Analysing inter-state communication dynamics and roles in the networks of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation

The International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC), established post-World War I under the League of Nations, aimed to foster intellectual relations for global peace. It's considered a precursor to UNESCO. Recent digitization of IIIC archives has opened new research avenues, particularly quantitative methods. This study uses network science to analyze the IIIC's communication patterns, aiming to move beyond traditional Eurocentric perspectives and reveal the roles of various actors. The research explores how the IIIC functioned as a complex dynamic system, examining the flow of communication and the structure it generated. The focus is on geographical aspects of country interactions, using two subsets of letters: one related to administrative matters, and another to literary and artistic affairs. The researchers hypothesize that these different areas will reveal distinct communication dynamics, potentially challenging established historical narratives about the IIIC's geographical organization and intellectual cooperation during the interwar period. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods (distant and close reading), the study intends to provide a more complete picture of intellectual cooperation during this era. The study acknowledges the risk of reinforcing Eurocentric narratives if focusing solely on the digitized archives of the central institutions in Paris and Geneva, and addresses this by using network theory to identify and analyze multiple entanglements and interaction patterns.

Existing scholarship on the IIIC primarily utilizes qualitative methods. While quantitative analysis of related organizations like the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC) exists, a data-driven approach to the IIIC has been lacking until now. The recent digitization of the IIIC's archives at UNESCO makes this quantitative analysis possible. Recent scholarship has increasingly focused on de-centering Eurocentric approaches and re-evaluating the roles of peripheral actors. This study builds upon this trend by applying network science to further challenge the existing narratives, especially concerning the power dynamics and the actual geographical reach of the IIIC's activities.

The researchers processed data from UNESCO's Archives database, focusing on two subseries of letters: Folder A (administrative correspondence) and Folder F (artistic and literary correspondence). They used digital tools to extract information such as sender, recipient, date, language, and geographical locations. They selected typewritten letters with identifiable geographical information for both sender and receiver. Named Entity Recognition algorithms were used to extract location information, which was aggregated to the national level, considering the historical organization of nations during the interwar period. This resulted in two undirected weighted networks, where nodes represent countries and edge weights represent the number of letters exchanged. The Leiden algorithm (a modularity maximization method) was used for community detection. The modularity (Q) measures the strength of community structure, with higher values indicating stronger community structure. The functional roles of nodes (countries) were determined using the method proposed by Guimerà and Amaral, using the within-module degree (z-score) and participation coefficient (p) to classify nodes into six roles: peripheral (R1, R4), connector (R2, R5), and kinless (R3, R6). The Python libraries NumPy, NetworkX, and Matplotlib were used for computations and visualizations. The statistical significance of modularity was validated by comparing the results against a randomized version of the network.

Initial analysis revealed that France and Switzerland acted as central broadcasters in both networks (Folder A and Folder F), obscuring the underlying community structure. Removing these nodes (creating Folder A* and Folder F*) significantly increased the modularity, revealing a clearer community structure. The modularity for Folder A* rose from 0.242 to 0.787, and for Folder F* from 0.303 to 0.676, indicating well-defined communities. Analysis of the pruned networks (A* and F*) showed that community membership reflected geographical proximity, cultural affinity, or geopolitical context in some cases but also revealed non-trivial structures not fully explained by these factors. Notably, the community structures differed significantly between Folder A* (administrative) and Folder F* (literary/artistic). The analysis of functional roles also revealed differences. Folder A* showed a more egalitarian distribution of key roles (R3, R5, R6) among countries across diverse geographical regions. Folder F*, however, concentrated these roles in a few Western European countries, showcasing a strong bias. Asian and African countries played mostly peripheral roles in both networks, potentially reflecting unequal power dynamics. These findings suggest different communication dynamics for administrative and artistic/literary matters, challenging the prevalent Eurocentric view of IIIC's activities.

The findings show that while the IIIC formally aimed for global intellectual cooperation, the actual communication patterns reflected existing power imbalances. The more egalitarian distribution in administrative correspondence suggests a formal effort towards global inclusivity, while the concentration in the literary/artistic sphere highlights the limitations of achieving true global participation in this domain. The difference in the communication dynamics between administrative and artistic/literary matters reveals the existence of distinct policy area-specific processes. The study's results challenge the traditional narrative of the IIIC, revealing a more nuanced picture of its geographical organization and the roles of various actors. The peripheral role of many non-Western countries highlights the limitations of the IIIC in achieving its stated goals of true global intellectual exchange.

This study utilizes network science to reveal nuanced communication dynamics within the IIIC, challenging traditional, Eurocentric narratives. The findings demonstrate distinct patterns between administrative and artistic/literary communication, highlighting both formal efforts towards global inclusion and the persistent influence of Western European power structures. Future research could explore the individual-level interactions, examine different types of communication within the IIIC, and analyze other international organizations using this approach.

The study's analysis is based on a subset of the digitized archives, potentially omitting crucial information. The accuracy of the Named Entity Recognition algorithm and the aggregation of data to the national level might also introduce biases. The focus on geographical locations as nodes might overlook other relevant aspects of the network structure, such as institutional or individual actors. The current limitations of handwritten text recognition also affect the data's completeness.