Why did the League of Nations fail?

Jari Eloranta ()
Additional contact information
Jari Eloranta: Department of History, Appalachian State University, 224 Joyce Lawrence Lane, Anne Belk Hall, Boone, NC 28608, USA

Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, 2011, vol. 5, issue 1, 27-52

Abstract: Why did the League of Nations ultimately fail to achieve widespread disarmament, its most fundamental goal? This article shows that the failure of the League of Nations had two important dimensions: (1) the failure to provide adequate security guarantees for its members (like an alliance); (2) the failure of this organization to achieve the disarmament goals it set out in the 1920s and 1930s. Thus, it was doomed from the outset to fail, due to built-in institutional contradictions. It can also be modeled and analyzed as a potential military alliance. The results are fairly conclusive: The League of Nations did not function as a pure public-good alliance, which encouraged an arms race in the 1930s.

Keywords: League of Nations; Disarmament; Military spending; Alliance; Arms race (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F51 F53 H41 H56 N40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11698-010-0049-9 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to journal subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:afc:cliome:v:5:y:2011:i:1:p:27-52

Access Statistics for this article

Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History is currently edited by Claude Diebolt, Dora Costa and Jean-Luc Demeulemeester

More articles in Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History from Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().