About WAIS

A Worldwide Interdisciplinary Network

The World Association of International Studies (WAIS), formerly the California Institute of International Studies, founded in 1965, is a fellowship of scholars, scientists, and others active in international affairs. They may be nominated by any member, who will provide enough information to allow those in other fields to reach an opinion. Within the general membership there are three special categories:, elected by the members following distribution of detailed information about their careers: Fellows, who have distinguished themselves by research in their field; Scholars, who are outstanding as generalists; and International Associates, significantly active in world affairs professionally. In addition, there are Technical Associates, who provide invaluable support in our technical operations.

WAIS has its origins at Stanford University, and more precisely at Bolivar House, but the membership is international. Silicon Valley grew around Stanford University and created the modern communication technology which has enabled WAIS to transform itself into a worldwide interdisciplinary network. The word “fellowship” implies a willingness, indeed a desire, to exchange information and opinions. This becomes ever more important as the world and the information about it increase in complexity, so that specialists are dependent on each other. They must feel free to express their opinions in these exchanges, and they are expected to respect the views of other Fellows with whom they disagree. WAIS as such is strictly impartial.

The current tendency is to reduce international studies to economics and political science (which until recently played the leading role), reflecting the common belief of capitalists and Marxists that economics and its universal laws are decisive. Recent history has shown that peoples are prone to destructive violence which can wreck their economic interests. Religion and ethnicity are of paramount importance in much of the world. It is for this reason that our fellowship strives to represent the whole rainbow of disciplines. Each one is a focus for theoretical debates, as is the study of international relations itself. Such intellectual exercise can become divorced from reality, and thus doctrinaire and dangerous.

We believe that a careful study of the facts, however unpalatable to some, is an essential foundation for international studies. This has important consequences. We support those scholars and journalists who gather information and analyze it with scrupulous care; they often need support. The Hispanic American Report, published by Stanford’s Bolivar House (the cradle of WAIS), earned its world-wide reputation by such care, but its reporting on Cuba, which turned out to be painfully accurate, was one of the causes of its demise. The hard analyses of Soviet history by Robert Conquest, unwelcome to many, proved to be terribly accurate. Burnett Bolloten’s magisterial studies of the Spanish Civil War were met with disbelief, but they are now viewed as definitive. He knew the Civil War as a correspondent, and we are grateful to journalists who meet our standards (but are wary of those who proclaim “I have seen the future and it works”). We welcomed Harrison Salisbury as a member of our fellowship and lamented his death; we now have several media experts in our membership, and we intend to elect more.

The large archives built up by the Hispanic American Report were deposited in the Hoover Institution. That journal was succeeded in 1970 by the World Affairs Report, which for twenty years, until the demise of the Soviet Union, gave a methodical analysis of world developments, with special reference to Soviet interpretations and activities. Both the Hispanic American Report and the World Affairs Report are available in microform from University Microfilms. The World Affairs Report from 1970 to 1990 is also available on the web from Stanford University. It was the first journal in any field in any country which, from its first issue, was available worldwide on line. In 1990 the hard copy ceased publication, and the online version switched to the WAIS home page: http://www.stanford.edu/group/wais.

The stress on the Soviet Union ended. Both of these changes followed technical and political developments. In its Internet form, WAIS members are able to send out their papers for the constructive scrutiny of colleagues.

Our concern has always been broadly international. The Bolivar House program was called Hispanic American and Luso-Brazilian Studies, indicating our professional interest in the European origins of “Latin” American culture. We should have added “Caribbean” studies, since Sir Harold Mitchell was the leading expert on the Commonwealth Caribbean, which official American usage then lumped together with Latin America, supposedly in the interest of continental solidarity. Following the resignation of the founders of Bolivar House, its program was for the same reason renamed “Latin American.”

WAIS maintains an active interest in Europe, which in World is now being neglected in favor of the Pacific area and Latin America, indicating the priority given to trade and economics. Our interests are much broader, and so indeed are those of the United States, whose roots are mostly in Europe. We do not idealize Europe, but we resist the romantic and unscientific idealization of non-European cultures. Our interest in Europe is manifest in the election of fellows affiliated with Oxford and other European universities.

Although English is now the international language, the study of foreign countries requires a professional knowledge of their languages, both written and oral. This is a thorny problem. A specialist who masters say Finnish or Hungarian makes a great professional sacrifice. Bolivar House was devoted to the study of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world. Meetings were conducted in those languages, so there were no language barriers blocking frank discussions with visitors. Important linguistic projects were undertaken, notably the Portuguese language dictionaries of the leading specialist, James Taylor. Another project was a long-term study, still under way, of the complicated issue of gender in Spanish lexicography.

The foundation-funded boom of the behavioral sciences had two unfortunate consequences in American but less in other universities. The first was the rapid decline in the role of language studies, in which few behavioral scientists were professionally competent. This led to a greater reliance on English-language sources and a consequent retreat from reality.

The second consequence at Stanford and elsewhere was the abolition of the geography department, since geography was dismissed as a descriptive, high-school subject. The same could be said of history; it and geography are the warp and woof of the world fabric. Unfortunately historians showed little interest in saving geography departments. A leading geographer, Preston James, was associated with us. We believe that the decline of geography has been an academic and consequently an international policy disaster. Guided by David Hooson of U.C. Berkeley, WAIS promotes a revival of geography in universities, possibly as an interdepartmental program. Geography is closely related to earth sciences, and we devoted exhibitions to John Casper Branner in Brazil and at Bolivar House. Our knowledge of the world owes much to scientists like him. A major WAIS publication was The Scientific Institutions of Latin America (1970).

While academically, WAIS has thus a broad, virtually all-embracing interest, politically it is officially neutral. In the old days, Bolivar House members represented a wide gamut of viewpoints, from conservative to Marxist. Most Associations earn a reputation as being either conservative or liberal, but WAIS eschews such labels. Indeed, it aims to bring together specialists of different viewpoints on highly controversial issues who are willing to listen to one another and indeed to learn thereby. This is especially important now that the world is plagued with partisan hatreds, so much so that civil intellectual intercourse has become the exception rather than the rule. One reason scholars must be tolerant is that their own views have usually changed over the years. Some would dismiss this as hardening of the arteries, but usually it is the result of experience, observation, reading, and the tumultuous course of events.

Serious travel is both enlightening and sobering. Books like The Voyage of The Beagle have a special appeal because they combine science, geography and biography. We have always been interested in the biographies of significant individuals, as was manifest in Who’s Who in Latin America and in courses on men like Simon Bolivar and Ramon y Cajal. The University of the Air, an offshoot of Bolivar House, conducted during its existence a large series of interviews, mostly in Spanish and Portuguese, in which political, cultural and social leaders related their careers. This oral history project produced a large collection of tapes which, like the archives described above, were deposited in the Hoover Institution. Now, in the video age, WAIS conducts similar TV interviews with a wider geographical representation. They stress, especially in interviews with interpreters of international affairs, the development of their views. The archive of these tapes is a valuable source of information about the history of international studies.

WAIS has conducted significant conferences, notably a series in 1980-81, marking the tenth year of the World Affairs Report. We invited leaders from all over the world to analyze, region by region, developments in each of them, with special reference to the East-West confrontation. It was the only time such a world survey has been attempted.

In these days of rapid communications and restricted budgets, international conferences seem like an obsolete luxury; they cost money and time and disrupt work. We plan rather to use new techniques for online conferences, an expanded version of two-way exchanges. However, we do hold special meetings on important subjects to allow members to meet each other personally. The1994 meeting was devoted to technological developments in communications. The 1995 meeting coincided with the 50th anniversary celebrations of the 1945 San Francisco conference at which the United Nations was founded and which I attended. At our 1995 meeting I gave a report on my impressions. The main speaker was WAIS Fellow Sir Brian Urquahart, who served the United Nations since its inception and now, in retirement, is using his unparalleled experience to draft structural reforms for that troubled organization. Indeed, in contrast with the euphoric San Francisco celebration in 1995, with its lavish social calendar, the WAIS discussion was sober, realistic and factual.

Our 1996 conference on “War Crimes and War Criminals” marked the half century of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. Among the participants, who came from several countries. were speakers who had participated in one or other of the two trials, as well as Justice Richard Goldstone, chief prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal on War Crimes.

It was decided that a main concern of WAIS should be a continuing study of “The World Order” (or disorder!), the incredible tangle of international organizations, some official, others semi-official, non-governmental (NGOs), secret or even criminal. They hold the world together, but few are studied, except for the major U.N. bodies, and documents emanating from them are often little more than self-serving propaganda. We seek to enlist the cooperation of individuals who follow the activities of such organizations, and who can provide us with information and hard assessments.

Our 2006 Conference on “Critical World Issues” explored issues facing the world today through an international group of scholars who foster a multicultural and interdisciplinary understanding of current events. Speakers examined and offered new thinking on a host of current national and international political, educational, and policy concerns, from global energy crisis to education in the 21st century in developing countries.

We are now planning the 2009 Conference on “Globalities and Localities” to examine the impact and relationship of global events on localities and vice versa.

WAIS is governed by a board of members representing different disciplines and institutions. Since it is a 501 (c)(3) organization, it has received several (tax-deductible) grants, from foundations and others. Members pay no annual dues and receive no compensation.