The Walter Lippmann Colloquium bore both resemblances and concrete connections to the International Studies Conferences developed by the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), established in January 1922, and the IIIC, established in Paris in 1926 as the ICIC's executive branch. From 1931 onward, ISC study groups worked on a chosen topic over a cycle of two years. The chosen study cycles were: “The State and Economic Life” (1932–33), “Collective Security” (34–35), “Peaceful Change” (36–37) and “Economic Policies in Relation to World Peace” (38–39). At the 1939 meeting in Bergen, held at the precise time that Nazi Germany invaded Poland, “International Organization” was the theme agreed upon for the 1940–41 cycle. The WLC was also planned originally to initiate a larger, international conference on the same topic in 1939.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 368