Central and Eastern Europe, Perestroika, and the Future of the Cold War

2021 ◽  
pp. 401-438
Author(s):  
Seweryn Bialer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Cold War

The Cold War and European Security, 1950–1960

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talbot C. Imlay
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
European Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
German Army ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
European Defence Community

In examining European socialist responses to the issue of post-war European security, this chapter challenges the image of a continent irremediably divided along Cold War lines. Throughout the 1950s European socialists struggled to devise a stable and peaceful security order in a world of nuclear armaments and superpower rivalries. This struggle initially centred on the European Defence Community (EDC). For many socialists, the EDC offered a possible means not only of avoiding an independent German army but also perhaps of overcoming Cold War divisions. Following the EDC’s demise and West Germany’s integration into NATO, European socialists recentred their hopes on ‘disengagement’—the idea of creating a demilitarized and neutralized region in Central and Eastern Europe encompassing countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, during the late 1950s, European socialists emerged as the leading organized advocates of disengagement, working assiduously to keep the project in the public eye.

scholarly journals Challenges and Pitfalls of Feminist Sisterhood in the Aftermath of the Cold War*

Aspasia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Ioana Cîrstocea
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Establishing Operations ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
East West ◽  
Instrumental Role

Established in the aftermath of the Cold War and animated by US-based scholars and activists experienced in the second wave of women’s liberation movements, the Network of East-West Women (NEWW) has received little attention from scholars. This transnational and transregional group played an instrumental role in triggering and structuring the circulation of information, contacts, and academic and activist publications dedicated to women in Central and Eastern Europe, and in conceptualizing new gender politics in that region after the end of the socialist regimes. Building on original empirical evidence (archive work and interviews), this article considers NEWW’s founding and its steps in establishing operations “beyond borders” in the 1990s—a time of professionalizing and globalizing women’s rights politics when transnational feminist activism was faced with both new challenges and potentialities.

Resistance and Dissent in Central and Eastern Europe

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara J. Falk
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
North America ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Seminal Article ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Initial Research

This article offers both a genealogy of academic interest in resistance and dissent in the region, as well as an overview of current directions in research. Four kinds of sources are canvassed to paint as fulsome a picture as a short article permits. First, the original literature on dissent prior to the conclusion of the Cold War is reviewed, beginning with the seminal challenge to the “totalitarian” school presented by Gordon Skilling’s seminal article in World Politics . Second, key texts written in the two decades since the fall of communism on the impact of resistance and dissent are examined. Trajectories of initial research in the post-communist era are outlined, along with an assessment of how more recent texts of the “twenty years since the Fall” variety account for resistance and dissent. Finally, results of a short survey conducted by the author and sent to both established and emerging scholars in Europe and North America who are interested, have written on, and/or published on forms of resistance and dissent add a critical contemporary dimension to the analysis.

scholarly journals Yalta Decisions: Was There an Alternative for the West?

2020 ◽  
pp. 71-83
Author(s):  
Vladimir PECHATNOV
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
The Real ◽  
Common Enemy ◽  
The Cold War

The concluding results of the anti-Hitler coalition meeting in Yalta have long been criticized in the United States by the antagonists of Franklin Roosevelt’s policy. In recent decades, they have raised renewed criticism in Central and Eastern Europe and across the West. Though, the decisions of Yalta Conference were fully determined by the balance of power and the real military situation on the war theatre by spring 1945. Each of the Allies pursued their own interests, but they appeared able to achieve a mutually acceptable compromise of these interests for the sake of final victory over common enemy. The Yalta Conference manifested the last upsurge of the Allied cooperation and in no way it served a prologue to the Cold War as it is now being asserted.

scholarly journals The Curious Chasidic Pilgrimage to Lelov, Poland

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-82
Author(s):  
Lucia Morawska
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Orthodox Jews ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract This paper discusses a Chasidic pilgrimage movement focused on Lelov, which lies south of Cracow. Pilgrimage has always been a major part of Jewish tradition, but for many years during the Cold War it was possible only for a devoted few to return to Poland. With the collapse of Communism, however, pilgrimage sites in Central and Eastern Europe have become much more accessible and consequently ultra-orthodox Jews have created a ‘return movement’.

Germany as a Kin-State: The Development and Implementation of a Norm-Consistent External Minority Policy towards Central and Eastern Europe

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Cordell ◽  
Stefan Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Ethnic Germans ◽  
The Cold War

Germany's role as a kin-state of ethnic German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe stems from a number of factors. At one level it is part and parcel of a unique historical legacy. It is also inextricably linked with the country's foreign policy towards this region. The most profound policy that the Federal Republic of Germany developed in this context after the early 1960s was Ostpolitik, which contributed significantly to the peaceful end of the Cold War, but has remained relevant thereafter despite a fundamentally changed geopolitical context, as Germany remains a kin-state for hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans across Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in the former Soviet Union, in Poland, Romania, and Hungary. As such, a policy towards these external minorities continues to form a significant, but by no means the only, manifestation of Ostpolitik.

scholarly journals Security policy of the Slovak Republic in the context of intensifying the hybrid actions of the Russian Federation

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 76-81
Author(s):  
Vira Y. Maksymets
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
European Security ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Cold War

The article analyzes the changes in the security environment of Slovakia, which took place after the annexation of the Crimea and the situation in eastern Ukraine. This changed the strategic situation not only in Central and Eastern Europe, but de facto in the European and transatlantic defense complex. These strategic changes not only changed the existing situation that existed since the end of the Cold War, but led to a paradigm shift in security policy. Today, besides defense, citizens of Slovakia also define other vectors, in particular energy, ecological, and cybernetic. They are clearly international in nature, and therefore the Slovak foreign policy and diplomacy must take them into account more intensively than before, possibly to the detriment of other activities. In order to realize its security interests, the Slovak Republic uses its membership in international (NATO, UN) and regional (Visegrad Four, EU, OSCE) organizations and associations, developing its capabilities, flexibility, and mutually reinforcing cooperation. NATO membership is the determining factor in Slovak foreign security.The benefits of this study are consideration of the issues of European security and its interconnectedness with the policy of the Slovak Republic is relevant and at the same time complicated. This is due to the transformation of the European security system and the security and foreign policy of Slovakia as a result of a number of factors.First, the main factors determining the security of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the security policy paradigm that existed in Europe since the end of the Cold War, have changed. The second important factor is Slovakia’s response to these changes, because the foreign policy priorities of the country have not yet been determined. In this regard, in the formulation and implementation of the security policy of Slovakia in 2014, there was a period of systemic changes through the annexation by the Russian Federation of Crimea. The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, on the one hand, sought to maintain the neutral nature of foreign policy, while the Ministry of Defense did not react to changes. The third factor, which is also closely related to others, is a difficult task, accordingly, to find consensus on the destruction of some of the key priorities of the foreign and security policy of Slovakia, which would lead to the adoption by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Affairs of a comprehensive plan to counter foreign policy challenges, addressed to the Visegrad Four, the Eastern Partnership, the EU and NATO.

scholarly journals Koniec zimnej wojny, transformacja Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej a moc eksplanacyjna i prognostyczna teorii stosunków międzynarodowych

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-178
Author(s):  
Andrzej Podraza
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Cold War

The aim of the article is to show the explanatory and prognostic power of theories of international relations (neorealism, neo-liberal institutionalism and social constructivism) in the situation of visible problems with predicting the end of the Cold War and explaining the democratization process in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and other parts of the world. In the face of significant changes that have influenced the formation of a new post-Cold War international order, it is necessary to consider the importance of the theory in adopting appropriate research strategies so that on the one hand, it is possible to predict the course of events with some degree of probability and on the other, to explain their essence and importance. The end of the Cold War and the process of transforming the countries of Central and Eastern Europe thus pose a general and extremely important question about the possibility of developing a scientific approach to the analysis of international relations, which goes beyond only short-term observation of current events. The article analyzes the most important theoretical approaches in the context of adopting such a research strategy, thanks to which one could depart from the dominance of extreme, mutually exclusive positions. The great debates that have been held so far have shown that wealth in science is not a one-sided approach, even if at some point or time we are dealing with the supremacy of a particular theory or a methodological approach. The fiasco of the science of international relations in predicting the end of the Cold War has shown the necessity of undertaking such activities whose task would be to combine rather than exclude. The end of the Cold War and the transformation process of Central and Eastern Europe are therefore treated as case studies that help in testing the theory of international relations as adequate instruments for analyzing the changing international situation.

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