Polycentric International Participation after the First World War

This chapter argues that the League of Nations’ authority in interwar politics rested to a large extent on transnational and (post-) imperial practices from Eastern and Central Europe which were established in the context of wider geopolitical constellations. Agents from the former Habsburg and Russian empires, working as experts and officers in the Secretariat and the many commissions, are instructive in this regard. They used their mobilities, networks, and practices of internationalism from the prewar imperial era to shape the League’s outreach and brought issues of the post-imperial transformations in their region to the League’s agenda. This East Central European legacy will be shown by portraying two individuals, Ludwik Rajchman, director of the League’s Health Organization and Albert Apponyi, who served as a delegate and expert on issues such as disarmament and intellectual cooperation. Their biographies highlight the variety and transformative power of participation from East Central Europe in the League and show the organization as a polycentric body. Besides, internationalism in the post-First World War period comes out as permeated by different imperial pasts, post-imperial undercurrents, and transnational dynamics.