of interventions being formulated. This attests to the presence of a strong outside feed-in mechanism, since no IO exits in splendid isolation. However, in this context we find it useful to use the ideological level as a starting point and then to develop and reach a model which is eventually able to take the feed-in mechanism into account.

³Readers will recall the often quoted UNESCO constitution “That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed: That ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war.” The Constitution of UNESCO, signed on 16 November 1945.

⁴When possible, qualitative interviews may be incorporated as a viable source, since interviews hold the potential of disclosing key prosopographic information and perspectives that cannot be found in the traditional written or published sources.

⁵See “Avant-projet de loi portant creationd ‘un conseil national de la recherche scientifique au Liban: Synthese des avant projets de loi etablis par M. Y. de Hemptinne, Chef du Groupe d’organisation de la recherche scientifique de l’UNESCO et par la Commission Scientifique Nationale du Liban” 1962, NS/ROU/10, UNESCO Archives, Paris.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ivan Lind Christensen

Christian Ydesen, MA in History and Philosophy (2007) and PhD (2011), is an assistant professor and postdoctoral fellow at Aalborg University, Denmark. His main research focuses on history of educational testing, accountability, ethnicity and education, and international organisations.

Christian Ydesen

Ivan Lind Christensen, MA in History and Sociology (2007) and PhD from Copenhagen University (2010), is an assistant professor and postdoctoral fellow at Aalborg University, Denmark. His main areas of research are history of international organisations, history of science and science education, and medical history.