Missed opportunities to be global: Conversion and diversion of the scientific field of knowledge of international relations of the International Studies Conference and the Institute of Pacific Relations

This paper examines the role of the League of Nations in shaping the “scientific” knowledge of international relations through the case of the League-initiated International Studies Conference (ISC: 1928-1954). It examines the historical moments of the intersections between this process of the ISC and the making of another emerging knowledge field—“Area Studies”—by mainly focusing on the interjection of the Institute of Pacific Relations at the ISC in 1930 and, to a lesser extent, on a Unesco “forum” in 1952. It argues that these were the missed opportunities for both “International Relations” and “Area Studies” to become global knowledge.