5 THE POST-WAR DECLINE OF THE INTERNATIONAL STUDIES CONFERENCE 459Another criticism mentioned by Mayoux was that past conferences
had witnessed the ‘[e]xcessive postulation of ideas of little scientific
value’: the debates at the conference were of an ‘extremely varied scien-
tific standard’ not least because some delegates claimed to ‘represent a
specific policy or a state’ and therefore ‘political considerations...seemed
to determine the trend of the discussion.’^110 In responding to this crit-
icism, Mayoux put forward the somewhat contentious view that if the
conference was to be a ‘live body’ and it was ‘to accomplish real work
with the help of live members,’ then a political atmosphere was unavoid-
able. Indeed, he argued, that given that the current world framework
was based on national structures, it was desirable that participants should
know each other as ‘as representatives, to a certain extent, of the inter-
ests of a State’ and proceed from there to arrive at mutual understand-
ing. It was more fruitful and enlightening, he suggested, to engage in
‘free and frank discussion’ on this basis, than to exclude, in a ‘Pharisaical
manner,’ the political element.^111
The view that the conference should not serve as a forum for advanc-
ing the interests of the states from which participants hailed, as had often
been the case in the pre-war period, was strongly defended at the meet-
ing. Webster was part of a three-person delegation of the BCCIS, the
other members of which were Chalmers Wright, Cleeve and Manning.
On behalf of the BCCIS, Webster stated that the conference should
cease to encourage collective research by national committees as this
conduced to the formation of national points of view; rather, it should
base its discussions on contributions by individual specialists.^112
(^110) Annex 2: Report of the Secretary General on the Criticisms of the Work of
the Conferences, International Studies Conference, Verbatim report of the XIIIth
Administrative session, December 16 and 17, 1946, at the Centre d’études de politique
étrangère de Paris.
(^111) International Studies Conference, Verbatim report of the XIIIth Administrative ses-
sion, December 16 and 17, 1946, at the Centre d’études de politique étrangère de Paris,
IICI-K-XIV-12, UA, 18–9.
(^112) Ibid., 24–26, 32–33. See also Annex 1: Memorandum of the British Co-ordinating
Committee for International Studies submitted to the Conference, The Future
Organisation of Relations Among Scholars and Non-Official Institutions Interested in the
Study of International Affairs, International Studies Conference, Verbatim report of the
XIIIth Administrative session, December 16 and 17, 1946, at the Centre d’études de poli-
tique étrangère de Paris, IICI-K-XIV-12, UA.