Soccer Artistry and the Secret Police

Author(s):  
Erik R. Scott

Among Soviet footballers, Georgians were known to represent a flamboyant, artistic, and ethnic style likened to the “beautiful game” played by successful South American teams. Georgian football and the mythology surrounding it emerged from the encounter between a centralizing imperial Soviet state and an assertive Georgian republic. The republic’s footballers gained global recognition during the Cold War, both as stars of the Soviet national team and the dominant Dinamo Tbilisi side that defeated top European clubs. Moscow sought to ensure that Georgian difference on the pitch served the needs of the state by showcasing multiethnic Socialist harmony for international audiences. Simultaneously, the Soviet promotion of Georgian soccer backfired, as supporters in Georgia claimed its successes as evidence of their own national triumph.

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-134
Author(s):  
Daniela Popescu

"The Escape to Turkey. Ways and Methods of Illegal Border Crossings into Turkey from the perspective of SSI documents (1945-1948). Romania`s first years after the communist regime took political power in Romania, concurrent with the onset of the Cold War, meant a reshuffle of the state institutions at first and later a dramatic impact on people`s lives. The political and institutional purges were the first signal that soon repression and terror will follow, thus prompting numerous Romanian citizens to leave the country. Yet, due to the strict surveillance of the Secret Police Services which did not easily allow traveling to Western countries, the only way to escape was through illicit border crossings. One of the most common destinations was Turkey, with documents issued between 1945 and 1948 by the Secret police services revealing an impressive number of such cases. Keywords: Illegal border crossings, escape, communism, Romania, Turkey. "


Author(s):  
Peter D. McDonald

The section introduces Part II, which spans the period 1946 to 2014, by tracing the history of the debates about culture within UNESCO from 1947 to 2009. It considers the central part print literacy played in the early decades, and the gradual emergence of what came to be called ‘intangible heritage’; the political divisions of the Cold War that had a bearing not just on questions of the state and its role as a guardian of culture but on the idea of cultural expression as a commodity; the slow shift away from an exclusively intellectualist definition of culture to a more broadly anthropological one; and the realpolitik surrounding the debates about cultural diversity since the 1990s. The section concludes by showing how at the turn of the new millennium UNESCO caught up with the radical ways in which Tagore and Joyce thought about linguistic and cultural diversity.


2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Dobson

In recent years historians have paid growing attention to the religious dimensions of the Cold War. These studies have largely focused, however, on the capitalist world, particularly the rise of evangelicalism and fundamentalism in the USA. This article turns the spotlight on the communist adversary, asking whether the USSR also participated in a ‘religious Cold War'. Given the atheist convictions on which the Soviet state was founded, this might appear counter-intuitive, but religious dynamics were of growing importance in the USSR too. Soviet officials sought to create what was called an ‘ecumenical movement', inviting religious actors to become advocates for the Soviet peace message. Protestants, in particular, were important figures on the international stage because of the large communities of co-believers in the West. At the same time, however, the authorities were alarmed about various grass-roots phenomena at home which seemed to be on the rise as the Cold War escalated, such as pacifism and apocalyptic prediction. Faced with such threats, state tactics included the arrest of believers and hostile press campaigns. Even though the inconsistencies were readily visible to all, this dualistic approach was not abandoned and the ultimately self-defeating engagement with the ‘religious Cold War' continued.


Author(s):  
Anna Hayes

The 1990s was host to a range of conflicts emerging from weak or failed states. These conflicts typically involved significant humanitarian crises and widespread human rights abuses. Within this changing global environment, new security thinking started to engage “people” as the referent of security, moving away from the previous privileged status granted to the state as the only referent of security. The end of the Cold War enabled the human security paradigm to provide a significant challenge to the primacy of the state in security thinking. On the other hand, human security has been subject to much criticism and there has been heated debate over its applicability within the security agenda. This chapter argues that despite earlier concerns over its efficacy, human security has made inroads into security thinking and is mutually reinforcing to national security.


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Slater

AbstractDictatorships are every bit as institutionally diverse as democracies, but where does this variation come from? This article argues that different types of internal rebellion influence the emergence of different types of authoritarian regimes. The critical question is whether rebel forces primarily seek to seize state power or to escape it. Regional rebellions seeking toescapethe state raise the probability of a military-dominated authoritarian regime, since they are especially likely to unify the military while heightening friction between civilian and military elites. Leftist rebellions seeking toseizethe state are more likely to give rise to civilian-dominated dictatorships by inspiring ‘joint projects’ in which military elites willingly support party-led authoritarian rule. Historical case studies of Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam illustrate the theory, elaborating how different types of violent conflict helped produce different types of dictatorships across the breadth of mainland and island Southeast Asia during the Cold War era.


Author(s):  
Paul E. Lenze, Jr.

Algeria is a state in the Maghreb that has been dominated by military rule for the majority of its existence. The National People’s Army (ANP) used nationalism to justify its intervention into politics while ensuring that withdrawal would occur only if national identity were protected. Algeria, similar to other Middle Eastern states, underwent historical trajectories influenced by colonialism, the Cold War, and post-9/11 politics; briefly experimented with democracy; and as a result, experienced the military as the dominant institution in the state. The resignation of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika after 20 years of rule in April 2019, following six weeks of popular protest, has raised questions as to whether democratization is possible. Algeria’s history of military involvement in politics, the strength of the military as an institution, and its cooperative links with domestic elites and international actors portend the endurance of authoritarianism for the foreseeable future.


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