[ARTICLES] In Search of the Intellectual Infrastructure of Studies of International Relations: Changing Characteristics of the International Relations Program by the Rockefeller Foundation and its Expectations

Abstract

This paper elucidates the role of the philanthropy -- particularly the role of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) -- as a facilitator in constructing the intellectual infrastructure of studies of international relations from the 1930s to the 1950s in the US. This analysis explains one essential factor: the institutional factor. The RF contributed to international relations as an autonomous and distinct field, International Relations (IR) later becoming known as the 'American social science.' This paper focuses on the RF's International Relations program (IR program) and addresses the following questions: what kind of people were involved in this program?; what kind of institutions and individuals were funded?; how did the characteristics of the IR program change over time?; and to what extent did the IR program contribute to establishing the intellectual foundations of international relations? This paper, therefore, traces the changing characteristics and strategies of the IR program from the 1930s to the 1950s by using primary sources from the IR program at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) in New York, including officials' diaries, reports for the IR program and annual reports by the RF. It concludes that the Rockefeller Foundation and its IR program played indispensable roles in (1) the support of the primitive theoretical inquiry into international relations and the groups of the earlier 'classical realist' scholars in the US; (2) the creation of close governmental-academic relationships in the research area of international relations; and, (3) the formation of global intellectual networks emphasizing international affairs, including collaborative relationships of think tanks and universities around the world. These three elements played a major role in producing the intellectual foundation of the American social science of international relations.