Continuity and change in international relations 1919–2019

Abstract

This article reflects on themes of continuity and change over the past century of international relations. In 1919 the victors of the First World War endeavoured to remake international relations by abolishing war and erecting institutional structures that were intended to promote a more just world order. The achievements and failures of this project can be discerned in overlapping patterns of continuity and change that portray a world that is at once old and new. The discourse of change tends to dominate thinking about international relations. Technological innovation, globalisation, and human rights, among other factors, cultivate the progressive ‘one-worldism’ of an interconnected global community of nations and peoples. But, evidence of change notwithstanding, much of contemporary international relations would be intelligible to persons who lived a century ago. International relations is still fundamentally about order and security, power and restraint, and freedom and equality. These patterns provide an important reminder that progress is possible but that international relations involves an open-ended project of continuous renovation and conservation.