scholarly journals The State of Africa in the Global Political Economy

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Mohammed Seid Ali ◽  
Mengistu Alamineh Mazengia
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Development ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
To Come ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Cold War

Since the Cold War, at international, regional and domestic levels, there have been various dynamics which have been significantly impacting Africa's political economy. Taking the major historical developments prior to 1990s as background premises, this article intends to critically unveil the existential state (opportunities, challenges and imperatives) of the continent's political economy since the conclusion of the Cold War. Besides, it has to be noted that, except for some minor disparities among African countries, their communalities concerning their political and economic experiences could plausibly take the lion share, which in turn enable a researcher to come up with cogent explanations, evaluations, generalizations and finally conclusive remarks that could logically stand for the entire continent. Given this methodological consideration, in contrast with its successful but short lived historical precedent in the 1960s through deliberately owned national development policy measures by visionary post-independent African leaders, African political economy had been dragged into incommensurable crisis in the 1970s and 1980s. This had been primarily because of the imposition of alien neo-liberal development policies and reforms [1,2, p.4] (Fantu, 2014). Since the late 1990s, however, its overall performance has begun to recover following the demise of Uni-polar power structure for a new multi-polar global arrangement. The deteriorating influence of neo-liberal conditionalities because of national measures, policy independence, and alternative development policies as well as partnership [3,1 p.276]. In spite of its recent commendable signals justifying 'Afro-optimism', the continent's political economy has still been far from structural transformation. Thus, for its positive prospect, the underlying tasks that each African states are expected to undertake and realize are: strong democratic states with visionary political leadership, de-politicized and meritocratic civil service, state-lead or strategically regulated national economy, policy ownership as well as independence, deliberated and strategic integrations with regional and international economies, infrastructure expansion, human recourse development, diversifying development finance and partnership, giving priorities to strategic economic sectors, which could generate fast economic growth, create more job opportunities and could reduce poverty (Fatu, 2016; pp.1278-79).

scholarly journals Operações de paz africanas: as experiências da OUA e da UA

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-370
Author(s):  
Nilton César Fernandes Cardoso ◽  
Guilherme Ziebell de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
African Union ◽  
African Continent ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Military Interventions ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Cold War

Este trabalho busca identificar e analisar as diferenças existentes entre as operações de paz conduzidas na África por países do continente nos âmbitos da Organização da Unidade Africana (OUA) e da União Africana (UA). Com a independência de grande parte dos países africanos durante a década de 1960, diversos conflitos passaram a eclodir na África, configurando-se como importantes ameaças aos Estados do continente. Diante disso, em 1963, a OUA foi criada com o objetivo de prevenir e auxiliar na resolução destes contenciosos, de forma a garantir a estabilidade continental. A organização, contudo, era fortemente baseada em princípios estritos de respeito à soberania de seus membros, o que, em conjunto com o contexto de Guerra Fria, contribuiu para que sua atuação e sucesso em intervenções militares e na estabilização do continente fossem bastante limitados. Com o final da Guerra Fria e a crise neoliberal da década de 1990, os países africanos passaram a se defrontar com novos desafios, como o colapso de alguns governos, a eclosão de novos (ou renovados) conflitos, e a securitização de questões continentais por atores extrarregionais. Nesse contexto, e como uma forma de melhor enfrentar a nova realidade, a OUA foi substituída, em 2002, pela UA, que, além de ser dotada de um escopo conceitual e institucional muito mais amplo que sua predecessora, representou uma mudança de paradigmas acerca do conceito de segurança no continente africano. O presente artigo tem por objetivo, portanto, analisar de que forma a substituição do princípio de não-intervenção pelo princípio de não-indiferença, e da própria OUA pela UA, afetam a questão securitária na África, com atenção especial às operações de paz conduzidas por atores africanos no continente.   Abstract: This paper seeks to identify and analyze the differences between peace operations conducted in the African continent by African countries within the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and those conducted by the African Union (AU). The independence of most African countries during the 1960s was followed by a series of conflicts on the continent, representing important threats to the nascent African states. Thus, in 1963, the OAU was created, aiming to prevent these disputes and to assist in their resolution, in order to guarantee the stability of the continent. Nevertheless, the organization relied strongly in strict principles of respect for the sovereignty of its members, which, in conjunction with the Cold War context, contributed to making its operations and success in military interventions and in the stabilization of the continent very limited. With the end of the Cold War period and the emergence of the neoliberal crisis of the 1990s, African countries faced new challenges, such as the collapse of some governments, the emergence of new (or renewed) conflicts and the securitization of continental issues by foreign actors. As a way to better face the new reality established, the OUA was replaced in 2002 by the AU, which, in addition to being endowed with a much broader conceptual and institutional scope than its predecessor, represented a shift of the African security concept paradigm. The aim of this article is therefore to examine how the replacement of the principle of non-intervention by the principle of non-indifference and of the replacement of the OUA itself by the AU affect the African security, with special attention to peace operations conducted by African actors on the continent. Keywords: OAU; AU; Peace Operations.     Recebido em: dezembro/2017 Aprovado em: maio/2018

Mind Bending, Mental Seduction and Menticide: Brainwashing in British Spy Dramas of the 1960s

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Burton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Thought Control ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Scientific Background ◽  
Mind Control ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Cultural Fantasy

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.

Nasser's Gamble

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Original Material ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Arab Spring

This book draws on declassified documents from six countries and original material in Arabic, German, Hebrew, and Russian to present a new understanding of Egypt's disastrous five-year intervention in Yemen, which Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser later referred to as “my Vietnam.” The book argues that Nasser's attempt to export the Egyptian revolution to Yemen played a decisive role in destabilizing Egypt's relations with the Cold War powers, tarnishing its image in the Arab world, ruining its economy, and driving its rulers to instigate the fatal series of missteps that led to war with Israel in 1967. Viewing the Six Day War as an unintended consequence of the Saudi–Egyptian struggle over Yemen, the book demonstrates that the most important Cold War conflict in the Middle East was not the clash between Israel and its neighbors. It was the inter-Arab struggle between monarchies and republics over power and legitimacy. Egypt's defeat in the “Arab Cold War” set the stage for the rise of Saudi Arabia and political Islam. Bold and provocative, this book brings to life a critical phase in the modern history of the Middle East. Its compelling analysis of Egypt's fall from power in the 1960s offers new insights into the decline of Arab nationalism, exposing the deep historical roots of the Arab Spring of 2011.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Critical Systems Thinking ◽  
Critical Systems ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Future Visions

The book proposes that the Cold War period saw a key debate about the future as singular or plural. Forms of Cold War science depicted the future as a closed sphere defined by delimited probabilities, but were challenged by alternative notions of the future as a potentially open realm with limits set only by human creativity. The Cold War was a struggle for temporality between the two different future visions of the two blocs, each armed with its set of predictive technologies, but these were rivaled, from the 1960s on, by future visions emerging from decolonization and the emergence of a set of alternative world futures. Futures research has reflected and enacted this debate. In so doing, it offers a window to the post-war history of the social sciences and of contemporary political ideologies of liberalism and neoliberalism, Marxism and revisionist Marxism, critical-systems thinking, ecologism, and postcolonialism.

Global Britain's strategic problem East of Suez

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
William D. James
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Permanent Presence

Abstract Why did Britain withdraw from its military bases in the Arabian Peninsula and Southeast Asia midway through the Cold War? Existing accounts tend to focus on Britain's weak economic position, as well as the domestic political incentives of retrenchment for the ruling Labour Party. This article offers an alternative explanation: the strategic rationale for retaining a permanent presence East of Suez dissolved during the 1960s, as policymakers realised that these military bases were consuming more security than they could generate. These findings have resonance for British officials charting a return East of Suez today under the banner of ‘Global Britain’.

Od politycznej współpracy do gospodarczej konkurencji – przemysł obronny krajów Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej po upadku ZSRR

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-98
Author(s):  
Mieczysław Szlachta ◽  
Andrzej Ciupiński
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Defense Industry ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Cold War

The paper presents the scope and scale of transformation of the defense industries of Central Eastern Europe (CEE) countries after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR. The starting point is the role and position of the armaments economy sector (armaments economy environment), embedded in the realities of the centrally planned economy, and its submission to the politics of the USSR. The turn of the centuries was a period of political and economic transformation conducted during the conditions of a deep economic recession. The defense industry was one of the economic sectors most affected by the crisis. The economic and defense policy of CEE countries was aimed at preserving the capabilities of the armaments sector. Restructuring activities initiated and forced by the change of the political and economic environment have already brought noticeable effects, even though the process has not yet been completed. Defense industry enterprises have become entities operating on the same terms and conditions as other companies on the competitive market. The method of comparative analysis and a case study supplemented with elements of descriptive statistics were used to evaluate the course of the processes. The study has been focused on the analysis of the course of the changes and examination of effects of the analyzed phenomena for the economy and defense of the CEE countries, taking into account primarily their scale and scope.

Chairman cotton: Socialist Bulgaria’s cotton trade with African countries during the early Cold War (1946–70)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Jan Zofka
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Mutual Economic ◽  
Mutual Economic Assistance ◽  
Globalization Studies ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cotton Trade

Abstract This article follows Bulgarian officials engaged in cotton and textile exchange with African states in the early Cold War. These officials founded enterprises for carrying out transactions, collected information on prices at international cotton exchanges and attended meetings of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) to coordinate trade activities in capitalist markets. Exploring how Bulgarian foreign trade organizations positioned themselves on the scene of international trade, this article argues that cotton traders, instead of upholding the supposed bloc bipolarity of the Cold War, followed the logic of the markets they worked in. A focus on trade infrastructures in particular shows that early Cold War East–South trade was not as strictly bilateral as official agreements and statistics suggest and reveals the systematic embeddedness of the socialist traders’ practices in global capitalist structures. In the field of cotton, the globalizing economy of the early Cold War was not cut in half, as globalization studies have implied.

Tropical Russian Bears: Jews and Soviet Animation During The Cold War

Images ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-90
Author(s):  
Maya Balakirsky Katz
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
Mickey Mouse ◽  
Social Mapping ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

After Stalin consolidated the major animation studios and closed down smaller regional studios to create a single Moscow-based drawn and puppet animation studio in 1934–36, the animation studio Soyuzmultfilm became the largest animation studio in Eastern Europe. In the 1960s, Soviet Jewish animators focused on the theme of social geography and developed individual characters in relationship to social mapping. This essay analyses the enigmatic Cheburashka, the Soviet Mickey Mouse, whose popularity as a Communist ideal led to his starring role as Soyuzmultfilm’s most enduring logo. It is particularly concerned with the development of the ethnically-unidentifiable Cheburashka against the history of the Moscow Zoo and its inter-species exhibitions.

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.

scholarly journals Cultural Trauma of the Civil War of 1918 Staged and Commemorated in Finland

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-131
Author(s):  
Pentti Paavolainen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Cultural Trauma ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

The Centennial of one of the cruelest of European civil wars fought in Finland between the Reds and the Whites from January to May 1918 has evoked a spectrum of theatre productions illustrating variations of styles and approaches on the events. The turn in the treatment of this cultural trauma occurred with the interpretations and narrative perspectives that were fixed in the 1960s, when an understanding for the defeated Red side was expressed in historiography, literature and theatre. Since that, the last six decades the Finnish theatre and public discourse on the Civil War have been dominated by the Red narrative as the memory of the 1918 Civil War provided an important part in the new identity politics for the 1969 generation. Since the 1980’s the topic was mostly put aside so that before the 2018 revivals of the Civil War topic, the productions seem to have been reactions by the artists confronting the developments at the end of the Cold War. Some theatrical events can even be tied to the cultural trauma of the 1969 left evoked by the collapse of the socialist block. The Centennial productions repeated the Red narrative but they also provided more balanced interpretationson the tragic events.

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