The National Council of Negro Women and Apartheid

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Grant
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Black Women ◽  
African Americans ◽  
International Politics ◽  
State Department ◽  
The State ◽  
National Council ◽  
African Child ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the anti-apartheid politics of the Washington-based National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). Outlining the organization’s broader commitment to black international politics, it shows how its leadership worked with the State Department as it ought to expand its international activities in this era. As such, the chapter demonstrates how black liberals adapted to the climate of the Cold War when attempting to challenge colonialism overseas. Finally, by tracing the involvement of the NCNW with the African Children’s Feeding Scheme initiative, the chapter documents how highly gendered representations of the African family worked to promote a diasporic consciousness among African Americans. During the 1950s, images of the oppressed African mother, the poor and malnourished African child, and the African family in need of protection were deliberately employed as gendered motifs around which black women could build international alliances.

War and strong states, peace and weak states?

1996 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Desch
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Security ◽  
International Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Weak States ◽  
The Cold War

For most of the twentieth century, international politics were dominated by World Wars I and II and by the cold war. This period of intense international security competition clearly strengthened states, increasing their scope and cohesion. However, the end of the cold war may represent a “threat trough”—a period of significantly reduced international security competition. If so, the scope and cohesion of many states may likewise change. Although this change will not be so great as to end the state or the states system, the state as we know it surely will change. Some states will disintegrate, many will cease growing in scope and may even shrink a little, and few will remain unaffected.

“United, We Build a Free World”

2019 ◽  
pp. 192-218
Author(s):  
Grace V. Leslie
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
National Council ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The Cold War

A renowned educator, founder of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), and leader of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet, Mary McLeod Bethune is one of the century’s most famous African American women. This essay traces the trajectory of Bethune’s internationalism. In an era dominated by W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson, Bethune preached a vision of human rights that was deeply informed by her lifelong mission to better the lives of black women. When the Cold War descended, Bethune remade her internationalism to walk the tightrope of Cold War civil rights. Foregrounding Bethune reveals a black internationalist sphere in which women played a central role and where debates over global conceptions of “full and equal freedom” redefined the quest for equality that shaped American political development in the twentieth century.

‘Chinese rings’: the United States, the two Chinas and the 1960 Squaw Valley Winter Olympics

2018 ◽  
pp. 185-202 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
State Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Winter Olympics ◽  
Winter Olympic Games ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
International Sport

This chapter examines the inter-relationship of sport and diplomacy with specific reference to the 1960 Winter Olympic Games (held in Squaw Valley, California). More specifically, it evaluates State Department involvement in the ongoing issue of the recognition of the “Two China’s” during the Cold War, with specific reference to international sport. Despite long-standing official non-involvement in international sporting matters, hosting the 1960 Games focussed US diplomatic attention on the opportunities and problems presented by the Olympics within the wider Cold War. Crucially, the State Department extended considerable behind-the-scenes efforts both before and during the Squaw Valley Games in an attempt ensure Nationalist Chinese participation. Overall, this chapter will demonstrate that despite claims of non-involvement, the State Department specifically utilised international sport – and particularly the Olympics – as a tool of diplomacy during the Cold War. This was drawn into particularly sharp focus when the Games were being hosted on American soil, as they were in Squaw Valley in 1960.

A Campaign of Truth: The State Department, Propaganda, and the Olympic Games, 1950–1952

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-27
Author(s):  
Toby C. Rider
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
State Department ◽  
International Olympic Committee ◽  
The State ◽  
Federal Funds ◽  
Stalin Era ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Olympic Games

Scholars who have examined the role of the Olympic Games in U.S. Cold War strategy have dealt mostly with the post-Stalin era, when the Olympic Games were a stage for “symbolic combat” between athletes from the East and West and a cultural force with a powerful and compelling message that could be used for political gain. The Games were overseen by the International Olympic Committee, which both influenced and was influenced by the actions of world leaders and states. Although U.S. officials generally refused to approve federal funds for the national Olympic team, they took steps to manipulate the Games for propaganda purposes. The Cold War origins of such activities have not yet been clearly delineated. This article shows that Harry Truman's administration in the late 1940s and early 1950s was the first to address and to take advantage of the propaganda potential of the Olympics in the Cold War era, and this transformative period coincided with, and was driven by, the government's much expanded information offensive, the “Campaign of Truth.”

Trade, Aid, and the Cold War in the Americas

2018 ◽  
pp. 13-49
Author(s):  
Thomas Tunstall Allcock
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
State Department ◽  
The State ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Alliance For Progress ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Economic Modernization

This chapter explores Thomas Mann’s career in the State Department in the period prior to Johnson’s presidency, establishing both Mann’s background and beliefs and the broad pattern of inter-American relations in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Mann’s role as an early champion of increased economic aid and cooperative measures to assist the economies of the hemisphere is vital for understanding the positions he would later advocate in the 1960s, as is his highly successful period serving as Kennedy’s ambassador to Mexico. The chapter also traces the gradual shift from the Eisenhower administration’s “trade-not-aid” position to early efforts at promoting economic modernization, supported by Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson, as the Cold War came to Latin America via Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution. It concludes with the culmination of this process, the creation of John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress.

The American Exceptionalists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Abrams Ansari
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
State Department ◽  
The State ◽  
Musical Work ◽  
American Power ◽  
Concert Music ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines Americanist composers William Schuman and Howard Hanson in parallel, as they engaged with the Cold War in very similar ways. These two men are shown to have used their influence as conservatory directors and advisers to government to present musical Americanism as a tool to grow American power on the global stage. Working with the State Department and the US Information Agency, Schuman and Hanson helped shape Cold War–created international cultural programs that placed a heavy emphasis on concert music and mandated the performance of American compositions. The chapter also includes an analysis of a musical work by Schuman that was commissioned by a branch of the US government. Credendum (1955) demonstrates in sound Schuman’s conception of Cold War American exceptionalism.

State Failure

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert I. Rotberg
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Public Services ◽  
International Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
State Failure ◽  
Failed States ◽  
Failed State ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Failing States

A failed state is a country with a government that cannot or will not deliver essential public services (political goods) to its citizens. Failed states are those political entities in international politics that supply deficient qualities and quantities of political goods and, simultaneously, no longer exercise a monopoly of violence within their territories. Failed states are violent. There are no failed states that do not harbour civil wars. When there are one or more insurgencies within the state, and when other critical criteria are met, we have a failed state. This chapter examines the range of failed or failing states that have affected Europe’s security interests since the end of the cold war.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document