Backlash Design: Negative Preferences in Drafting the League of Nations

• In Event: The Historical Roots of 20th Century Global Governance

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of negative preferences on institutional choices during critical junctures. As the inaugural global organization paving the way for the United Nations, the League of Nations featured a pivotal design element – the separation of membership into a great power-dominated council and a largely deliberative assembly. Contrary to existing accounts that depict the League as either an unprecedented innovation or a revival of nineteenth-century European concert diplomacy, we argue that drafters' choices were significantly shaped by the contemporary institutional environment. Drawing on original multi-archival research, we demonstrate that the League’s design originated from a backlash against the inclusion of smaller states in decision-making, with great powers drawing critical lessons from Latin American participation at the Second Hague Conference in 1907. Negative preferences, rather than drafters’ interest in progressive institutional change, explain the League’s design. Our study provides a novel interpretation of the historical roots of the League of Nations, contributing to debates on the origins and development of global governance and the role of antecedents in key moments of institutional change.

Authors

• Carsten-Andreas Schulz, University of Cambridge

• Tom Long, University of Warwick