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Sanctions and Security: The League of Nations and the Italian–Ethiopian War, 1935–1936

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

George W. Baer
Affiliation:
George W. Baer is associate professor of history at theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz, and this year a Peace Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford. Research for this study was aided by a Younger Scholar Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Extract

The imposition of limited sanctions against Italy was given fair prospect of success by members of the League. Sanctions were to have a twofold purpose. One was to uphold the Covenant and encourage collective security. The other was to end the war by putting pressure on the Italian government so as to make it amenable to a negotiated settlement. It was expected that economic and financial measures (as opposed to military means) would be sufficient, over a period of time, to achieve this. The timetable was upset by unexpected political events and by the collapse of Ethiopian military resistance. Policies are explained, events discussed, and to illuminate some dilemmas a distinction (not then well perceived) is made between politically important “consumatory” assumptions and diplomatically operative “instrumentalist” and reconciliationist practices.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1973

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