Eric Voegelin, “[Review of] Post-War Governments of Europe, edited by David Fellman” (1947)

Eric Voegelin’s brief book review assesses a collection of studies of European government while questioning the adequacy of its organizing perspective. His judgment distinguishes the quality of its individual contributions from its failure to address Europe as a connected political problem. The collection offers useful accounts of constitutional and institutional developments, but, for Voegelin, postwar reconstruction demands more than a country-by-country survey: it requires a continental perspective on political unity and the worldwide consequences of European disorder.

The reviewed book reprints articles from the Journal of Politics, most presented at a 1946 meeting of the American Political Science Association, with additional contributions intended to broaden coverage. Voegelin identifies studies of Russia by John N. Hazard, England by Eugene P. Chase, France by Charles A. Micaud, central banking in England and France by Karl R. Bopp, Italy by Max Ascoli, American military government in Germany by Harold Zink, Austria by Paul R. Sweet, and Scandinavia by Eric C. Bellquist. Their differing approaches make coherence difficult:

The merit of the collection will have to be found in the quality of the single articles rather than in an integrated view of the postwar constitutional problems of Europe.

This distinction initially supports a favorable appraisal. Voegelin finds the contributions consistently strong enough to make the collection a valuable reference for the major constitutional developments of 1944–46. He particularly praises Hazard’s comprehensive and accurate account of Russia, Bopp’s treatment of central banking institutions before nationalization, and Bellquist’s survey of Scandinavian developments since the First World War. Zink’s account receives special recognition for exposing the bewildering circumstances surrounding the origins of American military government in Germany. These judgments establish that the subsequent criticism concerns the collection’s framework, not a general failure of scholarship.

Voegelin first identifies geographical omissions: Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, and the Balkans. He also objects that American military administration cannot adequately represent the German problem. Yet incomplete coverage is subordinate to a more fundamental deficiency—the absence of an interpretation of Europe’s political predicament as a whole. The review’s central claim appears in his deliberately provocative formulation:

There is hardly a trace of awareness that Hitler's attempt to conquer and unite Europe was more than the freakish idea of a power-lusting tyrant, and that European post-Hitler politics has to be measured in terms of success in achieving by democratic means what Hitler failed to achieve by totalitarian means.

Voegelin treats continental unity as a political problem that survives the defeat of Hitler’s attempt to impose it. His contrast between democratic and totalitarian means makes the mode of achieving unity decisive; his objection is that explaining conquest solely through a tyrant’s ambition leaves the underlying European problem unexamined. The review does not specify institutions or policies for democratic unification. Instead, it proposes a criterion by which postwar politics should be assessed, shifting attention from separate national constitutional developments to their relationship within Europe.

A further argument establishes the global stakes of that shift. Voegelin observes that Europe west of Russia has a population comparable to the combined populations of the United States and the Soviet Union. Disorder in this large, dynamic center of Western civilization therefore carries consequences beyond Europe, whose extent he regards as still scarcely apparent. Continental reconstruction cannot be understood adequately as an assortment of domestic adjustments.

The collection’s framing essays might have supplied this perspective. Instead, Fellman’s introduction largely presents the contributors, while J. G. Heinberg’s conclusion substitutes reassurance about continuity for an assessment of the crisis:

The concluding article on "Continuity and Change in European Governments," by J. G. Heinberg, does no more than assure us soothingly that, in spite of all change, European politics shows plenty of continuity just like Missouri.

The closing comparison sharpens Voegelin’s objection to interpreting Europe through familiar patterns of governmental persistence. His review remains appreciative of the collection’s documentary usefulness, but insists that sound national studies do not themselves constitute an adequate account of postwar Europe. Its conceptual contribution is this separation of reliable institutional description from the broader political judgment required to understand democratic reconstruction.