Wilsonianism, or Wilsonian idealism, is a certain type of foreign policy advice. The term comes from the ideas and proposals of President

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

. He issued his famous Fourteen Points in January 1918 as a basis for ending

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and promoting

world peace World peace, or peace on Earth, is the concept of an ideal state of peace within and among all people and nations on Planet Earth. Different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations have varying concepts on how such a state would ...

. He was a leading advocate of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference th ...

to enable the international community to avoid wars and end hostile aggression. Wilsonianism is a form of

liberal internationalism Liberal internationalism is a foreign policy doctrine that argues two main points: first, that international organizations should achieve multilateral agreements between states that uphold rules-based norms and promote liberal democracy, and, se ...

Principles

Common principles that are often associated with Wilsonianism include: * Advocacy of the spread of

democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose g ...

. Anne-Marie Slaughter writes that Wilson expected and hoped "that democracy would result from self-determination, but he never sought to spread democracy directly."Anne-Marie Slaughter, "Wilsonianism in the Twenty-first Century" in ''The Crisis of American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the Twenty-first Century'' (eds. G. John Ikenberry, Thomas J. Knock, Anne Marie-Slaughter & Tony Smith: Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. 94-96. Slaughter writes that Wilson's League of Nations was similarly intended to foster liberty democracy by serving as "a high wall behind which nations", especially small nations, "could exercise their right of self determination" but that Wilson did not envision that the United States would affirmatively intervene to "direct" or "shape" democracies in foreign nations. * Conferences and bodies devoted to resolving conflict, especially the

and the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

. * Emphasis on

self-determination The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a '' jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It sta ...

of peoples. * Advocacy of the spread of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...

. * Support for

collective security Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement, political, regional, or global, in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and therefore commits to a collective response to threats ...

, and at least partial opposition to

American isolationism United States non-interventionism primarily refers to the foreign policy that was eventually applied by the United States between the late 18th century and the first half of the 20th century whereby it sought to avoid alliances with other nation ...

. * Support for open diplomacy and opposition to

secret treaties A secret treaty is a treaty ( international agreement) in which the contracting state parties have agreed to conceal the treaty's existence or substance from other states and the public.Helmut Tichy and Philip Bittner, "Article 80" in Olivier D ...

. * Support for freedom of navigation and

freedom of the seas Freedom of the seas ( la, mare liberum, lit. "free sea") is a principle in the law of the sea. It stresses freedom to navigate the oceans. It also disapproves of war fought in water. The freedom is to be breached only in a necessary inter ...

. Historian Joan Hoff writes, "What is 'normal' Wilsonianism remains contested today. For some, it is 'inspiring

' based on adherence to self-determination; for others, Wilsonianism is the exemplar of

humanitarian intervention Humanitarian intervention is the use or threat of military force by a state (or states) across borders with the intent of ending severe and widespread human rights violations in a state which has not given permission for the use of force. Human ...

around the world,' making U.S. foreign policy a paragon of carefully defined and restricted use of force."Joan Hoff, ''A Faustian Foreign Policy from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush: Dreams of Perfectability'' (Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 61. Amos Perlmutter defined Wilsonianism as simultaneously consisting of "liberal internationalism, self-determination, nonintervention, humanitarian intervention" oriented in support of

, open diplomacy,

American exceptionalism American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is inherently different from other nations.open borders, and opposed to

revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

. According to University of Chicago political theorist Adom Getachew, Wilson's version of self-determination was a reassociation of an idea that others had previously imbued with different meanings. Wilson's version of self-determination "effectively recast self-determination as a racially differentiated principle, which was fully compatible with imperial rule."

Wilsonian moment

The Wilsonian moment was a time in the wake of the First World War in which many of those in the colonised world hoped that the time had come for the pre-war world order, which placed the Western powers at the top and marginalised the majority of the rest of the world, to be demolished and non-European nations would be given their rightful place.Erez Manela
is a key historian of the Wilsonian moment, having produced work on the topic which include case studies on the Wilsonian moment in Egypt, Korea, China, and India. He aimed to address the fact that the significance of Wilsonianism in Asia and Africa had received little attention from scholars. The reaction in the colonised world was largely the result of Wilson's Fourteen Points speech on 8 January 1918, in which Wilson advocated the formation of a "general association of nations", "for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike". He declared in a subsequent speech to the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

on February 8, 1918, that in the post-war peace settlement "national aspirations must be respected" and people could only be governed "by their own consent". Self-determination was not "not a mere phrase" but an "imperative principle of action". Wilson's words launched an atmosphere of intense optimism and hope amongst marginalised peoples in all corners of the globe. Erez Manela argues that by December 1918, shortly before the

Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920) The Paris Peace Conference was the formal meeting in 1919 and 1920 of the victorious Allies after the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and ...

, Wilson was "a man of almost transcendent significance". Wilson's rhetoric certainly had an impact in Asian nations, including India, where he was hailed as "The Modern Apostle of Freedom" by Indian nationalist Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, and in China, where Wilson's words were viewed as a crucial opportunity to improve China’s situation domestically and internationally. According to Manela, many in Asia had faith that Wilson could and did intend to form a new international order, reducing the gap between the East and the West. In Egypt, Wilson's self-determination advocation led to hopes that Egypt may be freed from British control and would be afforded the opportunity to rule itself. Sarah Claire Dunstan's work also indicates that Wilson's rhetoric had an impact on marginalised groups within the United States, such as

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

. Members of disenfranchised groups like the African-American community were enthusiastic and some members, like peoples in various colonised nations, felt an opportunity had arisen to forward their own case for self-determination. All the hopes for self-determination that Wilson raised would soon be dashed when the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1 ...

was signed on 28 June 1919. Versailles did not destroy the colonial system, and much of the colonial world was left in disillusionment. Manela suggests this led to violent protest movements in various marginalised nations, including the

Egyptian Revolution of 1919 The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 ( ''Thawra 1919'') was a countrywide revolution against the British occupation of Egypt and Sudan. It was carried out by Egyptians from different walks of life in the wake of the British-ordered exile of the ...

, the

May Fourth Movement The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen (The Gate of Heavenly Peace) to protest the Chin ...

in China,

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

's passive resistance movement in India, and the

March 1st Movement The March 1st Movement, also known as the Sam-il (3-1) Movement (Hangul: 삼일 운동; Hanja: 三一運動), was a protest movement by Korean people and students calling for independence from Japan in 1919, and protesting forced assimilation ...

in Korea.

Impact

Historian David Kennedy argues that American foreign relations since 1914 have rested on Wilsonian

idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ...

, even if adjusted somewhat by the

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: * Classical Realism *Literary realism, a mov ...

represented by Franklin D. Roosevelt and

Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...

. Kennedy argues that every president since Wilson has "embraced the core precepts of Wilsonianism. Nixon himself hung Wilson's portrait in the White House Cabinet Room. Wilson's ideas continue to dominate American foreign policy in the twenty-first century. In the aftermath of 9/11 they have, if anything, taken on even greater vitality." Wilson was a remarkably effective writer and thinker, and his diplomatic policies had a profound influence on shaping the world. Diplomatic historian Walter Russell Mead said:

"Wilson's principles survived the eclipse of the Versailles system and that they still guide European politics today: self-determination, democratic government, collective security, international law, and a league of nations. Wilson may not have gotten everything he wanted at Versailles, and his treaty was never ratified by the Senate, but his vision and his diplomacy, for better or worse, set the tone for the twentieth century. France, Germany, Italy, and Britain may have sneered at Wilson, but every one of these powers today conducts its European policy along Wilsonian lines. What was once dismissed as visionary is now accepted as fundamental. This was no mean achievement, and no European statesman of the twentieth century has had as lasting, as benign, or as widespread an influence."Walter Russell Mead, ''Special Providence,'' (2001)
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Principles

Wilsonian moment

Impact

See also

References

Further reading