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To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7709.2010.00895.x Byline: binoy kampmark (*) Abstract: Abstract The notion that a nation's 'people' are the sovereign arbiters of its affairs, exercising power through a representative leadership who govern in the name of public 'virtue', point to a concept of political legitimacy which has proven to be a guiding principle in American diplomacy. The Wilson administration's response to peace overtures by the German government between 1917 and 1918 is a good illustration of this tendency. In line with American domestic political mores and values, the Wilson administration, along with the U.S. Congress and American publicists sought to encourage a political reshaping of Germany through aggressive public diplomacy. This was achieved by apportioning war responsibility between sections of German society (guilty autocrats and subservient citizens). The legitimacy of the German state as an equal partner in international relations, was thereby questioned. This distinction, in time, collapsed showing the inconsistencies within the Wilson administration in challenging the internal workings of a foreign government.

Fifty years have passed since the publication of The tragedy of American Diplomacy, the seminal work by New Left scholar William Appleman Williams. The work fired off one of the most important salvos of historical revisionism, heralding the arrival of the 'Wisconsin School' of American historiography. In examining the expansionist and consuming tendencies of American power and capital, Williams ushered in a movement which has left an enduring mark. Despite attacks on its credibility and an assortment of drawbacks, Tragedy remains a strong antidote to triumphalist narratives of American history, and pressingly important in the current political climate. doi: 10.1017/S0018246X10000154

What we do must be a lesson for kings and for all those who have responsibility for government. Lloyd George, April 8, 1919, Meeting of Council of Four. Conventional wisdom characterises President Woodrow Wilson as a progressive internationalist in the making of foreign policy, sceptical of international practices such as secret diplomacy and balance-of-power theories. An examination of the Wilson Administration's record in quelling Allied attempts to punish Kaiser Wilhelm II after the end of the First World War provides a contrasting view. The White House, leading figures in the State Department and a large grouping of prominent lawyers argued that punishing the German sovereign for waging war in violation of treaties would destabilise international order and lose the peace. Current American reluctance to participate in the International Criminal Court and fears of an undue intrusion of an international judiciary on the merits of foreign policy make an understanding of these reservations timely.

BIG is not necessarily beautiful, but the current agendas of both the European Union and NATO is one of steady aggrandizement. The more members each can take, it would seem, [...]

This paper examines the legal and political arguments of those who support an expansive interpretation of US executive power in the face of threats to the state, taking a comparative historical perspective. It discusses the rationale for this approach by locating its historical origins in international and American jurisprudence, thereby placing them in a modern context. Attention is paid to the points made by various legal representatives of the Bush administration such as John Choon Yoo and Jay S. Bybee. Their views on an expansive response to state emergencies are based on a reading of executive power that informs the Bush administration's approach to law between 2001 and 2008. But this paper goes further in arguing that a common political-juridical ground exists between various critics of the Bush administration, and those who formulated the policies of torture and rendition. This common ground on the subject of executive power in response to emergency lies primarily in the examination of the state of exception examined by Giorgio Agamben. This approach has various implications as to the general exercise of power by the executive in a democratic system. Legem non habet necessitas. Necessity knows no law. Augustine, Soliloquium, 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]