As the 2015-2016 Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress, political scientist Bruce Jentleson is writing and researching a new book on transformational leaders of the 20th century who made major breakthroughs for peace and security — and what lessons may exist for the 21st century. He sat down with Jason Steinhauer to discuss the motivation for writing this book now and the question of whether history makes men (or women) or women (or men) make history.
Hi, Bruce. What is the broader purpose of your project and book?
In the early 1980s towards the end of the U.S. Foreign Policy course I taught at the University of California-Davis, I’d ask the students their thoughts on the future. “Well, Professor Jentleson,” one student said, “I think the Cold War will end, and end peacefully.” From another bright-eyed one, “Apartheid will end and South Africa will transition to a black majority democracy.” My responses were along the lines of it’s nice to be young and naïve, but let’s be realistic.
I was a young professor then, still conscious of how in graduate school we were steered away from focusing on individual leaders. International affairs, the canon held, were driven largely by systemic forces and such timeless dynamics as national interest and balance of power. But while many factors came into play, the extraordinary leadership provided by Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela were the crucial ones in ending the Cold War and Apartheid.
So I got thinking: Whom else in the 20th century was a “profile in Statesmanship”, shaping major breakthroughs for peace? Who were transformational in ways that, as Isaiah Berlin put it, “at crucial moments, at turning points . . . individuals and their decisions and acts . . . can determine the course of history.” I was looking for leaders who also fit the distinction made by James MacGregor Burns between transformational and transactional leadership, which for my study focuses on major breakthroughs in global peace and security as distinct from diplomacy geared to managing and resolving issues.
A second question followed from the first: What can we learn from 20th century transformational Statesmanship for the 21st century? This isn’t a matter of pointing to this or that individual, rather drawing lessons from past Statesmanship to help shape and motivate the breakthroughs for peace our era so needs. The 20th century profiles show that it’s difficult. They also show that it’s possible.
What are the five dimensions of peace and security you have chosen, and why?
To get a handle on the rather broad category of global peace and security, I break it down into its five component dimensions: managing major power geopolitics for cooperation more than conflict; building international institutions for conflict prevention and collective action; fostering reconciliation of peoples locked in conflicts rooted in historical hatreds; advancing freedom and protecting human rights; and promoting sustainability including poverty and inequality reduction, environmental protection and global public health. In each of these chapters I focus on a few representative 20th century Statesmanship cases, and draw out lessons within those policy areas for 21st century challenges.
You’ll also see that I don’t just have in mind leaders of countries but also include leaders of key international institutions and pioneering non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who did for peace and justice what governments were unable or unwilling to do.