This article makes the case for recovering women’s roles from the forgotten corners of diplomatic history, and for considering the consequences of the gap between feminist and non-feminist research. It shows how ignorance of the gendered nature of diplomatic norms and practices impacts our understanding of diplomatic history, and how specific biographies are hampered by gender blindness in particular. Using the history of Margaret van Kleffens and Dutch World War II diplomacy as an example, the article demonstrates how historians’ continued neglect of the role of women and gender norms has influenced representations of twentieth-century diplomacy. To dismiss the history of gender and of women as by definition irrelevant to the actions of states and of male statespersons is not simply part of a self-appointed focus on the political at the expense of the personal; rather, it omits much of the political history too, reproducing stereotypes and resulting in a skewed understanding of diplomatic history and foreign policy decisions. The article argues that both historians and feminist scholars need to historicize gender in order to recognize women’s roles in diplomacy, and so gain a better understanding of the history of international politics as a whole.

Historiska undersökningar handlar om hur man skriver historia,hur händelser i det förflutna ordnas till ett gripbart sammanhang.Den historiska undersökningen är inte vilken text som helst, den syftar till att besvara en fråga. Men hur ska en sådan fråga formuleras? Och hur ska den försvaras?

Författarna resonerar här om hur en historievetenskaplig argumentation ser ut, vilka krav som ställs på framställningssättet,hur man använder metoder och källor, samt vad man ska tänka på då man kritiserar ett vetenskapligt arbete. I boken finns också en användbar begreppsguide där aktuella historieteoretiska begrepp och termer beskrivs.

Denna tredje upplaga är grundligt reviderad och aktualiserad.Boken vänder sig främst till studenter på grundläggande nivå i historia, som för första gången ställs inför uppgiften att självständigt göra en historisk undersökning.

Using a comparative method, this chapter challenges assumptions about Dutch history and the role of alignment in small state security. It argues that the Dutch road from aloofness to NATO-membership was not primarily about the experience of failed neutrality, or about fear of the Soviet Union or a new war: it was not, as it has often been depicted, a sacrifice of (peace-time) sovereignty for (war-time) security. On the contrary, it claims that the changed course was in fact about retaining sovereignty, not only in wartime but in times of peace. A close comparison with the Swedish case reveals that the Dutch decision to ally was based on the same considerations that caused the Swedish government to opt for nonalignment. Both were motivated by a desire to safeguard regional stability and cooperation in order to maintain margin for manoeuvre in a world where small states were no longer expected to be able to survive independently. In other words, the Dutch policy of alliance was an expression of the same ambition that underpinned a policy of aloofness. While recasting the history of Dutch foreign relations, these results also shed new light on our understanding of small state security choices in general.

This paper argues that the Dutch road from aloofness to NATO-membership was not primarily about the experience of failed neutrality, or about fear of the Soviet Union or a new war: it was not, as it has often been depicted, a sacrifice of (peace-time) sovereignty for (war-time) security. On the contrary, it claims that the changed course was in fact about retaining sovereignty, not only in wartime but in times of peace. A close comparison with the Swedish case reveals that the Dutch decision to ally was based on the same considerations that caused the Swedish government to opt for non-alignment. Both were motivated by the endeavour to maintain as much margin for manoeuvre as possible in a world where small states were no longer expected to be able to survive independently. The desire to safeguard regional stability and cooperation as a prerequisite to maintaining margin for manoeuvre underpinned the decisions of both governments. In other words, the Dutch policy of alliance was an expression of the same ambition that underpinned the policy of aloofness.

The aim of this paper is to discuss how Dutch diplomatic rhetoric was gendered and whether and in which ways the rhetoric changed as the traditionally non-aligned Netherlands went from being neutral to becoming a NATO-member. In accordance with a more than hundred-year-long tradition of aloofness, the Dutch government declared the Netherlands neutral at the outbreak of the Second World War. However, as a result of the German occupation in 1940, it soon had to adapt to a position as one of the Allies. In 1949 the Netherlands became one of NATO’s founding members. A close look at key Dutch foreign policy statements from this period reveals that the diplomatic rhetoric changed surprisingly little as the country changed its international identity. The study takes as its point of departure a textual analysis of the book ‘The Rape of the Netherlands’, a clearly gendered defence of Dutch neutrality written in 1940 by Dutch foreign minister Eelco van Kleffens and his wife Margaret in face of claims that the country had not put up enough of a fight against the German attacker. Against that background, the paper studies the rhetoric used as the country’s value as an ally was increasingly emphasized. It compares ‘The Rape of the Netherlands’ to later statements by Van Kleffens, in particular the 1949 article ‘Regionalism and political pacts. With special reference to the North Atlantic Treaty’, as well as the government's 1949 note on the ratification of the North Atlantic Treay and a 1953 statement by Van Kleffens’ successor Dirk Stikker. The results are discussed in the general context of the government’s security ideas and strategies of these years.

Den här artikeln placerar frågan om svenskt NATO-medlemskap i ett historiskt och komparativt perspektiv. Den går tillbaka till åren innan NATO bildades och jämför säkerhetspolitiken i två länder som gjorde olika val i frågan, Sverige och Nederländerna. Trots att de dittills haft en mycket likartad neutralitetstradition valde Nederländernas regering efter andra världskriget att alliera sig medan Sveriges regering valde alliansfrihet. Att Nederländerna blivit ockuperat medan Sverige lyckats hålla sig utanför andra världskriget är en iögonfallande skillnad, men inte en lika självklar orsak till skillnaden i säkerhetspolitik som man skulle kunna tro. Artikeln diskuterar bland annat vilka lärdomar den svenska och nederländska regeringen drog av sina respektive krigserfarenheter och hur dessa i samspel med de konkreta omständigheter man ställdes inför efter krigsslutet ledde till olika beslut angående allians/alliansfrihet. Genom en jämförelse av regeringarnas säkerhetspolitiska mål, motiv och strategier prövas de förklaringsmodeller som hittills har dominerat historieskrivningen. Bilden av allians och alliansfrihet som fundamentalt olika säkerhetsstrategier nyanseras genom att stora likheter i de två regeringarnas kamp för regional säkerhet och bevarat handlingsutrymme lyfts fram.

The period treated in this thesis is one which is often characterized as a transition between World War II and the Cold War. By approaching it instead as a window of opportunity – a period in which the governments of small states perceived both an unusual space and an urgent need to reevaluate security – the security policies of two small northwestern European countries, the Netherlands and Sweden, are subjected to a critical reappraisal. Through a systematic comparison of the security ideas and strategies in two countries that ended up with different positions on alignment/non-alignment during the Cold War, this dissertation sheds new light on the reasons for the development of those security policies as well as on their significance. Not only does it uncover a number of concrete security strategies that were remarkably similar regardless of different circumstances, but it shows that the Swedish and Dutch governments formed similar ideas about the needs for future security in spite of different war experiences. Both concluded that small states could no longer survive in isolation and instead aimed for a better functioning system of collective security, built on the close cooperation of regional groups. This thesis argues that the different choices regarding security in 1948, when the Dutch signed the Treaty of Brussels and the Swedish reclaimed a policy of non-alignment, were in fact motivated by the same wish to maintain as wide a margin for manoeuvre as possible for the cooperation envisioned during the war, seeing this as the best guarantee of peace and independence.