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411. Introduction. The Judge, the Historian, the Member of Parliament…

Author:
Isabelle Delpla, Xavier Bougarel, and Jean-Louis Fournel
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
Le 11 juillet 1995, l'enclave et la ville de Srebrenica, en Bosnie orientale, tombaient aux mains des forces nationalistes serbes du général Mladic qui ont organisé le transfert forcé des femmes et des enfants, massacré plus de 7 500 Bosniaques et, dans les mois suivants, déterré et transporté les cadavres dans des fosses secondaires afin de dissimuler les traces du crime. L'enclave avait pourtant été officiellement déclarée « zone de sécurité » par les Nations unies en 1993, et ses habitants – dont des milliers de réfugiés venant de toute la Bosnie orientale – placés sous la protection de la communauté internationale, représentée en l'occurrence par un bataillon de casques bleus néerlandais. Le massacre de Srebrenica a été rapidement perçu comme le symbole des contradictions, erreurs et fautes, voire des crimes qui ont marqué la politique de « maintien de la paix » prônée par les grandes puissances et l'ONU en ex-Yougoslavie. L'horreur de ce dernier grand massacre de la guerre de Bosnie (1992-1995) a sans doute joué un rôle important dans l'intervention de l'OTAN contre les Serbes de Bosnie à la fin de l'été 1995 qui, à son tour, a conduit à la conclusion des accords de Dayton quelques mois plus tard. Le massacre de Srebrenica a ainsi été tristement fondateur pour l'Europe de l'après-Guerre froide, et notamment pour l'émergence d'une politique européenne de sécurité et de défense. A une échelle plus globale, l'issue tragique de la politique des « zones de sécurité » en Bosnie orientale a contribué à redéfinir les règles d'engagement et l'établissement des responsabilités nationales et internationales dans les opérations de type militaro-humanitaire.
Topic:
Security and Cold War
Political Geography:
Europe, Bosnia, and Sochi

412. "No more Potsdam!": Konrad Adenauer's Nightmare and the Basis of his International Orientation

Author:
Jost Dülffer
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
The years of Adenauer's chancellorship 1949-1963 were an extremely violent and anxiety laden period in recent history. Adenauer himself tried to combine as basic aims Western integration and German unification, but the latter more and more became a matter of lip-service for the time being for domestic reasons. The article focused on his Potsdam complex which meant the fear that the Western allies and the Soviet Union might find a solution of the German question without unification or in a kind of neutralism. In the course of the 1950ies and especially during the Berlin Wall crisis 1958-1962, Adenauer's course became more and more isolated because he tried to prevent all talks on relaxation of tensions, but also on the German question: both might lead to a status minor and the FRG especially. The author demonstrates how this process of isolation in the domestic as well as in the international field diminished the authority of the first chancellor of the FRG. He nevertheless continued to adhere to the necessary dichotomy of the Cold War camps with being able to formulate a diverging line. It is suggested that these questions of alternatives to the Cold War, given the mutual anxiety of the two camps should be used as a starting point for further research.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
Germany

413. Western Integration vs. Reunification? Analyzing the Polls of the 1950s

Author:
Anja Kruke
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
From the beginning of the West German state, a lot of public opinion polling was done on the German question. The findings have been scrutinized carefully from the 1950s onward, but polls have always been taken at face value, as a mirror of society. In this analysis, polls are treated rather as an observation technique of empirical social research that composes a certain image of society and its public opinion. The entanglement of domestic and international politics is analyzed with respect to the use of surveys that were done around the two topics of Western integration and reunification that pinpoint the “functional entanglement” of domestic and international politics. The net of polling questions spun around these two terms constituted a complex setting for political actors. During the 1950s, surveys probed and ranked the fears and anxieties that characterized West Germans and helped to construct a certain kind of atmosphere that can be described as “Cold War angst.” These findings were taken as the basis for dealing with the dilemma of Germany caught between reunification and Western integration. The data and interpretations were converted into “security” as the overarching frame for international and domestic politics by the conservative government that lasted until the early 1960s.
Topic:
Security, Cold War, and Government
Political Geography:
Germany and West Germany

414. Translating Economics into Politics in Cold War Germany

Author:
James C. Van Hook
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
Economics and economic history have a fundamental role to play in our understanding of Cold War Germany. Yet, it is still difficult to establish concrete links between economic phenomena and the most important questions facing post 1945 historians. Obviously, one may evaluate West Germany's “economic miracle,” the success of western European integration, or the end of communism in 1989 from a purely economic point of view. To achieve a deeper understanding of Cold War Germany, however, one must evaluate whether the social market economy represented an adequate response to Nazism, if memory and perspective provided the decisive impulse for European integration, or if the Cold War ended in Europe because of changes in western nuclear strategy. Economic history operates in relation to politics, culture, and historical memory. The parameters for economic action are often as determined by the given political culture of the moment, as they are by the feasibility of alternative economic philosophies.
Topic:
Cold War, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, and West Germany

415. Facing an “Emotional Crunch”: State Visits as Political Performances During the Cold War

Author:
Simone Derix
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
This article argues that state visits are highly symbolic political performances by analyzing state visits to Berlin in the 1950s and 1960s. The article concentrates on how state visits blended in the Cold War's culture of suspicion and political avowal. Special emphasis is placed on the role of mass media and on the guests' reactions and behavior. State visits to Berlin illuminate the heavy performative and emotional burden placed on all participants. Being aware of the possibilities for self-presentation offered by state visits, West German officials incorporated state visitors into their symbolic battle for reunification. A visit to Berlin with extensive media coverage was, therefore, of prime importance for the German hosts. Despite their sophisticated visualization strategies, total control of events was impossible. Some visitors did not want to play their allotted role and avoided certain sites in Berlin, refused to be accompanied by journalists or cancelled their trips altogether.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
Berlin and West Germany

416. Transatlantic Tensions and European Security

Author:
Mary Elise Sarotte
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Any nuanced assessment of current transatlantic tensions requires an awareness of their historical context. An understanding of the legacy of the Cold War in particular helps to answer the following questions: (1) What are the sources of current US-European tensions? (2) Has the transatlantic connection sustained mortal damage, or can it endure? (3) What changes of attitude and of focus might help the transatlantic relationship in the future? The argument is as follows: The US-European relationship is under assault not just because of recent US military actions but also because of a longer-term shift away from a successful US Cold War grand strategy that still had much to offer the post-Cold War world. However, cause for alarm is limited, because the history of cooperation, the lack of alternative partners, and the very real nature of external threats means that neither the US nor the Europeans have any realistic alternative to cooperation with each other.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

417. Religion, faith and global politics

Author:
Mark Beeson, Stuart Harris, Lorraine Elliott, Shahram Azbarzadeh, and Greg Fealy
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
Since the end of the Cold War, a number of scholars have speculated that religious differences have come to replace the ideological differences of that earlier period, giving some resonance to Samuel Huntington's clash of civilisations and a new twist to Francis Fukuyama's end of history thesis. The empirical base for claims about a resurgence of religion-based inspiration for and justification of foreign policy actions, and the diplomatic challenges that this inspires, can be found in a number of quarters. This includes the proclaimed role of faith in the personal and public politics of a number of contemporary leaders; the growth in what seems to be faith-based non-state actors whose actions often link religion with rebellion, violence and resistance; internal politics in a number of countries in which religion or faith are increasingly tied up with matters of state and disputes over public policy (ranging from the debate over religious symbols in schools in France to electoral competition over the value of a secular versus Islamic state in Turkey); and provocations of various kinds that seem designed to demonise rather than respect religious difference, such as the recent confrontations over the so-called Muhammad cartoons first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005.
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, Government, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
Turkey

418. Scientists in Time of War: World War II, the Cold War, and Science in the United States and France

Author:
Dominique Pestre
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Before addressing its central concern––the convergence of science, war, institutions, and politics in the postwar period in France and the United States––, this essay evokes how scientific knowledge had been of importance to warfare and economic elites in the preceding centuries. In the 1940s and 1950s, scientific activities were profoundly redefined. A culture of laboratory solutions, of calculus, and management won the day. For the scientists, that meant versatility and a willingness to work between disciplines and métiers and to confront the nation's main concerns. It also led to increasingly technocratic versions of politics. Due to science, the state became a managerial apparatus, a "modernizer" arbitrating among different scenarios. Contrary to what happened in the United States, science was not center stage in France in the 1940s and early 1950s. The habitus of scientists was that of the prewar period, and they were still not technique- oriented. They had a more cultural definition of their trade and were not opportunists whose aim was to become pragmatically efficient in the world of business and military action. From the mid-1950s, things started to evolve due to a strong economic recovery and because French scientists had now caught up with the latest developments. The final break, however, occurred in France only when de Gaulle abandoned the Algerian war and elected for an autonomous nuclear deterrence system. By putting la stratégie de l'arsenal at the core of national development, de Gaulle significantly transformed French science, society, industry, and the military.
Topic:
Cold War and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and France

419. China: What's the Big Mystery?

Author:
John Feffer
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
The latest recruitment brochure from the Central Intelligence Agency, which beckons the uninitiated to be a part of a mission that's larger than all of us, opens to reveal an image of the red-roofed entrance to Beijing's Forbidden City. From an oversized portrait on the ancient wall, Chairman Mao and his Mona Lisa smile behold the vast granite expanse of Tiananmen Square. The Cold War is over, and the Soviet Union is gone. The cloak-and-dagger games of Berlin and Prague have been replaced by business and tourism. But Chinaland of ancient secrets, autocratic leaders, and memories of suppressed uprisingsstill holds out the promise of world-historical struggle that can help the CIA meet its recruitment goals.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and Soviet Union

420. Central Asia Between Competition and Cooperation

Author:
Yu Bin
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
Great power competition in Central Asia ebbs and flows in a timeless and tireless fashion. Unlike in Europe and East Asia during the Cold War and after, the fault line for the current jockeying for position in Central Asia between Washington and Beijing is not easily discernible. Instead, fluidity, uncertainty, and even outright reversal of fortunes among the major players have been the norm.
Topic:
Cold War, Diplomacy, Economics, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Washington, Central Asia, and East Asia