The foundation for Vienna: A reassessment of the CSCE in the mid-1980s

Abstract

This article analyses the interim Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) interim meetings held from 1984 to 1986 in Stockholm, Ottawa, Budapest, and Bern and reassesses previous characterisations of this period as one of stagnation in the CSCE. It demonstrates that the significant groundwork laid at these meetings later manifested itself during the Vienna CSCE Review Meeting. The two most important shifts in the CSCE during these years were an increased Western and neutral emphasis on compliance with existing CSCE agreements at the expense of achieving new concluding documents and a slow evolution in Soviet thinking on its role in the Helsinki process.