Globalizing dissent: the Soviet response to the Truman doctrine at the United Nations and the (Re)making of global governance at the end of ideology

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers the role of dissent in the making and remaking of contemporary international relations. The immediate aftermath of World War II was a period of interregnum. Prior security paradigms were exhausted while the three major political ideologies of conservatism, liberalism, and left radicalism competed around the world. The creation of the United Nations in 1945 was meant to facilitate the creation of a new global governance model for the sake of peace. However, when in 1947 U.S. President Harry S. Truman made a speech to Congress in which he inaugurated a unilateral foreign policy doctrine premised on Soviet containment, he escalated ideological differences into security concerns. The Soviet Union responded by intensifying their investment in the U.N. and by developing a rhetorical playbook meant to aid smaller nations and oppressed peoples in challenging Western racism and colonialism. I examine the Soviets’ dissent at the United Nations to highlight (1) how dissent figures differently across political ideological paradigms; (2) the connection between dissent and institutional forums in the development of global security models; and (3) the role of dissent as a form of material rhetoric that makes possible the creation of novel political alliances.