The Weakening of the Franco-German Tandem in Light of the Eurozone Crisis

2015 ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Armağan Gözkaman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
Eurozone Crisis ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Euro Zone ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Over Time

Since the inception of the European integration process, the Franco-German axis is considered to be a major driving force. Even today, Europe moves faster in the presence of an entente between France and Germany. However, the harmonization of German and French positions is not quasi-automatic as it used to be. The desynchronization that occurred over time is based on various factors such as the German unification, the EU's enlargements, and the change in German self-perception. One of the contexts in which the divergences between Paris and Berlin can be seen is related to the Euro zone rescue operations. Germany came to the fore in the resolution process and made clear her preferences, which are not always truly supported by France. The drifting-apart that started after the end of the Cold War thus continues.

Russia and Peaceful Change

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrej Krickovic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Russian Foreign Policy ◽  
Unmet Expectations ◽  
Soviet Empire ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Over Time

Over the last four decades, Russia has been at the very center of peaceful change in international relations. Gorbachev’s conciliatory New Thinking (NT) fundamentally transformed international relations, ending the Cold War struggle and dismantling the Soviet empire and world communist movement. Contemporary Russia is at the forefront of the transition away from American unipolarity and toward what is believed will be a more equitable and just multipolar order. Over time, Russia has moved away from the idealism that characterized Gorbachev’s NT and toward a more hard-nosed and confrontational approach toward peaceful change. The chapter traces this evolution with a particular emphasis on the role that Russia’s unmet expectations of reciprocity and elevated status have played in the process. If they are to be successful, future efforts at peaceful change will have to find ways to address these issues of reciprocity and status, especially under circumstances where there are power asymmetries between the side making concessions and the side receiving them. Nevertheless, despite its disappointments, Russia’s approach to change remains (largely) peaceful. Elements of NT, including its emphasis on interdependence, collective/mutual security, and faith in the possibility of positive transformation, continue to be present in modern Russian foreign policy thinking.

A Tower of Tangled Histories: The Upper Silesia Tower in Poznań and the Making of an Unromantic Poland, 1911–1955

Slavic Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-590
Author(s):  
Patryk Babiracki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Material Structure ◽  
World War ◽  
Upper Silesia ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

Engaging with regional, international, and spatial histories, this article proposes a new reading of the twentieth-century Polish past by exploring the vicissitudes of a building known as the Upper Silesia Tower. Renowned German architect Hans Poelzig designed the Tower for the 1911 Ostdeutsche Ausstellung in Posen, an ethnically Polish city under Prussian rule. After Poland regained its independence following World War I, the pavilion, standing centrally on the grounds of Poznań’s International Trade Fair, became the fair's symbol, and over time, also evolved into visual shorthand for the city itself. I argue that the Tower's significance extends beyond Posen/Poznań, however. As an embodiment of the conflicts and contradictions of Polish-German historical entanglements, the building, in its changing forms, also concretized various efforts to redefine the dominant Polish national identity away from Romantic ideals toward values such as order, industriousness, and hard work. I also suggest that eventually, as a material structure harnessed into the service of socialism, the Tower, with its complicated past, also brings into relief questions about the regional dimensions of the clashes over the meaning of modernity during the Cold War.

scholarly journals Taming the Expellee Threat in Post–1945 Europe: Lessons from the Two Germanies and Finland

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
PERTTI AHONEN
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
World War ◽  
Forced Migrants ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article analyses the process through which the dangers posed by millions of forced migrants were defused in continental Europe after the Second World War. Drawing on three countries – West Germany, East Germany and Finland – it argues that broad, transnational factors – the cold war, economic growth and accompanying social changes – were crucial in the process. But it also contends that bloc-level and national decisions, particularly those concerning the level of autonomous organisational activity and the degree and type of political and administrative inclusion allowed for the refugees, affected the integration process in significant ways and helped to produce divergent national outcomes.

Lukewarm Neutrality in a Cold War? The Case of Austria

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erwin A. Schmidl
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Military Occupation ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Other Orientation ◽  
Over Time

Geographically, Austria's position during the Cold War differed significantly from that of Switzerland or Sweden, let alone Ireland. Austria, like Finland, was situated along the Iron Curtain. In 1945, Austria was divided between East and West, and the Soviet Union hoped that the Austrian Communists could quickly gain power by largely democratic means. This effort failed, however, when the Communists lost decisively in the November 1945 elections. Over the next decade, Austria remained under Soviet and Western military occupation. The formal adoption of a neutral status for Austria in May 1955, when the Austrian State Treaty was signed, was a compromise needed to ensure the departure of Soviet forces from Austria. Although some other orientation might have been preferred, neutrality over time became firmly engrained in Austria's collective identity.

scholarly journals The Right to Survival in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyoung Song
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Confucian Tradition ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
North Korean Defectors ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Over Time

AbstractFor the past decade, the author has examined North Korean primary public documents and concludes that there have been changes of identities and ideas in the public discourse of human rights in the DPRK: from strong post-colonialism to Marxism-Leninism, from there to the creation of Juche as the state ideology and finally 'our style' socialism. This paper explains the background to Kim Jong Il's 'our style' human rights in North Korea: his broader framework, 'our style' socialism, with its two supporting ideational mechanisms, named 'virtuous politics' and 'military-first politics'. It analyses how some of these characteristics have disappeared while others have been reinforced over time. Marxism has significantly withered away since the end of the Cold War, and communism was finally deleted from the latest 2009 amended Socialist Constitution, whereas the concept of sovereignty has been strengthened and the language of duties has been actively employed by the authority almost as a relapse to the feudal Confucian tradition. The paper also includes some first-hand accounts from North Korean defectors interviewed in South Korea in October–December 2008. They show the perception of ordinary North Koreans on the ideas of human rights.

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.

Slovakia

2019 ◽  
pp. 435-474
Author(s):  
Soňa Szomolányi ◽  
Alexander Karvai
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Power Distribution ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Large Party ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Policy Agreement ◽  
Coalition Bargaining

In Slovakia, the main lines of conflict that determine coalition formation have changed over time. Iinitially the conflicts were based on national-ethnic issues, later this was followed by disagreement over the direction of reforms and the European integration process. Eventually they have settled around socioeconomic policies with alternating right and left governments in power. Only three coalition cabinets have served the full parliamentary terms, and all of them have both enjoyed a majority support in Parliament and included a dominant large party. In contrast, coalitions without a major leading party, and where the power structure has been more evenly distributed, have been more likely to terminate due to inter-party conflicts before the end of the full constitutionally mandated term. The coalitions of the second type coalitions have also been pursuing more of consensual style of politics. They have been based on social-economic policy agreement between the parties but differed considerably in terms of the GAL-TAN dimension. While socioeconomic policies appear is a strong driving force in coalition bargaining, the second (GAL-TAN) dimension tends to matters more when it comes to the survival of the coalition. In terms of coalition governance, six out twelve cabinets represented the Prime Minister Dominated model. The cabinets with a leading party (HZDS, SDKÚ-DS, and SMER-DS) did not have as many internal conflicts as the cabinets with a relatively even power distribution. The latter type of cabinets relied instead on their ability to negotiate and compromise in the name of consensus and so they represent a Coalition Compromise Model.

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