Masculinity and Modernization in Democratic Party Politics during the 1950s

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-81
Author(s):  
Sean J. McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Public Support ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Liberal Democrats ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

This chapter addresses the impact on Democrats of a dominant postwar political framework that demanded a certain ideal of robust manhood in response to international and domestic circumstances. This rediscovered emphasis on toughness had its roots in the upheaval of World War II and the rise of totalitarian ideologies, leading liberal Democrats to revamp the entire way they viewed the world in the early Cold War years. During the same period France was led by a series of seemingly weak, unstable Fourth Republic coalition governments. This fed American perceptions of French decadence and irrationality to the point that they grew into fears that France was undermining Washington’s efforts to win the Cold War. Liberal Democrats were on the defensive, attacked for their privilege and softness by McCarthyites and right-wing conservatives. McCarthyism had strong lingering effects on Democrats into the 1960s, prompting party leaders to adopt an exaggeratedly tough approach just as Kennedy was beginning to make his mark in American politics. Kennedy had already concluded that France was an obstacle to American defense of the “free world,” while many of his fellow Democrats concluded that offering strong public support for any French position in international affairs was political suicide.

Building a Left Coast: The Legacy of the California Popular Front and the Challenge to Cold War Liberalism in the Post-World War II Era

2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
JONATHAN BELL
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
New Politics ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

The Cold War in the late 1940s blunted attempts by the Truman administration to extend the scope of government in areas such as health care and civil rights. In California, the combined weakness of the Democratic Party in electoral politics and the importance of fellow travelers and communists in state liberal politics made the problem of how to advance the left at a time of heightened Cold War tensions particularly acute. Yet by the early 1960s a new generation of liberal politicians had gained political power in the Golden State and was constructing a greatly expanded welfare system as a way of cementing their hold on power. In this article I argue that the New Politics of the 1970s, shaped nationally by Vietnam and by the social upheavals of the 1960s over questions of race, gender, sexuality, and economic rights, possessed particular power in California because many activists drew on the longer-term experiences of a liberal politics receptive to earlier anti-Cold War struggles. A desire to use political involvement as a form of social networking had given California a strong Popular Front, and in some respects the power of new liberalism was an offspring of those earlier battles.

Sweden, Europe, and the Cold War: A Reappraisal

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryo Makko
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Third World ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Democratic Socialism ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

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.

The Islamist Terrorist as the New Universal Enemy

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pinar Kemerli
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Terrorism Discourse ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Treating modern terrorism discourse as an important political problem in the history of Western legal theorizing and national security policy, this chapter examines the impact of the end of the Cold War and September 11 on political debates on terrorism at the United Nations. Surveying the framing of Palestinian terrorism at the General Assembly and Security Council between the 1960s and late 2000s, it argues that the disavowal of the legitimacy of non-sovereign political violence at the end of the Cold War, and the association of political Islam with terrorism following September 11 have facilitated the discursive construction of a universal enemy in the image of the “Islamist terrorist.” The chapter shows that this discursive formation is laden with, and thus perpetuates, politically significant normative presumptions that are related to anxieties concerning sacrificial violence with which political Islam is widely associated.

Pamela Ballinger. History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

2005 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 226-227
Author(s):  
Maura Hametz
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Using anthropological, historical, and political science approaches, Pamela Ballinger demonstrates how memory shapes Istrian understandings of Italian identity. World War II and the events of 1945, specifically the creation of the Free Territory of Trieste and the division of the upper Adriatic territory into Allied and Yugoslav administered zones, form the backdrop for the study that concentrates on the crystallization of collective memory for Istrian esuli (exiles who settled in Trieste) and rimasti (those who remained in Yugoslavia). Grounded in the literature re-evaluating the impact of the Cold War, her work skillfully weaves a narrative that uncovers competing visions as well as common tropes in Istrian visions of ‘Italianness’ constructed in the climate of state formation and dissolution since World War I. Ballinger's major contribution is her analysis of the “multi-directionality” of identity formation (p. 45) that has implications far beyond the Istrian case.

Targeted Development in Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Blodgett Bermeo
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Direct Approach ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
World War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

This chapter places the concept of targeted development in historical context, starting with an overview of the time immediately following the end of World War II. Interestingly, the logic for targeted development today has much in common with the decision to target development resources to Europe, rather than the developing world, in the second half of the 1940s. As the Cold War unfolded and the strategy of containment took hold, the chapter demonstrates how development promotion was sidelined in favor of a more direct approach to pursuing geopolitical goals in developing countries. The chapter then traces the rise of interconnections between industrialized and developing countries since the end of the Cold War and the impact of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks for focusing attention on spillovers associated with underdevelopment.

Women and Gender

2019 ◽  
pp. 178-207
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
American Life ◽  
Family Tradition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Equality ◽  
Social Liberalism ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

Benson’s views on women’s roles might be dismissed as simply the old-fashioned vestiges of Mormon patriarchy and generational sexism. Certainly, “Motherhood to the exclusion of all else” and the redirecting of feminine ambition back toward the home had been a rhetorical line from LDS leaders since early in the twentieth century, especially in reaction to the gender shifts of World War II and beyond. Like other anxieties within Mormonism about postwar disruptions in American life, the movement for women’s equality--and church leaders’ reactions to it--can best be understood against the backdrop of Cold War fears about the infiltration of communism, atheism, sexual liberation, and expressions of anti-authority impulses into American life. For Benson, as this essay argues, Mormonism’s emphasis on family, tradition, children, and maternity offered a reliable counterinfluence to the Cold War and the social liberalism of the 1960s that brought sexual debauchery, crime, and the degradation of women.

The Cold War in Central America: Authoritarianism, Empire, and Social Revolution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquín M. Chávez
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Central America ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
International Consensus ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

Global and regional political and cultural trends shaped a set of interrelated and persistent conflicts between authoritarian regimes and democratic and revolutionary forces during the Cold War in Central America. US Cold War anticommunism, in particular, abetted authoritarian governments that sparked major conflicts in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. The failure of the post-World War II wave of democratization in Central America led to persistent revolutionary and counterrevolutionary politics in the next three decades. Two successive waves of revolution emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. The reverberations of the Cuban Revolution and US counterinsurgency mainly shaped the first wave of revolution and counterrevolution in the 1960s. The Cuban Revolution, progressive Catholicism, and the Sandinista Revolution mainly shaped the second wave of revolution and counterrevolution in the 1970s and 1980s. The armed conflict in Guatemala (1960–1996), El Salvador’s Civil War (1980–1992), and the Contra War in Nicaragua (1979–1991) became the last major Cold War conflicts in Latin America. The changing dynamics of the conflicts on the ground and the international consensus in favor of peace negotiations in Central America that emerged at the end of the Cold War enabled the political settlement of the conflicts. The peace processes that put an end to the armed conflicts created fragile democracies in the midst of the neoliberal restructuring of the 1990s, which limited the meaning of social citizenship in Central America.

Jazz, Power, and Soviet Youth in the Early Cold War, 1948−1953

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gleb Tsipursky
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Competition ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Examining the history of jazz in the Soviet Union between 1948 and 1953, this essay sheds light on the role of popular music in the cultural competition of the early Cold War. While the Soviet authorities pursued a tolerant policy toward jazz during World War II because of its wartime alliance with the United States, the outbreak of the Cold War in the late 1940s led to a decisive turn against this music. The Communist Party condemned jazz as the music of the “foreign bourgeoisie,” instead calling for patriotic Soviet music. Building on previous studies of the complex fate of western music in the USSR during the postwar decades, this article highlights a previously unexamined youth counterculture of jazz enthusiasts, exploring the impact of anti-jazz initiatives on grassroots cultural institutions, on the everyday cultural practices of young people, and on the Cold War’s cultural front in the USSR. It relies on sources from central and regional archives, official publications, and memoirs, alongside oral interviews with jazz musicians and cultural officials.

The End of “Historical-Ideological Bedazzlement”

2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mate Nikola Tokić
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
World War ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
State Archives ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Separatist Movement

Of the myriad terrorist organizations that emerged in the late 1960s and the 1970s, those supporting the destruction of socialist Yugoslavia and the establishment of an independent Croatia were among the most active. This article explores the geopolitical context behind the radicalization of certain segments of the émigré Croatian population in the three decades following World War II and the processes that led them to adopt terrorism as an acceptable form of political expression. Specifically, it examines how changes in the realities of the Cold War political landscape during the 1960s and 1970s directly shaped the strategies of Croatian separatist groups outside Yugoslavia. These developments led Croatian radicals to cultivate a culture of abandonment, betrayal, and persecution, in which the Croats were portrayed as a nation of victims without allies. This helped precipitate a radicalization of the separatist movement, as many within the Croatian diaspora were increasingly convinced that only “self-initiated action”—that is, political violence and terrorism—could hasten the establishment of an independent Croatian state. Difficulties in dealing with the realities of Cold War international politics also led to the emergence of significant cleavages and conflicts within the émigré separatist movement, which further helped frame the processes of strategic thinking among radical activists. Drawing evidence from state archives and the political writings of radical émigré Croatian separatist organizations, the article traces the trajectory of radical Croatian separatists from staunch supporters of the West to desperate and disillusioned advocates of realpolitik thinking.

Cold War Shadows of Japan’s Imperial Legacies for Women in East Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 659-675
Author(s):  
Kozue Akibayashi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
East Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Japan occupies a unique position in the history of East Asia as the sole non-Western colonial power. Japan’s defeat in the Asia-Pacific War that ended its colonial expansion did not bring justice to its former colonies. The Japanese leadership and people were spared from being held accountable for its invasion and colonial rule by the United States in its Cold War strategy to make post–World War II Japan a military outpost and bulwark in the region against communism. How then did the Cold War shape feminisms in Japan, a former colonizing force that never came to terms with its colonial violence? What was the impact of the Cold War on Japanese women’s movements for their own liberation? What are the implications for today? This article discusses the effects of Japan’s imperial legacies during the Cold War and the current aftermath with examples taken from the history of the women’s movement in Japan.

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