Los estudios internacionales en América Latina: realizaciones y desafíos

Los ESTUDIOS INTERNACIONALES EN AMÉRICA LATINA beinteresting for you if 1 explain what these principIes between the British and American institutes for the study of international affairs are. . Oue fiest principIe was that we should accept no financial aid from the government of our country. The fear of course that if it gave and if we accepted financial aid from it, the government might be tempted to use this as a lever for imposing on us some policy of its own and so depriving us of our intellectualliberty to study international affairs objectively. By the way the American Council on Foreign Relations deals with a rather narrower field than the British Institute of International affairs, because the American Council on Foreign Relations deals only with the foreign relations of ·one country, of the United States. Of course today the foreign relations of the United States. Of course today the foreign relations of the United States are practically equivalent to the whole set of international affairs of the whole world, because there is nothing that happens in the worId that is not of concem to the United States, since the seeond World War. But after the first World War, especially when the United States withdrew from the League of Nations and tried to return to her traditional isolation, American foreign relations were still very far short of being co:cxtensive with international affairs as a whole. On the other hand Britain who was already up to the neck in international affairs, in Britain we founded an institute which was to study intemational affairs of all kinds, whether or not Britain happened to be concerned with them. We would study relations between France and Italy, or relations between Belgium and the Netherlands just as much as some intemational affair in which Britain happened to be coneerned. Let me come back now to this self denying tlnancial policy. For the early part of the century before the two World Wars, in Britain and the United States, on the whole, wealth was in the hands of private indlviduals and not of the government. Taxation was relatively light, and the rieh people retained their wealth. And a great deal of the intellectual and philanthropic work in both countries was done by private associations, fcom which public bodíes held back -which were not supported by public funds. And this was the tradition which led the American Council on Foreign Relations and the British Institute of InternationaI Affairs to reject the idea of taking public money to support it. Of course since then the balance has changed. More and more of the national income in all countries has passed into the gov:ernment's hands, with the inecease in taxation, and less and less has remained in prívate hands. Therefore it has become more and more difficult, even in the United States, 1 suppose, to raise money from prívate sourees for aeademic and philanthropic purposes. All the same in both these institutes we have managed so far to avoid using publie money. On the. other hand neither the Couneil on Foreign Relations nor the British Institute of Intemational Affairs was afraid of taking money from the 24