INNER_LEAGUE: A social-bureaucratic history of the League of Nations Secretariat – University of Copenhagen

INNER_LEAGUE: A social-bureaucratic history of the League of Nations Secretariat

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INNER_LEAGUE offers a social-bureaucratic history of the League of Nations Secretariat.

We investigate its inner life to understand how it shaped the professional lives of the ca. 4,000 employees and shaped the bureaucratic infrastructures of multilateralism it serviced.

Funding

Project period: 1. juli 2025-30. juni 2030

PI: Haakon A. Ikonomou

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News

Shared internship between research project at Saxo and the UN Library & Archives in Geneva

2026.10.14

Shared internship at INNER_LEAGUE
OCLW/GloBio Summer Institute 2026

2026.07.10

On 10-14 August 2026, INNER_LEAGUE is thrilled to be co-organizing and participating in the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing / GloBio Summer Institute at Wolfson College, University of Oxford.
INNER_LEAGUE meets to evaluate and set new initiatives in June

2026.06.23

June 25-26 INNER_LEAGUE’S members and affiliated researchers are convening in Højby, Sjælland, to evaluate the progress and the future plans of the project.
International Administrative Elites. Methodological Reflections on Agency, Sociability and Power

2026.06.04

On Thursday, 18 June 2026, project PI Haakon A. Ikonomou will be a keynote speaker at the Summer School on Elites, Power and Inequalities, University of Lausanne, 14 – 19 June 2026. The keynote is titled: ”International…
Internship at the United Nations Library & Archives Geneva

2025.12.22

The ERC Research Project INNER_LEAGUE at the Saxo-Institute is looking for an MA-student in history at the Saxo-Institute to apply for internships at the UN Library & Archives Geneva in the fall semester 2026.

Research blog

Beyond quiet quitting? An impostor, disillusioned at the League of Nations’ Secretariat

Blog post by Ph.D-student Nils Holm Peschke-Køedt

INNER_LEAGUE interview with Michel Erpelding, Max Planck Institute

Blog post by Henrik H. Wade.

See more blog posts

Publications

Sunniva Engh, Haakon A. Ikonomou, Ada Nissen, “Scandinavians on the world stage: Rethinking Scandinavian international involvement since the interwar period”, Cooperation & Conflict, vol 60 no 4, 2025, (SAGE)
Haakon A. Ikonomou, Karin van Leuwen, Morten Rasmussen, "The Cambridge Handbook of the League of Nations and International Law", Cambridge University Press, 2026
Haakon A. Ikonomou, Custodians of Imperial Worldmaking? Scandinavian Officials & The League’s Global Ordering", Scandinavian Journal of History, 1–29, 2026
Haakon A. Ikonomou, "En ny global orden er ved at blive født, og den risikerer at ligge langt fra Vestens værdier", essay in Information, 22 October 2026.
Johanne B. Jacobsen, William Sass. "I civilisationens navn", Informations forlag. 9 November 2026.
Amy Smith, Karin V. Leeuwen, Morten Rasmussen "The League of Nations and International Law", Podbean, 24 August 2026