Cold War Phenomena Research Articles

Cold War conduct: knowledge transfer, psychological defence, and media preparedness in Denmark between Sweden, Norway, and NATO, 1954–1967

ABSTRACT Employing the Foucauldian term ‘conduct’, this article explores how social resilience and morale became a target of state intervention in Denmark during the Cold War. ‘Psychological defence’ was a Cold War phenomenon designed to bring an imagined future war into a space of control as well as a tool for the authorities’ exercise of power in case another world war became a reality. Advocating a methodological internationalism, the article analyses how the concept of psychological defence travelled from Sweden to Denmark via Norway and NATO, and in a complex process of translation, mixing and hybridization was adapted and appropriated to Danish security policy conditions, preparedness culture, and historical experiences. Ultimately, psychological defence was replaced with a more practical or even cynical approach to public information and media preparedness, even if the objectives remained the same. The article employs source material from Danish, Swedish, and NATO archives and combines Scandinavian Cold War history with media history and the history of knowledge.

Coup d'état and economic growth in Turkey: Evidence from ARDL bounds testing procedure

In seven decades of the multiparty democracy period, Turkey has experienced four military coups. Even though the coups are thought to be a cold war phenomenon in the literature, they are still relevant. The failed coup attempt in 2016 reminds us that the military coup is still a critical issue in Turkish democracy and the economy. Interestingly, there is not an adequate amount of empirical research on the political economy of Turkey?s military coup experience. This study?s motivation is to provide empirical evidence for the economic growth-coup nexus literature with a core focus on Turkey, which is a remarkable case in many aspects. For this purpose, we extend an open-economy Cobb-Douglas production function with coups and use the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) method for the period 1950 to 2014. According to the study?s empirical findings, coup d??tats negatively affect real GDP in Turkey. Through structural reforms, Turkey should strengthen its democratic institutions to prevent such antidemocratic attempts.

Shifting Patterns of Antisemitism in Latin America: Xenophobia, Exclusion, and Inclusion

AbstractThis article analyzes several patterns of antisemitism in twentieth-century Latin America. It identifies historical moments when carriers of social and political ideas projected negative images of Jews, sometimes pushing anti-Jewish policies and at times leading violent actions against Jews. Thus, antisemitism served to mobilize in defense of national identity; as a reaction to Jewish peddlers perceived as a threat to national economies; as a basis for the generalized rejection of “undesirable refugees” during World War II and the Holocaust; and as a Cold War phenomenon, along with anticommunism and neo-Nazism. Like other forms of xenophobia, antisemitism was grounded in prejudice and the demonization of a supposed enemy rather than being based on verified evidence. Analysis suggests that antisemitism has been deeply rooted in Latin America and has manifested over time with changing historical and social constellations. At the same time, while Judeophobic prejudices and actions have been intimidating and have at times precluded the legal immigration of Jews, antisemitism has rarely become dominant or led to systemic social discrimination, massive expulsion, or mass genocide, unlike in Europe.

The East-West Ideological Struggle and the Politics of African Decolonization in the United Nations: Historical Analysis

The history of African decolonization discourses in the United Nations (UN) in the 20th century was replete with vested interests under the guise of moral concerns. This interest was occasioned mainly by the prevalence of the Ideological struggles better known as the ‘Cold War’ between West which the United States led, and the East which was led by the then Soviet Union and allies respectively. Against this background, this paper argues based on the preponderance of archival documents and relevant scholarly resources that the deep-rooted worldwide rivalry for world dominance which ensued between these power blocs after the end of the Second World War in 1945 ushered in a period of politicization of African decolonization issues in the UN from 1960 onwards. The line between egotism and empathy narrowed significantly to the extent that it became too thin to recognize. The findings of this paper show that the Cold War phenomenon significantly shaped the position taken by member states during the debates on the African colonial problem in the UN. Secondly, we conclude in this paper that from the 1960s, the UN became the battleground between the East and the West each fighting for supremacy.

Ellipses of Cultural Diplomacy

Abstract This article studies China-India cultural diplomacy in the context of the socialist Chinese literary sphere. Decentering “dialogue” as an easy metaphor for transnationalism, I propose ellipses – the mark of silences, tensions, the unsaid – as a conceptual frame that makes visible those literary ties that frustrate the logic and aims of cultural diplomacy. I offer as a case study the Hindi poet Dinkar’s travelogue recording his visit to China in 1957. The travelogue brings together two concurrent Cold War phenomena that have so far been studied as separate: the Chinese political campaigns of 1957, and the 1950s era of China-India cultural diplomacy. Recording the Anti-Rightist Campaign in a Hindi idiom, Dinkar’s literary practice crafts the realm of ellipses as generating new China-India literary ties, obscured by the official banner of cultural diplomacy.

Socio-economic Conflicting Issues Embedded in Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971: Coverage of the New York Times

This study explored the impacts of the coverage of the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971 by the New York Times. In the backdrop of the Cold War phenomena the United States reportedly took a position against Bangladesh’s liberation while the war created a humanitarian orgy of killings, rapes, and the dislocation of millions of people. The war impacts still haunt the nation as the incumbent Bangladesh government began trials of “war crimes” and already executed some opposition leaders for alleged collaboration with the Pakistani Army. As the first textual analysis of the Times’ coverage of the Bangladesh War in the postcolonial era, the study revealed that the Times played a humanitarian role but was seemed influenced by the confrontation with the Nixon Administration on secret papers and policies of wars, popularly known as “Pentagon Papers.”

Cold War Geopolitics and the Making of the Oil Curse

Does oil hinder democracy? The prevailing wisdom holds that, since 1980, oil has hindered democracy by enabling oil wealth to flow to state-owned oil companies, breaking the fiscal contract with society, and endowing oil-rich regimes with means to invest in repression and accommodation. However, these arguments do not account for system-level factors that might affect the oil-democracy relationship. I argue that a structural break in the oil-democracy relationship occurred at the end of the Cold War when the United States and the Soviet Union reduced support for both oil-poor and oil-rich authoritarian regimes in the developing world. The rollback of support facilitated post–Cold War democratization of the resource-poor regimes, while oil-rich regimes were better positioned to stave off pressures to democratize. Based on a re-analysis of two prominent studies, I find the oil curse to be a post–Cold War phenomenon, with negative consequences for democracy of a magnitude roughly 80 percent larger than previously estimated. I further explore these dynamics via comparative case studies of Azerbaijan and Georgia. The evidence shows that the oil curse is a function of geopolitical dynamics, not just international market conditions.

Oslo +20: Reassessing the role of confidence building measures

Confidence building measures (CBMs) have long been employed as a tool for both conflict reduction and resolution. What started as a Cold War phenomena, CBMs have routinely been employed to deal with a myriad of conflicts in a variety of locations. In the Middle East, CBMs have been integral parts of both formal treaties and disarmament agreements between Israel and the Arab states. The 20th anniversary of the Oslo Accords provides a good opportunity to reassess the role of CBMs in the Oslo process. During the initial stages of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, much emphasis was placed on the role and importance of CBMs. These CBMs were unsuccessful, however, because there was neither a strong foundation for negotiations, nor a real commitment on the part of the leaderships of both parties to implement and support the measures.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees and its Concern for African Refugees

KEYWORDS Colonialism; refugee problem; internally displaced people; human rights ABSTRACT The long standing refugee problem on African continent dates back to the period of decolonization that followed colonialism in Africa when some African nationalists rose up to challenge the Whiteman domination and exploitation of the continent. Africans became refugees and internally displaced people while escaping or fleeing political persecution that characterized the decolonization process. Today, the nature of refugee crisis has changed worldwide. The end of cold war era has aggravated refugee out flows and internally displaced person. As a result of the cold war phenomenon, Africa became a refugee continent as she is harbouring the highest number of refugees in the world. But international responses to protect and assist different categories of dislocated people dated back to 1921 when Fridtjof Nansen was appointed an High Commissioner for Refugees of the League of Nations. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to offer a general overview of the performance of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees towards alleviating problems confronting African refugees.

Management as a Cold War phenomenon?

Those who foster the Cold War are ‘leading the world toward a massacre because they are abstract. They have cut the world in two and each half is afraid of the other . . . Within this perspective, even men [sic] become abstract. Everybody is the Other, the possible enemy, not to be trusted.’ (Jean-Paul Sartre, speech to the Vienna Congres des Peuples pour la paix, December 1952, quoted in Cohen-Solal, 2005: 338)