著者

水野 良哉

出版者

一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2021, no.202, pp.202_31-202_46, 2021-03-29 (Released:2022-03-31)

参考文献数

98

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This paper sheds new light on a British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) as a prominent scholar in the international relations by focusing on his arguments about European international affairs, particularly in the late 1930s. Through the analysis, this paper also contributes to further understanding of “Liberal Internationalism” in the 1930s and deepening our thought on the contemporary international order.Toynbee is famous for his book A Study of History, where he described the development and decline of the Western Civilization, while previous studies have not addressed the role of Toynbee in international relations. It is primarily because he was criticized by E. H. Carr, who was another leading scholar in the discipline during the same period. In his classic work Twenty Years Crisis, Carr criticized his opponents by describing each of them as a utopian, who failed to grasp the reality of international politics. Among the utopians, Toynbee was included.However, Toynbee was a prominent scholar in the international relations between the 1920s and the early 1950s. I discuss this underestimated aspect of the British historian by examining how he reacted to the rising threat of a totalitarian state, namely Nazi Germany.After the experience of the First World War, Toynbee realized that the war and its related destructions gravely damaged Western Europe. In his view, the enormous power of sovereignty states would cause international anarchy and inter-state conflict. Therefore, Toynbee advanced a new idea of the international order for regulating state sovereignty and facilitating international cooperation of states.In contrast to his earlier belief, the political events which were damaging the European international relations happened in the late 1930s. Among them, the expansion of Nazi Germany appeared as the most serious threat to peace. Faced with the threat, the British government appeased toward Nazi Germany, especially in the Munich Agreement and did not immediately use serious countermeasures against it.Because of the Nazi’s aggressive behaviours, Toynbee needed to reconsider his initial political viewpoint. However, the more significant event for him was the Munich Agreement. Toynbee stood against the Agreement and stated that Nazi Germany would be a potential threat to Europe, due to its power and totalitarian ideology. Under the political circumstances, he thought that Britain had to resist against the totalitarian state. Besides, he called for the US’s diplomatic involvement in the European continent and then strategic cooperation by Britain, France, and the Soviet Union in order to prevent further expansion by Nazi Germany. By making these statements, he aimed to restore the broken balance of power and to defend democracy, and the rule of law in the European Continent.