\nAt
\nthe start and middle of the 20th century, an intellectual
\nof Romanian origin was close to the international centres of power
\nand decision-making that decided the fate of the international
\nrelations at the time and drew the map of Europe. His name was David
\nMitrany and was born in January 1888 in Bucharest into a Jewish
\nfamily. In 1908 he graduated from the High School of Commerce in
\nBucharest and after his military service he emigrated. He first went
\nto Hamburg, where he studied for three years, and then travelled to
\nthe capital of the United Kingdom, the home of what was to become the
\nfamous London School of Economics. Apart from economics, Mitrany also
\nstudied there sociology and social sciences. In 1918, he got his
\ndegree, followed by his PhD in 1929. At the time Mitrany was focused
\non the study of nationalism and social reform. The outbreak of WWI
\nwould make him change his view on these themes. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Professor Paul Drago\u0219
\nAligic\u0103 tells us more about Mitrany’s professional trajectory:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He emerged sometime during the First World War, in association
\nwith the British intelligence services, operating in south-eastern
\nEurope, and then reappears in the context of the Versailles Peace
\nConference and his support for Romania during the peace talks, after
\nwhich he is associated with The Manchester Guardian. When the
\nInstitute for Advanced Study was created at Princeton, he was the
\nsocial sciences’ counterpart of Einstein, with whom he was friends
\nand had intense conversations. […] We later find him associated
\nwith the Foreign Office. Moreover, he worked for the special entity
\ncreated by Churchill during WWII at Oxford to channel the Empire’s
\nstrategic thinking effort. So, there was this entity in Oxford of
\nwhich he was a part and which was working directly with the war
\ncabinet, not with the ministry and not with the government.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
David Mtrany worked at Princeton University
\nfrom 1933 until 1958, but also collaborated during this time with British
\nuniversities, especially during the war. From 1944 until 1960 he was advisor to
\nUnilever on international affairs. In 1957 he contributed to the creation in
\nthe British political system of a new institution specific to the Scandinavian
\nsystem, that of Ombudsman. In the post-war years, he was involved in efforts to
\ndevise and create a new pan-European alliance that would later become the
\nEuropean Union. Professor Paul Drago\u0219 Aligic\u0103 explains:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He was involved in the creation of a
\nnew post-war European system, contributing directly together with the founding
\nfigures of the European Union. His functional theory in politics provided the
\nstructure and the conceptual and theoretical framework that shows us there is
\nan alternative idea to how economies, societies and institutions can become
\nintegrated within a European context. […] He lost, however, to the federalist
\ntheory with respect to the European Union.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
David Mitrany came up with the
\nalternative to federalism, which was functionalism, an idea that was already
\ncirculating at the time, but which he saw in relation to the new European
\nsystem of international relations. Although he was a supporter of a global
\ncommunity, he did not believe that federalism was the solution, but the
\ncreation of international agencies that would cooperate in specific areas. His
\nfunctional approach aimed to go beyond borders through a natural growth of
\ncommon activities and common administrative agencies and implied the transfer
\nof part of economic sovereignty to these agencies. The federalist approach won,
\nbut David Mitrany remained an important voice in international relations until
\nhis death. While he was around 80, for example, he made a tour of three big
\nAmerican universities, Harvard, Yale and Columbia, and around the same time he
\ngave conferences and talks and televised interviews. He died on 25th
\nJuly 1975, having published one last book on the functionalist alternative.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Romanian-born academic found himself close to the international centres of power in early and mid-20th century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":123226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-621914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n