Translating Economics into Politics in Cold War Germany

2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-116
Author(s):  
James C. Van Hook
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Market Economy ◽  
Economic Point ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Social Market ◽  
The Cold War

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.

The Development of the United Nations Law Concerning Peace-Keeping Operations

1992 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-281
Author(s):  
Robert Siekmann
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Central America ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Cold War

Especially as a consequence of the termination of the Cold War, the détente in the relations between East en West (Gorbachev's ‘new thinking’ in foreign policy matters) and, finally, the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the number of UN peace-keeping operations substantially increased in recent years. One could even speak of a ‘proliferation’. Until 1988 the number of operations was twelve (seven peace-keeping forces: UNEF ‘I’ and ‘II’, ONUC, UNHCYP, UNSF (West New Guinea), UNDOF AND UNIFIL; and five military observer missions: UNTSO, UNMOGIP, UNOGIL, UNYOM and UNIPOM). Now, three forces and seven observer missions can be added. The forces are MINURSO (West Sahara), UNTAC (Cambodia) and UNPROFOR (Yugoslavia); the observer groups: UNGOMAP (Afghanistan/Pakistan), UNIIMOG (Iran/Iraq), UNAVEM ‘I’ and ‘II’ (Angola), ONUCA (Central America), UNIKOM (Iraq/Kuwait) and ONUSAL (El Salvador). UNTAG (Namibia), which was established in 1978, could not become operational until 1989 as a result of the new political circumstances in the world. So, a total of twenty-three operations have been undertaken, of which almost fifty percent was established in the last five years, whereas the other half was the result of decisions taken by the United Nations in the preceding forty years (UNTSO dates back to 1949). In the meantime, some ‘classic’ operations are being continued (UNTSO, UNMOGIP, UNFICYP, UNDOF, and UNIFIL), whereas some ‘modern’ operations already have been terminated as planned (UNTAG, UNGOMAP, UNIIMOG, UNAVEM ‘I’ and ‘II’, and ONUCA). At the moment (July 1992) eleven operations are in action – the greatest number in the UN history ever.

scholarly journals Reciprocity in the Civil Economy: a Critical Assessment

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
María Guadalupe Martino ◽  
Christian Müller
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Market Economy ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Economic Market ◽  
Homo Oeconomicus ◽  
Market Interactions ◽  
Incentive Compatible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Civil Economy ◽  
Social Market

Abstract The civil economy approach is an attempt to reconcile economic market interactions with the normative standards of traditional virtue ethics. We analyze critically some of its main elements with a special focus on the concept of reciprocity, which plays a central role in the whole approach. Its strengths include, among others, virtue orientation, emphasis on happiness rather than utility, and in particular the notion of reciprocity. However, we argue that this concept of reciprocity would on average not be incentive compatible, and from a methodological point of view, the implied hypothesis of a homo reciprocans is not a viable alternative to the standard model of homo oeconomicus. We also consider that the approach is not entirely new, as it shares many characteristics with the social market economy conception.

The ‘Good War’ after September 11

2002 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lawler
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
New Wars ◽  
The Cold War

Rather Than Signalling The End Of War, As Many Liberal Minds had hoped, the end of the cold war has seen ‘hot’ war moving firmly to centre-stage, while at the same time presaging a reclassification of its predominant forms and purposes. Since 1990 there has been a rash of what Kaldor calls ‘new wars’. Although often highly localized, they confound settled understandings of inter-state or civil war by virtue of the diverse range of protagonists involved, the issues over which they are fought, and their consistently brutal impact upon civilians. A virtual revolution in media technology has also made such wars publicly visible to an unprecedented degree. In spite of the fact that new wars are often fought without recourse to the most sophisticated or destructive of military technology, the horrific impact upon populations caught up in them has clearly assaulted public sensibilities worldwide and generated a chorus of demands that something should be done about them. Consequently, the political and ethical dimensions of going to war in response to such threats have also moved in from the periphery to the centre of public and intellectual debate. As Walzer has recently observed, the ‘chief dilemma of international politics is whether people in danger should be rescued by military forces from outside’. From the point of view of the key members of the international community at least, armed ‘humanitarian intervention’ is no longer just a form of war but has become virtually synonymous with permissible war itself.

Scandinavia Within and Without Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 182-200
Author(s):  
Bo Stråth
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
European Integration ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Integration Approach ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Eu

This chapter outlines changing relationships between Scandinavia and Europe. The Scandinavian ‘isolationist’ approach to Europe after the Napoleonic wars shifted to more active integrationist policies in the 1920s, with the arrival of left governments and the acceptance of the League of Nations; a new isolationist trend (‘neutrality’) set in after 1933. Against the backdrop of this long-term pattern, the focus is on shifting Scandinavian attitudes to the project of European integration and on attempts to be both within and outside Europe. Before and after the Danish entry into the EU in 1973, tensions between different approaches and between the countries concerned have been evident. The Cold War was a major factor, and its end reinforced the pro-integration approach. More recently, problems with the euro and the refugee crisis have provoked more ambiguous responses, but less so in Finland than in the Scandinavian countries.

The Limits of Compensation: Swiss Neutrality Policy in the Cold War

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Fischer ◽  
Daniel Möckli
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
World War ◽  
Security Strategy ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Emotional Commitment ◽  
The Cold War

Switzerland was in a unique place among European countries after World War II. Although situated in the center of Europe, it had not been attacked by Nazi Germany and therefore emerged from the war with a strong economy, stable political institutions, and social cohesion. The experience of World War II forged a collective identity different from that in other continental states. The Swiss had a deep emotional commitment to neutrality and a conviction that autonomous defense would continue to be an effective security strategy after 1945. The Swiss government acknowledged the need for, and indeed was supportive of, the new United Nations collective security system. The Swiss were well aware of the benefits of Western collective defense and European integration as the Cold War divide came about. But Switzerland was willing to associate with these new multilateral governance structures only to the extent that they did not negatively affect neutrality or, in the case of European integration, Swiss economic interests.

Wallace Stegner's Arabian Discovery: Imperial Blind Spots in a Continental Vision

2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-438
Author(s):  
ROBERT VITALIS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
American Identity ◽  
The West ◽  
Western History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Oil Company ◽  
Blind Spots

In 1956 Wallace Stegner wrote a history of the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco), but it was only published fifteen years later——in Beirut. The book complicates the view of Stegner as a destroyer of American western myths and a forerunner of the social and environmental turn in western history. Stegner shared with those who bought his services some problematic ideas about American identity and history in the context of the Cold War. His forgotten history of oil exploration in Saudi Arabia reveals the blind spots in his ““continental vision,”” an inability or unwillingness to see the moment as part of the long, unbroken past of the U.S. West. Stegner's journey, from chronicler of the despoiling of the West by eastern oil and copper barons to defender of cultural diversity and the collective commons, stopped, as it has for many other Americanists, at the water's edge.

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