TransMoneA: Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο με θέμα: "The Agency of International Institutions during the Interwar Period: Generating Innovation or Establishing a Global Financial Order?" (9/3/2022)

Scientific Responsible : C. Brégianni

The seminar meeting is a preparatory event in the framework of the TransMonEA Session ‘’Financial Expertise and Monetary Order as Societal and Individual Experience. Global Actors and Local Players (XIXec.-XXec.), organized by Catherine Brégianni. XIX World Economic History Congress - Paris 25-29 July 2022

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Topic: TransΜonΕΑ Seminar: The Agency of International Institutions during the Interwar Period: Generating Innovation or Establishing a Global Financial Order?

TransMonEA project, HFRI- Academy of Athens

WITH

the participation of the cooperative institution’s members,   UMR Développement et Sociétés, IEDES, University of Paris-1   https://umr-devsoc.pantheonsorbonne.fr/umr-developpement-societes

The Agency of International Institutions during the Interwar Period:  Generating Innovation or Establishing a Global Financial Order?

The role played by the League of Nations (LoN) in global economic and financial issues has already received much attention; it is widely recognized that the institution was concerned with transnational affairs as much as with international ones. However, an analysis focused on how the LoN influenced national economies more concretely remains less developed. It is rather complicated to unravel the mechanisms and instruments that connect global to local or national affairs. The papers of the current seminar’s meeting explore three different but interconnected cases of the financial ‘’innovations’’ implemented by the global institutions of the interwar period, and of their role to state-building as well as to the expertise generated on transnational level.   

The seminar meeting is a preparatory event in the framework of the TransMonEA Session “Financial Expertise and Monetary Order as Societal and Individual Experience. Global Actors and Local Players (XIXec.-XXec.),” organized by Catherine Brégianni. XIX World Economic History Congress - Paris 25-29 July 2022. 

Methods for studying international statistical activities: the case of the ‘’Meeting’ of statistical officers’’ of Central Banks, 1928

Roser Cussό, Professor, UMR Développement et Sociétés, IEDES, University of Paris-1

This presentation focuses on international monetary statistics and their use for political leverage. It introduces the statistical program of the Economic and Financial Section (EFS) of the League. The EFS laid the grounds for transnational cooperation on international trade data. The aim was to give the “free trade” mission a shared “technical language” and a common steering mechanism. The EFS was also interested in the harmonization of data relating to currency, prices, and credits.

This presentation first tries to better understand the utility and usage of these data as well as to consider how to trace the national impact of their (possible) harmonization. It then analyses a number of significant documents related to the work of the EFS and proposes their discussion within an interdisciplinary methodology. This paper aims to designate the technical expertise provided by the transnational organizations and its impact upon national policies.

The international experts and expertise in the making of new Turkey's economic policies and instruments: the question of economic sovereignty in the interwar Turkish state-building

Aykiz Dogan, UMR Développement et Sociétés, IEDES, Université of Paris-1

This paper presents preliminary results of a research on the role of international experts and expertise in economic policymaking in the newly established Turkish Republic after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. We will firstly discuss how the nationalist elites conceived of the question of economic independence as a condition for attaining full sovereignty as well as the modernity they aspired. We will provide general insights regarding Turkey’s peripheral position in the world economy since the late Ottoman period and the problem of economic sovereignty according to the political elites who were inspired by Second International intellectuals, among other international streams of thought. This discussion will allow to highlight certain continuities between the two periods such as the question of sovereign debt, which will be negotiated under the arbitration of the League of Nations. Then we will focus on some of the concrete programs of the Ankara Government regarding economic policies and instruments. These programs include and base on a statistical reform entrusted to the Belgian demographer Camille Jacquart. We will explore the implications of institutional and personal relations of this international statistical expert with international organizations such as the LoN or the International Statistical Institute, in the organization of Turkish statistics and general census. We will focus on the economic statistics and in particular industrial census results which will constitute a base for applying international expertise in economic policy making. Firstly, we will evoke the study and recommendations of the Belgian expert, Jacquart, on the Turkish economy. Then we will evoke other European and American experts who advised the Ankara Government in economic policies. We will finally present the Soviet technical assistance and development aid to Turkey's first industrialization program, and conclude by a general discussion.

Global financial institutions and Interwar population transfers: League of Nations and the Refugee Settlement Commission in Greece during the 1920s.   

Catherine Brégianni, Research Director, Greek Modern History Research Center/Academy of Athens

Demographic changes in the European continent during the Interwar period, and especially the forced population movements, were subject to financial “arrangements” provided by international institutions, i.e. the League of Nations and its specialized committees. This paper, specializes in the Greek case according to the axes developed by the Workshop Population Transfers on the European Continent during the First Half of the 20th Century Socio-economic Outcomes and Perceptions of Displacements, organized by the Modern Greek History Research Center/ Academy of Athens, in cooperation with the University of Giessen/Department of Histories, in the 9th of February 2020.

The presentation focuses then on both the technical and economic conditions underlying the establishment of the refugees in Greece, after the Lausanne Conference (September 1923),  and investigates the expertise that has been generated by the international institutions and their implication to the implementation of refugee settlement, in conjunction with the local refugee social networks.

An important actor of the refugee settlement, especially the one applied in rural areas of Greece, was  the Refugee Settlement Commission, established after a decision making by the LoN and its Financial Committee; Refugee Settlement Commission’s activity in Greece up to 1930 is investigated in its global context, via archival sources of the LoN conserved in the Historical Archives of the Bank of France as well as of the Bank of Greece.