International Affairs (journal)

• 1. Introduction

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  International Affairs is a peer-reviewed journal of international relations that has carried the words of Mahatma Gandhi, Che Guevara, and Henry Kissinger between the same covers. Founded in 1922 and housed ever since at Chatham House in London, it has spent more than a century at the intersection of scholarship and global power. Its founding editor, Geoffrey Malcolm Gathorne-Hardy, expressed a clear ambition in the very first editorial: that the journal would "become a source of information and a guide to judgment in international affairs." That sentence is deceptively modest. What it actually describes is a project to shape how governments, diplomats, and academics think about the world. How did a journal born in the aftermath of the First World War grow into one ranked among the top ten international relations publications globally? What does it look like when a single publication tries to hold both rigorous scholarship and urgent policy together for over a hundred years? And who were the voices it chose to amplify along the way?

• 2. Origins and Early Ambitions

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  Two years after the British Institute of International Affairs was established in 1920 in the wake of the First World War, the first issue of its journal appeared. The Institute was based at Chatham House in London, and for much of the journal's early life it functioned as a kind of stenographic record: transcriptions of the major addresses and speeches delivered at Chatham House. The founding editor Gathorne-Hardy shaped this format from 1922 until 1931.

  In 1931 the journal was officially renamed International Affairs. That same year Mahatma Gandhi visited Chatham House and gave a speech titled "The Future of India," which appeared in the journal's pages. The historian Arnold J. Toynbee also appeared multiple times during this period. These were not marginal figures being given a platform; they were among the most consequential thinkers and actors of their era.

  When the Second World War began in 1939, publication was suspended until further notice. But the journal did not simply go dark. A book review supplement, sometimes containing as many as 60 or more individual reviews, was published three times per year for four years. When publication formally resumed in 1944, those wartime supplements were gathered together and designated the 19th volume of the journal.

• 3. Cold War Coverage and Decolonization

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  In October 1960 International Affairs published a special issue on Africa, commissioned as independence movements across the continent were reaching a decisive momentum. Julius Nyerere, who would become president of Tanzania, was among the contributors; so were the heads of state of Tunisia and Mali. The journal was treating decolonization not as a distant phenomenon to be observed but as a process that demanded firsthand voices.

  Through the 1950s and into the 1960s the journal also turned its attention to the Cold War, covering Soviet foreign policy and the growth of international institutions. In 1964 it published an article by Ernesto Che Guevara on the economic transformation of Cuba under Fidel Castro, continuing the journal's practice of printing the speeches given at Chatham House. Domestic political figures, including Vince Cable, also appeared in its pages during this era.

  The editorial record across these decades reflects a publication wrestling with an expanding world order. The journal's editor during the longest single tenure on record was Margaret Cleeve, who held the role from 1932 to 1957 and oversaw the journal through the Second World War, its suspension, its return, and the early Cold War.

• 4. The Shift to Scholarship

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  By the 1970s International Affairs had begun a transition: from acting solely as a record of Chatham House speeches toward publishing original scholarly work. The names associated with this shift are significant ones in the discipline. Hedley Bull, Joseph Nye, and Susan Strange all published in the journal during this period. Strange's article "International economics and international relations: a case of mutual neglect" became an influential contribution to the field.

  Strange's relationship with the journal ran deep. Through her connections with Chatham House she published a total of 81 articles and book reviews between 1950 and 1996, making her one of the most prolific contributors in the journal's history.

  Through the 1980s this scholarly orientation was paired with coverage of immediate events. Articles on Afghanistan, Iran, and the Falklands War appeared in the same issues as more theoretical work on international security and nuclear weapons. In 1982 the journal published a speech by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, titled "Reflections on a partnership: British and American attitudes to postwar foreign policy."

• 5. After the Soviet Union

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  In 1991 International Affairs published what it would come to regard as the first in a long series of articles grappling with the post-Cold War order: an essay by Lennart Meri, who would later become president of Estonia, titled "Estonia's role in the new Europe."

  Four years later, in 1995, the journal marked the 75th anniversary of Chatham House with a special issue. Contributors included Sir Michael Howard, Fred Halliday, Paul Krugman, and Malcolm Bradbury. The journal's own 75th anniversary was then observed separately in 1999.

  The September 11 attacks prompted a further special issue, published in April 2002 under the title "New orders, new norms." Joseph Nye contributed an article. The journal's practice of commissioning targeted special issues has since extended to topics as varied as biodiversity and environmental peacebuilding, HIV/AIDS and Ebola, and UK-EU relations.

  In 2009 the 85th volume was published. The first issue of that year included an article by longstanding editor Caroline Soper on the journal's own history, alongside a piece by former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski examining the challenges facing the newly inaugurated President Obama. In 2014 the journal published special issues marking both its 90th issue and the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, in January and March respectively.

• 6. Structure, Reach, and the Early Career Prize

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  As of the 2024 ISI Journal Citation Reports, International Affairs carries an impact factor of 3.9. It ranked eighth out of 165 international relations journals. Published six times per year by Oxford University Press on behalf of Chatham House, each issue contains at least 30 book reviews spanning disciplines from international relations theory and international history through to coverage of specific regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

  In 2017 the journal introduced the Early Career Prize, recognizing contributors with fewer than seven years of academic experience. The prize is awarded annually at the International Studies Association Convention. Among the recipients, Paula Drumond won in 2020 for an article titled "What about men? Towards a critical interrogation of sexual violence against men in global politics," published in volume 95, issue 6. Jelena Cupac and Irem Ebeturk shared the 2022 prize alongside Clare Elder, who won for a study on de facto states and political economy in Somaliland.

  Since 2015 the journal has also adopted an Open Access policy following the Gold model, broadened its geographic contributor base with special issues on China, India, and Japan, and developed a blog presence. In 2020 half of all contributors to the journal, excluding book reviewers, identified as women. The journal's blog was launched in 2016 on the social publishing platform Medium, and since 2017 has included professional development posts advising early-career academics on publishing.