scholarly journals Zwischen „fremden Händeln“ und der „Weltpolizei“. Der Diskurs um die Beteiligung der Schweiz an friedenserhaltenden Operationen nach 1945

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Schmid
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
International Law ◽  
Source Material ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Right

After initially supporting selected peacekeeping missions as a means of distancing itself from the UN as an institution, Switzerland slowly adopted a more progressive position during the Cold War, which led to an increase in participation in the 1990s. The source material – parliamentary protocols since 1945 – shows that among the political parties in Switzerland, the political right was oftentimes the lone opponent to more involvement in such missions, as there was relatively little other opposition to an intensification of traditional peacekeeping activities. However, attempts to relativize national neutrality concepts met broad resistance, as did attempts by the government to take too many (or too large) steps at once. The examined parliamentary discussions focus on obligations under international law, national legal provisions and political priorities – and the famous Swiss neutrality is used in both political and judicial terms as an argument by all sides.

Interpreting Right-Wing or Reactionary Neo-Populism: A Critique

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Formisano
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Cold War

During the 1980s and 1990s in countries across the globe, new populist protest movements and radical political organizations emerged to challenge traditional parties, ruling elites, and professional politicians, and even long-standing social norms. The revolts against politics-as-usual have arisen from many kinds of social groupings and from diverse points on the political spectrum. Through the 1980s, in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and North America, populist discontent erupted intermittently. But the end of the Cold War, particularly in Europe, unleashed a torrent of popular movements and political parties opposed to what the discontented perceived as the corruption and deceitfulness of the political classes and their corporate patrons. Some protest movements promoted more democracy, pluralism, and economic opportunity; some expressed intolerance, bigotry, and xenophobic nationalism.

The Making of the 1976 Canada Cup: Power Plays, Hockey Diplomacy, and the Rise of Alan Eagleson

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Jay Scherer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ice Hockey ◽  
National Hockey League ◽  
The Political ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada ◽  
The Cold War

In 1976, amidst a period of détente in the Cold War, the Government of Canada officially hosted an inaugural open-play invitational ice hockey tournament. A detailed narration of these events, pieced together from archival sources, allows scholars to understand the negotiations to prepare the political terrain for the event, including efforts to secure the official endorsement of the International Ice Hockey Federation for a tournament sponsored by the Government of Canada in exchange for Canada’s return to international competition in 1977; the participation of various countries and their respective hockey governing bodies, especially the Soviet Union, in an international tournament featuring professional players; and an agreement with the North American professional hockey cartels, especially the National Hockey League, to allow star players to participate in the event. The success of the 1976 Canada Cup accelerated the commodification and commercialization of hockey both in North America and globally—a process that was increasingly driven by the interests and aspirations of the National Hockey League. At the center of this history is one increasingly powerful—and avaricious—character: Alan Eagleson.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 13 The Intervention in Czechoslovakia—1968

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hafner Gerhard
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Valid Consent ◽  
The Cold War

This contribution discusses the intervention of five member states of the Warsaw Pact Organization under the leading role of the Soviet Union in the CSSR in August 1968, which terminated the “Prague Spring” in a forceful manner. After presenting the facts of this intervention and its reasons, it describes the legal positions of the protagonists of this intervention as well as that of the states condemning it, as presented in particular in the Security Council. It then examines the legality of this intervention against general international law and the particular views of the Soviet doctrine existing at that time, defending some sort of socialist (regional) international law. This case stresses the requirement of valid consent for the presence of foreign troops in a country and denies the legality of any justification solely based on the necessity to maintain the political system within a state.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby C. Rider
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
White House ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychological Warfare ◽  
The Government ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This concluding chapter considers the scope of the U.S. Cold War propaganda efforts during the late 1950s. In many ways, the 1950s had set the stage for the remainder of the Cold War. The superpower sporting rivalry continued to elevate the political significance of athletic exchanges, track meets, and a range of other competitions and interactions between sportsmen and sportswomen from the East and the West. For the U.S. public, the Olympics were still the source of much debate as each festival arrived on its quadrennial orbit. Victory or defeat at the Olympics clearly remained important to the public and to the White House. Declassified documents also suggest that in the post-Eisenhower years the government was still deploying the Olympics in the service of psychological warfare.

“Post” As Justification: International Law and Democracy-Building after Iraq

2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
pp. 709-723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Outi Korhonen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Deterrent Effect ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Democracy Building

The “post”-phase of a conflict has become the justification for both the possible action and the inaction of the Western states. It is not so much any longer that we would be averse to war in any circumstances, as the non-use of force principle in its absolute sense would require. Again, after a good fifty years of the UN and its raison d'etre – the guardianship of peace – we seem to have arrived at an era where ideological contestation no more has the deterrent effect that it did during the Cold War and, consequently, there are cases of the use of force that are accepted and even regarded as just as long as they are quick. When looking back at the NATO bombings of FRY in 1999 as the response to atrocities in Kosovo many are able to accept that ‘though illegal they were legitimate’ in some sense. This is the conclusion irrespective of whether one, at the time, was for action or inaction. Such a ‘condoning condemnation’ has become the popular middle road as so many other paradoxes in world politics. Through the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq the paradox has gained in strength. Although there is quite strong and unequivocal opposition to the wars and a condemnation for their illegality, the political elite of the West seems to be quick in forgetting scruples and taking a keen interest in the “post”-management of the targets, i.e. the states that are about to be or already have been ‘bombed into the stone age’ or into shambles in any case. There is a general rush to the “post”-phase; both in the sense that the tacit requirement for the condoning condemnation is that the action be quick – the use of force should be very limited in time – and, secondly, in the sense that already before the bombs fall (or during) the major reconstruction plans and projects are dealt. This article outlines some points of critique that could be launched at the phase when the majority cannot be bothered to re-analyze the wrongs committed ex ante.

Poisoned Partnership: The International Mercury Cartel and Spanish–Italian Relations, 1945–1954

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
PABLO DEL HIERRO ◽  
ESPEN STORLI
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Original Source ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Cold War

This article investigates the development of the Spanish–Italian mercury cartel from the end of World War II to the mid-1950s. Previous literature has singled out the cartel as one of the most robust international cartels of the twentieth century, but as this article shows, the cartel broke down toward the end of the 1940s, and although briefly reestablished in 1954, it quickly dissolved again. Building on access to original source material from archives in Spain, Italy, the United States, and United Kingdom, we investigate the underlying reasons why the cartel broke down, and how and why it was eventually reestablished. Because both the main Italian and the Spanish mercury producers were state-owned, this article pays special attention to the influence of the political relations between Spain and Italy on the development of the cartel. The study of the mercury cartel is used as a prism to investigate the point where industry strategies meet government strategies. This article thus contributes to two major strands of literature, both to the business history literature on international cartels in the post-1945 world and to the diplomatic history literature on the intricate relationship between Spain and Italy in the early phase of the Cold War.

scholarly journals Power to the people: Disidentification with the government and the support for populism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina Urbanska ◽  
Sam Pehrson ◽  
Serge Guimond
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Left ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Right ◽  
Populist Party

Populist attitudes have been shown to predict voting behaviour. These attitudes consist of a belief that everyday citizens are better judges of what is best for their own country than politicians and that the political elites are corrupt. As such, a clear ‘us’ (pure and good everyday citizens) and ‘them’ (the evil political elite) rhetoric is present. In the present research, we propose that identification with the government may predict whether people would vote for, and whether they have voted in the past for, a populist party (either from the political left or the political right). The present research (N = 562), carried out among French citizens, showed that lower government identification related to past voting behaviour, current voting intentions and likelihood to switch from a non-populist to a populist party. Identification with the government was also negatively associated to intention to abstain from voting. Moreover, government identification was a stronger predictor of these voting-related outcomes than the recently developed populist attitudes measures. Unexpectedly, national identification was a not a significant predictor of voting behaviour. In conclusion, the present research suggests that the extent to which citizens identify and feel represented by the government should be considered on par with populist attitudes in understanding support for populist parties. Perceiving that the government does not represent everyday people may be sufficient to abandon support for mainstream (non-populist) political parties.

The Moralities of Negotiation

Worldview ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 2 (11) ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
E. Raymond Platig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

Many well-intentioned people have long recognized the absence in our century of any effective international law, government and mores. They have also wasted a lot of time attempting to conjure up constitutional governments for the world, to codify, revise and extend international law, and to call forth a mostly non-existent world public opinion. In a world rent by such basic ideological and cultural splits as is ours, these efforts are foredoomed to failure.The much more relevant question for one interested in peace in this nuclear-missile’ age is whether or not the United States and the Soviet Union can settle through negotiation some of the political problems of the Cold War. If they cannot agree to “live and let live” as sovereign states in a world of sovereign states, on what basis can we expect that they will engage in that much more intimate collaboration out of which mores, law and government can grow?

scholarly journals As an issue: what decides that citizens feel safe in their state

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-112
Author(s):  
Jacek Zieliński
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civic Involvement ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
Safe State ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Way

A safe state is a well and clearly organized state. A state in which all citizens are guaranteed a stable existence and have a sense of confidence in their own development. Achieving this status is conditioned by legal provisions, which are the basic instrument for regulating and determining the desired social relations. The key role belongs to the functioning of the lower-level administration, which – as the author claims – cannot be blamed for the way the law is applied, within which limits and in which it is to operate. The use (lawmaking) of the law depends on the political parties sitting in parliament and creating the composition of the executive (the government comes from parliament), and their representation (members of parliament) – on our civic involvement in the election.

scholarly journals Private Military and Security Companies: The End of State Responsibility?

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 72-77
Author(s):  
Mario Iván Urueña Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Military Security ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Security Companies

Abstract The objective of this article is to observe the redefinition of state responsibility based on its interaction with Private Military Security Companies. The boom, consolidation and decline of these companies between the end of the Cold War era and the first decade of the 21st century pose a dilemma to international law regarding State responsibility towards security issues within its territory. The lack of effective international law mechanisms and the political agenda of the States are both limitations for preserving human dignity in institutional and humanitarian fragile contexts. Hence, an interdisciplinary approach must be considered in order to seek an alternative path to this dilemma. This research used empirical data and documental analysis to achieve this objective.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document