Description
This paper explores the historical origins of the League of Nations' institutional design, which separated the membership into a great power-dominated council and a largely deliberative assembly. Neo-Weberian theories of social closure suggest that powerful states will institute ways of entrenching their privileged position. While these theories are well-placed to account for the emergence and consolidation of “legalized hierarchies” in international affairs, they cannot explain the specific arrangement that states chose to implement. Our study historicizes social closure research, showing how historical antecedents conditioned the negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference. More specifically, it demonstrates that the Anglo-American drafters of the League designed the organization in view of their experience with Latin American participation at The Second Hague Conference. The separation of the membership into council and assembly was a deliberate response against the participation of smaller states in international governance. Backlash design explains the institutional choice in 1919 and the tense compromise between great power privilege and inclusive multilateralism that continues to vex international politics to this day.
