The Cold War and the welfare state in divided Korea and Germany

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-275
Author(s):  
Herbert Obinger ◽  
Shinyong Lee
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Welfare State

Several scholars have hypothesized that the unprecedented expansion of the welfare state during the immediate post-war decades was to some degree related to fierce regime competition in the bipolar world that emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War. This paper uses the case study method to provide a more nuanced analysis of the causal mechanisms linking the Cold War and the welfare state. Focussing on Germany and Korea, which in methodological terms can be regarded as most-likely cases, we examine whether and, if so, to what extent the Cold War rivalry has influenced national social policy development in these divided countries. We argue that two causal mechanisms, competition and demarcation, were important in this respect. Both mechanisms were closely related to the need of governments to enhance regime legitimacy in a period of military tension and political conflict.

Containment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Preston
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
World War ◽  
Land War ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cold War Consensus

Assessing the application of the liberal consensus idea to postwar foreign policy, this chapter contends that myths about the bipartisan spirit of U.S. foreign policy have too long found ready acceptance from historians. Politics did not stop at the water’s edge, even when bipartisanship was at its supposed zenith during World War II and the early Cold War. While there was unanimity during the post-war era that the growth of international communism was a threat to U.S. interests, this did not mean that foreign policy was free of political conflict, and partisan charges that the government of the day was losing the Cold War were commonplace. Meanwhile, non-elite opinion evinced little support for confrontation with the main Communist powers, reluctance to engage in another land war like Korea, and concern about survival in the nuclear era. The divisiveness wrought by Vietnam was supposed to have brought an end to the “Cold War consensus,” but uncertainty over its meaning was evident well before this.

Coda

2020 ◽  
pp. 257-264
Author(s):  
Beryl Pong
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
War Literature ◽  
Nuclear Technology ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

The coda briefly recapitulates the central concerns of this book by discussing Second World Wartime in relation to the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing from Ernst Bloch’s conception of time as a river, and Walter Benjamin’s theory of historical materialism, it discusses why post-war literature and culture looked back to the wartime period through the trope of unexploded bombs, which functioned as mnemonic time capsules. It ends by considering Second World Wartime’s broader relationship to the later chronophobia of the Cold War, when advancements in nuclear technology created a newly fraught relationship between anticipation and retrospection.

5. From the End of the War to the Schuman Plan (the late 1940s to the early 1950s)

2014 ◽  
pp. 85-102
Author(s):  
Ian Bache ◽  
Simon Bulmer ◽  
Stephen George ◽  
Owen Parker
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
European Unity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Schuman Plan ◽  
Second World

This chapter charts the long history of plans for European unity, from the end of the Second World War to the Hague Congress, the Cold War, the Schuman Plan, and the Treaty of Paris. It also considers European federalism and the practical reasons why some moves to European unity found favour with the new governments of the post-war period: the threat of communism and the emergence of the Cold War; the so-called German Problem; and the need to ensure adequate supplies of coal for the post-war economic reconstruction. As a solution to these intersecting problems, Jean Monnet, came up with a proposal that paved the way for the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. The chapter examines Monnet’s proposal, national reactions to it, and the negotiations that led to the creation of the first of the European communities.

Émigré Politics and the Cold War: The National Labor Alliance (NTS), United States Intelligence Agencies and Post-War Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-59
Author(s):  
Benjamin Tromly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Political Strategies ◽  
World War ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article examines the post-war activities of the National Labor Alliance (NTS), a far-right Russian exile organisation whose members had served in German intelligence and propaganda structures during the Second World War. Using declassified CIA documents and previously untapped sources pertaining to NTS, it analyses the transformation of a semi-fascistic, collaborationist and anti-Semitic organisation into a Cold War asset of the CIA. The NTS played a role in shaping its association with US power by applying deceptive political strategies it had adopted during the interwar period and the Second World War to the new geopolitical context of divided Europe.

FROM WORLD WAR TO COLD WAR: THE WARTIME ALLIANCE AND POST-WAR TRANSITIONS, 1941–1947

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID REYNOLDS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This review examines some of the recent British, American, and Russian scholarship on a series of important international transitions that occurred in the years around 1945. One is the shift of global leadership from Great Britain to the United States, in which, it is argued, the decisive moment was the fall of France in 1940. Another transition is the emergence of a wartime alliance between Britain and America, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union, on the other, followed by its disintegration into the Cold War. Here the opening of Soviet sources during the 1990s has provided new evidence, though not clear answers. To understand both of these transitions, however, it is necessary to move beyond diplomacy and strategy to look at the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of the Second World War. In particular, recent studies of American and Soviet soldiers during and after the conflict re-open the debate about Cold War ideology from the bottom up.

Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elke Weesjes
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This book documents communists' attempts, successful and otherwise, to overcome their isolation and to connect with the major social and political movements of the twentieth century. Communist parties in Britain and the Netherlands emerged from the Second World War expecting to play a significant role in post-war society, due to their domestic anti-fascist activities and to the part played by the Soviet Union in defeating fascism. The Cold War shattered these hopes, and isolated communist parties and their members. By analysing the accounts of communist children, Weesjes highlights their struggle to establish communities and define their identities within the specific cultural, social, and political frameworks of the Cold War period and beyond.

3. Empire, Cold War, and Decolonization, 1945–53

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Post War ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This chapter examines decolonization and the changes that took place within the European empires during the early years of the Cold War. Decolonization constituted a crucial element of the new international order after the Second World War and formed part of the broader shift in the global balance of power. The war marked the end of the European-dominated system of nation states and was followed by the decline of the major European powers, with international dominance lying for a quarter of a century with the United States, challenged only by the Soviet Union. The chapter considers the challenges to colonial rule that were evident in both Africa and Asia during the inter-war years. It also discusses the imperialism and the struggles against it that have formed part of a post-war landscape in the Middle East.

From Promising Agent to Suspicious Francophile

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 65-85
Author(s):  
Mirosław Sikora ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Moral Ambiguity ◽  
Promising Agent ◽  
Intelligence Studies ◽  
Post War ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Intelligence Service

This paper examines how the Polish communist intelligence service attempted to recruit professor Stefan Węgrzyn, who was a prominent specialist on automatic control and computer science in post-war Poland. Eventually, Węgrzyn’s refusal to cooperate with the Polish spy agency, together with his profound relationship with French scientist and servomechanism expert Jean Charles Gille, made them both targets of surveillance orchestrated by the communist security apparatus.In the broader context of human-intelligence studies, this case study involves the problem of moral ambiguity. We experience informative examples of scientists, who often – not only during the Cold War – have had to choose between commitment to the rules of the academic world, along with its openness and transparency on the one hand, and patriotism including an ethos of secrecy for the sake of the homeland’s prosperity, on the other hand.

Social Insurance, Distributive Criteria and the Welfare Backlash: A Comparative Analysis

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara A. Rosenberry
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Policy Development Process ◽  
The Welfare State

With some notable exceptions, comparative research on the welfare state falls generally into one of two categories: qualitative and generally descriptive case studies and large-scale quantitative efforts at explanation. Case studies have progressed past the point of being essentially journalistic descriptions of the peculiarities of the policy development process or the policies of a particular society. It is nevertheless true that there has been little progress in moving beyond the case study approach towards building a theory about how and why societies make particular decisions about the priorities and organization of their social welfare efforts. On the other hand, while large-scale aggregate analysis yields theoretical statements about the character of ‘the welfare state’, those conclusions are often so general as to be ‘difficult to relate to… how particular substantive problems have been [and might be] handled.’

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