Indira Gandhi, the “Long 1970s,” and the Cold War

Author(s):  
Priya Chacko

This chapter focuses on Indira Gandhi’s turn to populism and authoritarianism from the late 1960s and 1970s. It is argued that populism and authoritarianism had a long-term impact on Indian politics and political economy by creating the conditions that facilitated the emergence of long-term processes of political fragmentation – due to the decline of the Congress Party and the rise of various social forces and political formations – and economic reform. The chapter first shows how Cold War interventionism played a key role in Indira Gandhi’s shift toward agrarian populist policies and authoritarianism. It then details the ways in which the outcomes of populism and authoritarianism laid the path for the turn to pro-business and pro-market policies as well as political fragmentation and democratic deepening. Hence, the chapter makes the case for seeing the 1970s as a critical juncture in Indian history which laid the foundations for the major economic and political changes India has recently experienced. Within this period, the Cold War context was a crucial factor in the decisions and choices made by the Indian leadership.

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hubert Zimmermann

This article elucidates a fundamental feature of transatlantic relations during the Cold War: the presence of more than 250,000 U.S. troops in Europe, mainly in West Germany, from 1952 through 1990. The article explains why this unprecedented commitment was extended for such a long time, despite intense domestic debates in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Opposition to the troop commitment was particularly strong in Congress. The article shows that the long-term stationing of U.S. troops in Europe was more precarious than often assumed. The article also shows that the debates in the 1960s and 1970s were instrumental in establishing the acceptance of long-term military commitments abroad as a feature of U.S. global policy.


2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. McMahon

Events in South Asia in the 1950s and early 1960s had a long-term impact on the Cold War and on relations among the countries involved—China, India, Pakistan, the United States, and the Soviet Union. This article provides an overview of U.S. relations with South Asian countries during the early Cold War. It highlights the connections between U.S. policy priorities and commitments in South Asia on the one hand and developments in Tibet on the other. The article considers how U.S. policy priorities and actions in South Asia shaped, and were shaped by, China's reassertion of control over Tibet in the early 1950s and by the frictions that emerged between India and China in 1959 as a result of Beijing's brutal crackdown in Tibet.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Cordle

The broadcast of Threads (BBC) on 23 September 1984 was a key moment in the Cold War imagination of nuclear catastrophe. Directed by Mick Jackson, and scripted by Barry Hines, the docudrama was widely trailed, attracted a large audience and was influential in defining a vision of what nuclear war would mean. The early 1980s had seen a resurgence in Cold War tensions with both superpowers adopting more bellicose rhetoric and actions; with nuclear war felt by many to be a distinct possibility, nuclear protest had also re-emerged as a shaping influence on the political landscape. Yet Threads is now, if not quite forgotten, certainly little known: with some notable exceptions, few critics have written about it and it has rarely been screened since its first broadcast. This article seeks to recover Threads and argue for its significance in providing 1980s Britain with a vision of what nuclear war would mean. It shows how it works within and against established television genres, exploiting the tensions between dramatic and documentary aesthetics, and how scheduling framed it as significant by placing it within the context of other documentary and discussion programmes. Finally, the article assesses the long-term impact of Threads. Although it swiftly faded from popular memory, it had a lasting impact on a specific demographic within its original audience: those who were adolescents or young adults when it was first broadcast. Not coincidentally, it was this generation who provided many of the new recruits for CND and other protest groups during the 1980s.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Burton

Brainwashing assumed the proportions of a cultural fantasy during the Cold War period. The article examines the various political, scientific and cultural contexts of brainwashing, and proceeds to a consideration of the place of mind control in British spy dramas made for cinema and television in the 1960s and 1970s. Particular attention is given to the films The Mind Benders (1963) and The Ipcress File (1965), and to the television dramas Man in a Suitcase (1967–8), The Prisoner (1967–8) and Callan (1967–81), which gave expression to the anxieties surrounding thought-control. Attention is given to the scientific background to the representations of brainwashing, and the significance of spy scandals, treasons and treacheries as a distinct context to the appearance of brainwashing on British screens.


2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryo Makko

Traditionally, Sweden has been portrayed as an active bridge-builder in international politics in the 1960s and 1970s. The country advocated a “third way” toward democratic socialism and greater “justice” in international affairs, but these foreign policy prescriptions were never applied to European affairs. This article examines Sweden's relations with Europe by contrasting European integration with the Cold War. Negotiations on Swedish membership in the European Communities and Swedish policy at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe were influenced by a general Berührungsangst toward Europe, which persisted during the years of détente. Because Swedish decision-makers believed that heavy involvement in European affairs would constrict Sweden's freedom of action, Swedish leaders' moral proclamations were applied exclusively to distant Third World countries rather than the egregious abuses of human rights in the Soviet bloc.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Renaud Bellais

Despite a low volume of production at national levels, the European naval industry remains quite fragmented 25 years after the end of the cold war. Contrary to what might be expected from an industrial or budgetary perspective, neither cross-border consolidation nor cooperative programs have resulted in European restructuring. The sovereign nature of shipyards has led to the promotion of a domestically-centered industry transformation. Again, contrary to what might be expected, this appears to be a potentially sustainable approach due to the long-term relationship between navies and their domestic industrial partners. Even so, one can question the sustainability of the current economic model, reliant as it is on export contracts and insufficient margins to manoeuver.


2020 ◽  
pp. 182-200
Author(s):  
Bo Stråth

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.


2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-129
Author(s):  
Jason Reid

This article also examines how the decline of teen-oriented room décor expertise reflected significant changes in the way gender and class influenced teen room culture during the tail end of the Cold War. Earlier teen décor strategies were often aimed towards affluent women; by contrast, the child-centric, do-it-yourself approach, as an informal, inexpensive alternative, was better suited to grant boys and working class teens from both sexes a greater role in the room design discourse. This article evaluates how middle-class home décor experts during the early decades of the twentieth century re-envisioned the teen bedroom as a space that was to be designed and maintained almost exclusively by teens rather than parents. However, many of the experts who formulated this advice would eventually become victims of their own success. By the 1960s and 1970s, teens were expected to have near total control over their bedrooms, which, in turn, challenged the validity of top-down forms of expertise.


2019 ◽  
pp. 144-165
Author(s):  
Mary Augusta Brazelton

This chapter investigates the role of mass immunization in Chinese medical diplomacy programs during the 1960s and 1970s. While most scholarship has stressed the influence of barefoot doctor and other paraprofessional training programs in the emergence of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a global model for rural health services, mass immunization programs in China had measurable results—in terms of lowered incidence of disease—that helped legitimize these training efforts and the nation's program of rural health care more broadly. Ultimately, the global popularization of Chinese public health was a consequence of regional competition within East Asia. During the Cold War era, the PRC used medical aid to foreign countries to compete for power and influence with the Republic of China on Taiwan, where institutions and personnel that the Nationalist Party brought to the island after 1948 built upon practices established during the period of Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945). The involvement of Taiwan in medical diplomacy reflected the expansionist agendas of its Western allies in the Cold War as well as competition with the PRC for recognition as the legitimate government of mainland China.


Author(s):  
David M. Edelstein

This chapter traces the deterioration of Soviet-American relations at the end of World War II and into the beginning of the cold war. While the United States and the Soviet Union found common cause during World War II in defeating Hitler’s Germany, their relationship began to deteriorate as the eventual defeat of Germany became more certain. The chapter emphasizes that it was growing beliefs about malign Soviet intentions, rather than changes in Soviet capabilities, that fuelled the origins of the cold war. In particular, the chapter details crises in Iran, Turkey, and Germany that contributed to U.S. beliefs about long-term Soviet intentions. As uncertainty evaporated, the enmity of the cold war took hold.


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