The Monroe Doctrine dates back to U.S.-American President James Monroe's annual address to Congress in 1823. In his speech, he made it clear that the United States of America would reject colonization on behalf of Europe and regard any attempt to project European political influence to the New World as "dangerous to our peace and security."1 Even 200 years later, the Monroe Doctrine is still a topic of international discussion. Currently, it gains relevance against the background of the war against Ukraine or China's expansionist ambitions in the South China Sea. In both cases, it is about the questioning of the previous international order by empires struggling to expand their spaces of influence. Regarding the historical Monroe message, it initiated a realignment process that made the United States an influential player in international politics. Now, 200 years later, this supremacy and the world order it established are being challenged.

The title of the symposium, "The Everchanging Monroe Doctrine and its Entanglements", suggests that the Monroe Doctrine has never been a fixed concept. Its meaning was always contested, and it has undergone numerous modifications since Monroe’s speech. It does not exist in a vacuum and always has to be analyzed in its intertwined connections including different agential and functional perspectives. However, such a concept not only exerts influence but is also subject to influence. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the question „what is and was the Monroe Doctrine?“ is a tricky one. In addition to different meanings in historical periods and contexts, the participants of the symposium stressed the point that disciplinary premises and methods as well as regional focus matter. Thus, it has been interpreted as a unilateral foreign policy guideline, a security doctrine, a claim to a geopolitical sphere of influence (the Americas), an instrument for implementing liberal universalism, a legal doctrine on state sovereignty, or even as an expression of a distinct hemispheric identity. Against this background, 15 scholars from the fields of history, international relations, and law presented and discussed their research on the topic for three days. The goal of the symposium was to come to terms with the Monroe Doctrine from a contemporary interdisciplinary perspective and to provide a critical and innovative assessment of the state of the art.

The first panel was dedicated to the positioning of the U.S. as a rising imperial power and related reactions from the Americas, Asia, and Europe. ALEX BRYNE (Nottingham) and JUAN PABLO SCARFI (Buenos Aires) explored the reconceptualization of the Monroe Doctrine in the context of U.S. interventionism at the beginning of the 20th century. While Bryne examined the efforts of U.S. decision-makers to legitimize its new foreign policy, which also included expansion outside the American continent (annexation of the Philippines), through a reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, Scarfi focused on the debates of the epistemic community of international legal experts in the context of Pan-Americanism. In these debates, the redefinition of the Monroe Doctrine, as a unilateral and flexible principle to legitimize its interventions, was countered by a pan-American version. This multilateral version called for increased inter-American cooperation, rather than intervention within the American continent. Among the outcomes of the debates over the reinterpretation was the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904, which considered U.S. hegemonic actions as a legitimate defense of core national values. According to Bryne, by the early 20th century, the open-ended and permanently changing meaning of the Monroe Doctrine had become one of its central components. TOMOKO AKAMI's (Canberra) study also deals with the early 20th century. However, her focus was not on the redefinition of the Monroe Doctrine, even though U.S. imperialism forms an essential aspect of her study. Her research is focused on spheres of influence. Through the lenses of a U.S. and a Japanese diplomat, she examined the strategies of influence of the two expanding empires in each other's spheres. While the U.S. attempted to gain access to the Chinese market through the open door policy and thus expand its sphere of influence in Asia without coming into conflict with other great powers, imperial Japan took a more neutral position in Mexico between the European and American parties but engaged in an intense diplomatic dispute regarding Japanese migration. By contrasting the American Paul Reinsch (Minister to China 1913-19) and the Japanese Adachi Mineichirō (Minister to Mexico 1913-15), the Anglo-American narrative still predominant in international historiography was contested by the Japanese perspective. Finally, ECKART CONZE's (Marburg) analysis focused on the reception of the Monroe Doctrine within Europe, in particular in Germany. Not only did the doctrine become an important part of German geopolitical thinking in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it also influenced German foreign policy and ideas of international order between 1914 and 1945. Exemplary are the attempts of the National Socialists to harness the idea of the Monroe Doctrine for themselves - for example, to declare Eastern Europe as a German sphere of influence, or to delegitimize the U.S. entry into the war by contrasting it with the principles of the Monroe Doctrine.

The focus of the second panel was on spatializations. The first speaker was DAWN BERRY (Bethesda, Maryland), who, like Conze, examined the Monroe Doctrine in terms of its geopolitical significance. In her study, she dealt with the North American Arctic, a region that has received nearly no attention in research on the subject so far. She argued that the Arctic can serve as a barometer of geopolitical change. She used the example of Greenland to show how the Monroe Doctrine was invoked in times of crisis and war, shaping U.S. security policy in the 20th century as a means of determining spheres of influence. DIEGO CRESCENTINO (Madrid), on the other hand, focused on Brazil and on the impact of the Monroe Doctrine on its foreign policy during the last two centuries. In particular, he complemented the paper presented by Scarfi regarding the Pan-Americanization of the Monroe Doctrine. Discussing the disputes between autonomists (who pursued the promotion of Brazilian interests through multilateralism) and the Americanists (who were ready to accept U.S. hegemony), he outlined the struggle for sovereignty and Brazilian leadership within South America. CARLOS POGGIO TEIXEIRA (Berea, Kentucky) represented an opposite perspective. For him, the Monroe Doctrine was not a unified hemispheric policy, but clearly focused on the Caribbean. Referring to the Roosevelt Corollary, he claimed that in South America multilateralism was much more present, as in Mexico, Central America, and even the Caribbean. While these studies dealt with the Monroe Doctrine as an instrument of influence in a particular space or even region, STEFANIE ORTMANN (Falmer, East Sussex) focused against this background on the concept of spheres of influence. The starting point was the interpretation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the return of geopolitics and the related interest in spheres of influence. In doing so, she warned against an overly simplistic and "modern" geopolitical interpretation of Russia's great power behavior. Therefore, she argues for understanding this process less as a "return of spheres of influence" but rather as part of an advancing post-imperial spatial reconfiguration.

The third panel examined the changing nature of the Monroe Doctrine and its adaptations to modifying circumstances. Both TANJA BÜHRER (München) and THOMAS FISCHER (Eichstätt) discussed the Monroe Doctrine in the context of international conferences. While Bührer's contribution focused on the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, Fischer worked on the Paris Peace Negotiations of 1919. Both studies examined the discussion of the Doctrine related to the negotiation of a new international order. While Bührer examined to what extent the Monroe Doctrine had an influence on the codification of international law in the context of the Berlin Conference – the intention of which was to work out a common policy of expansion on the African continent –, Fischer raised the question of whether the Paris Peace Conference was a turning point concerning the interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine and thus of approaching international policy. He emphasized that other actors than the U.S. also influenced the doctrine. In doing so, he complemented (or even challenged) Bryne's statement. MARÍA DEL ROSARIO RODRÍGUEZ DÍAZ (Morelia, Michoacán) studied another extension, the Lodge Corollary of 1912, in addition to the repeatedly mentioned Roosevelt Corollary. Unlike the latter, which legitimized U.S. intervention, the Lodge Corollary served to protect U.S. interests by prohibiting land sales to non-U.S. states and companies in an attempt to curb the influence of a strengthening Japan. DAVID M. K. SHEININ (Peterborough, Ontario) examined Argentine support for the UN coalition in the 1991 Gulf War in a post-Cold War context. He interprets the strategic realignment of a country that had long resisted U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere as a possible approach to shape the American sphere of influence.

The topics of the last panel were Aesthetics, Identities and Imaginaries. LAURA FEBRES (Eichstätt) studied the role of the Monroe Doctrine during the Venezuela crisis of 1902/03. Warships of the German Empire and Great Britain blockaded the Venezuelan coast because of the delay of the Cipriano Castro government in paying back Venezuelan foreign debt and restituting expropriations of foreign property. Even without direct intervention, the U.S. managed to assert itself within this sphere of influence. The dispute ended with the Washington Protocols by which the debts of Venezuela were reduced. In her study, Febres drew on the novel El hombre de la levita gris (1943). The author, Enrique Bernardo Nuñez, was not only an hombre letrado but also a historian and diplomat. By utilizing a literary source instead of government, diplomatic, or legal documents, Febres adds a new perspective to the discussion. Using current theoretical approaches from the field of International Relations, JOCHEN KLEINSCHMIDT (Eichstätt) interpreted the Monroe Doctrine as a semantic of securitization, emphasizing that the Doctrine, despite its reach and reception in international politics, was a securitization of low intensity. Thus, for him, it was not a strategic doctrine but rather a reservoir of meaning that could, depending on the context, be mobilized to legitimize or delegitimize certain policies or social processes. For example, the Monroe Doctrine was not applied to Haiti due to prevailing racist sentiment, despite the former having achieved its independence before the declaration of the Doctrine. CHRISTOPHER ROSSI's (Tromsø) focus was Carl Schmitt's interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. According to Rossi, the controversial, but recently frequently cited, German legal theorist understood the Monroe Doctrine as an American Grossraum, a sphere of influence or even geo-legal space. Moreover, one of the reasons for dealing with this Grossraum was to develop a similar German Grossraum. Thus, Schmitt's reception is another example of the doctrine's significance.

In conclusion, there were few lines of principled division in the discussion. Regarding lines of division, there was no consensus as to whether the imperial power aspirations legitimized by the Roosevelt Corollary were focused on the Caribbean region or to all of Latin America, and whether the Monroe Doctrine was a grand strategy or needed an alternative conceptualization. Overall, the symposium can be considered a success: the interdisciplinary and international approach to the topic helped to ensure an inventory of current research, approaches, and methods applied in history, international law, and International Relations. Finally, as the organizers plan to continue and expand this format, a few suggestions: regarding the contribution to Asia, it would be valuable to broaden the spectrum to include investigations on China or great powers such as France or Russia. Also, the views of colonies (e.g., Africa or the Philippines) would be interesting from a global history perspective. In addition, it would be enriching to include other disciplines (e.g., literary studies, arts and mass media) and formats (e.g., theater plays, poems, songs, cartoons, and paintings) in discussions of the everchanging Monroe Doctrine.

Conference overview:

Thomas Fischer (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt): Welcome Remarks and Introduction

Panel 1: Hierarchies and Resistance
Discussant / Moderator: Thomas Fischer (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt) / Christine Hatzky (Hanover)

Tomoko Akami (Canberra): In Each Other’s Sphere of Influence: The Monroe Doctrine in China and Mexico in the 1910s

Alex Bryne (Nottingham): The Empire of the Monroe Doctrine in the Early Twentieth Century

Eckart Conze (Marburg): The Monroe Doctrine in Germany: Trajectories of a Geopolitical Concept

Juan Pablo Scarfi (Buenos Aires): The Meaning and Scope of the Monroe Doctrine in the Americas: Towards a Hemispheric Intellectual History

Panel 2: Spatializations
Discussant / Moderator: (Matthew Specter, Berkeley) / Jochen Kleinschmidt (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt)

Dawn Alexandrea Berry (Bethesda, Maryland): The Arctic and the Monroe Doctrine: Barometers of Global Geopolitical Change

Diego Sebastián Crescentino (Madrid): The Quest for Autonomy in Brazilian Foreign Policy: Navigating the Dispute Between Autonomists and Americanists in the Shadow of the Monroe Doctrine

Stefanie Ortmann (Falmer, East Sussex): Return of spheres of influence? Russian spatial imaginaries and the war in Ukraine

Carlos Gustavo Poggio Teixeira (Berea, Kentucky): A ‘hemispheric’ policy? Reinterpreting the Monroe Doctrine

Panel 3: Adaptation and Evolution
Discussant / Moderator: Tomoko Akami (Canberra) / Jochen Kleinschmidt (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt)

Tanja Bührer (Munich): The Monroe Doctrine and the legal regulation of global expansion at the Berlin Conference 1884-1885

Thomas Fischer (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt): The Monroe Doctrine at the Paris Peace Negotiations of 1919: A Global History Approach

María del Rosario Rodríguez Díaz (Morelia, Michoacana): Reflections on the bicentennial of the Monroe Doctrine. The Corollaries Roosevelt and Lodge, 1904-1912

David M. K. Sheinin (Peterborough, Ontario): Argentina’s Shocking Entry into the US Sphere of Influence, the Secret Domingo Cavallo Recordings, and the End of Whatever was Left of the Monroe Doctrine

Panel 4: Aesthetics, Identities, Imaginaries
Discussant / Moderator: Juan Pablo Scarfi (Buenos Aires) / Thomas Fischer (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt)

Laura Febres (Eichstätt): The Monroe doctrine and the invasion of Venezuela (1902-1903) through El hombre de la levita gris by Enrique Bernardo Nuñez

Jochen Kleinschmidt (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt): The Monroe Doctrine as a Semantic of -Intensity Securitization

Christopher Robert Rossi (Tromsø): Line of Amity, Line of Enmity: Hemispheric Fraternity, the Monroe Doctrine, and US Large Policy Men

Note:
1 Message of President James Monroe at the commencement of the first session of the 18th Congress (The Monroe Doctrine), 12/02/1823; Presidential Messages of the 18th Congress, ca. 12/02/1823-ca. 03/03/1825; Record Group 46; Records of the United States Senate, 1789-1990; National Archives. URL: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/monroe-doctrine (18.07.2023).