Andrew Williams
Professor
Room: 241
Office Hours Tuesday 4 - 5; Wednesday 9 - 10
Tel: 1935
Email: ajw30
st-andrews.ac.uk
About
I was educated at the Universities of Keele and Geneva (Graduate School of International Studies) and I spent the first ten years of my academic career in Switzerland. My doctorate was in international history and looked at the relationship between the British Labour Party and the Soviet Union in the inter - war years. This later became my first book, Labour and Russia in 1989, which I followed with a study of East - West Trade, Trading with the Bolsheviks in 1992. In Geneva I helped set up an organization to practice and study international mediation. There I had close encounters with various international organizations and some multinational companies. On my return to the UK I became a lecturer in international relations at the University of Kent, where I stayed for 21 years, coming to St. Andrews in 2006. I have taught modules at both places on the study and practice of conflict and war, with a strong historical bias, if mainly to show how mistakes that are now being made have historical roots that it is vital to understand. My ambition in more recent years has been to show the historical roots of a number of key concepts in conflict and war studies, like Reconstruction, but more widely how the creation of liberal international orders has contributed to the dominance of 'liberal peace' thinking and practice in international politics since 1990. The results of that thinking have been published as books (Failed Imagination? Anglo - American New World Orders of the Twentieth Century, 1998, 2nd ed. 2007, and Liberalism and War, 2006. My aim is now to systematize much of my thinking. Hence with Roger Mac Ginty I recently published Conflict and Development (2009) which is now to be translated into Japanese. I am now working on a text book (with Amelia Hadfield and Simon Rofe) entitled International History, International Relations (forthcoming 2011) and a new monograph entitled France, Britain and the United States in the Twentieth Century: A Reappraisal.
Teaching
IR3027: American New World Orders
IR4523: The Aftermath of Wars: Liberal Dilemmas (with Roger Mac Ginty)
Research
Keywords: International relations; international history, conflict and war
My main interests lie in the following areas of the study of international relations:
- The ways in which the global order has evolved over the past century, and in particular how that order has been developed under the leadership of the United States and, to a lesser but still important extent, the U.K. and France. The main fruit of this so far has been Failed Imagination: Anglo - American New World Orders form Wilson to Bush, Manchester U.P., 1998, 2nd ed., 2007.
- The principle ways in which the international community, led by the liberal democratic Powers, has developed methods of dealing with the aftermath of major wars. In particular I am interested in the ways that such notions and practices as 'reconstruction' have evolved. This has led to a number of publications already, notably: Liberalism and War: The Victors and the Vanquished, Routledge, 2006.
- The culture and practices involved in the practical and theoretical issues surrounding international conflict resolution and transformation. My main hands-on experiences have been in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War, and especially in Moldova, but also in Eritrea. Some reflections on these themes can be found in: (with Roger Mac Ginty) on 'Conflict and Development', was published by Routledge in April 2009.
- The ways in which France has related to the 'Anglo-Saxon' powers since 1900. I am now writing a book about the relationship between France, Britain and the United States (mentioned above) in the past hundred years and have published several articles to that end, including in Diplomacy and Statecraft, the Review of International Studies and the Journal of Transatlantic Studies. I spent my study leave period (2010) working in the French Foreign Ministry archives in Paris, as well as the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower Presidential Libraries in the United States in preparation for this project, which I hope to send to the publisher, Macmillan, in 2012.
- A continuing interest in the relationship between international relations and international history, the subject of a textbook (mentioned above) for Routledge. I firmly believe that history is far too neglected in the study of international relations. I am also hoping to remedy that defect (albeit only slightly) by my recent editorship (with Luke Ashworth) of the International History Review, which we assumed in 2010 and whose editorial office is now based at St. Adrews..
Books
Labour and Russia: The Relationship of the Labour Party to the Soviet Union, 1924 - 1934, Manchester University Press, 1989
Trading with the Bolsheviks: The Politics of East - West Trade, 1919 - 1939, Manchester University Press, 1989
Failed Imagination? Anglo - American New World Orders from Wilson to Bush, Manchester University Press, 1997 and 2007
Meaning and International Relations, (edited with Peter Mandaville), London, Routledge, 2003
Liberalism and War: The Victors and the Vanquished, London, Routledge, 2006
Conflict and Development, (with Roger Mac Ginty)London, Routledge, 2009
Articles
'Norman Angell and his French Contemporaries, 1905 - 1914' Diplomacy and Statecraft, forthcoming
"'Fideles a la tradition anglo-saxonne': France and Britain in the Twentieth Century"; Ares; 23(1), 2008:91 - 99
"Why Don’t the French Do Think Tanks?: France Faces up to the Anglo-Saxon Superpowers, 1918-1921"; Review of International Studies; 34, 2008:53-68; Full text via DOI; Full text in DRR
Book Chapters
‘Reconstruction: the Missing Historical Link’ Chapter for: Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches (ed. Oliver Richmond), Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
‘Liberalism’ in Patrick Hayden, (ed.) The Ashgate Research Companion to Ethics and International Relations, Ashgate, 2009
‘Reconstruction: The Bringing of Peace and Plenty or Occult Imperialism? In Oliver Richmond and Roger Mac Ginty (eds) The Liberal Peace and Post - War Reconstruction: Myth or Reality, London, Routledge, 2009
Editorial Positions
Editor, Round Table: the Commonwealth Journal of International Studies, 2004 - 2008
Editor, International History Review (with Luke Ashworth), 2010 -
