ABSTRACT
The Union of Democratic Control was less interested in the objective presentation of broad international affairs information to the British public then it was in getting Parliament to assert more control over the actual conduct of foreign policy. The ‘succession’ states in East and Central Europe saw distinct advantages in the system designed to protect them from larger potential predators. Liberal internationalism – and in Britain even pacifism – profoundly affected public opinion in both countries, influencing the manner in which many political leaders addressed world affairs. To fill the vacuum, political scientists had two immediate options: to concentrate, as they had sometimes done, upon form rather than function, or to devise innovative ways of analysing the political process as it then operated. The psychological dimension was suggested by Harold Lasswell’s Propaganda Technique in the World War, although his World Politics and Insecurity eight years later would prove more enduring.
