International Organizations and the Cold War

The post-WWII era was a time of superpower confrontation and antagonistic bloc politics, but it was also a period in which organized internationalism reached its peak as both an ideological value and a political practice. This open access volume explores how international organizations affected the evolution and nature of Cold War rivalries, and how they in turn were shaped by them. In seeking to understand the role that international organizations have played as sites of confrontation, this volume also highlights their role as spaces for mediation and negotiation, particularly for middle-size powers and colonized or newly decolonized countries. Through multiple perspectives, based on a diverse array of historical sources, the authors collectively explore how international organizations were able to bridge and move beyond the Cold War divide by promoting common causes and shaping common scientific knowledge, communities and practices. Rather than focusing exclusively on western-dominated institutions within the UN system which have received the most scholarly attention to date, International Organizations and the Cold War highlights the role of lesser-known groups such as the Paris-based International Child Center, the Prague-based International Union of Students and historical actors such as Soviet public health experts and Chinese development specialists. In doing so, it asks new questions about the role of international organizations in securing peace and security across the modern world, and their role as negotiator in times of tension and crisis. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Préface
This edited volume investigates how international organizations both shaped and were shaped by the Cold War, exploring how they acted as spaces for mediation and negotiation for recently decolonized countries.

Auteur

Sandrine Kott is Professor of History at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Her most recent book Organiser le Monde (2021) studies the Cold War through the lenses of international organizations.

Eva-Maria Muschik is Assistant Professor in the Department of Development Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her book, Building States, on the UN Secretariat published in 2022.

Elisabeth Roehrlich is Associate Professor of History at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her book Inspectors for Peace on the International Atomic Energy Agency was published in 2022.

Contenu

Introduction Sandrine Kott, Elisabeth Röhrlich and Eva-Maria Muschik (University of Geneva, Switzerland and University of Vienna, Austria)

1. Dangerous Records: A Cold War Story about the Archives of the International Refugee Organization, Trudy Huskamp Petersen (Independent archivist, USA)
   Conflict
   2. Ralph Bunche, UN Trusteeship and the Early Cold War, Christopher Dietrich, (Fordham University, USA)
2. Territorial Conflicts on the World Stage: International Organizations, the 'Third World,' and the Global Cold War, Christian Methfessel, (University of Erfurt, Germany)
3. Intelligence Operations and Nuclear Diplomacy in Cold War Vienna: The Case of Stasi Espionage Against the International Atomic Energy Agency, Simon Graham and Elisabeth Röhrlich, (University of Sydney, Australia, and University of Vienna, Austria)
   Mediation
4. International organizations as mediators in the Western Camp: The International Energy Agency and the gas-pipeline sanctions between 1981 and 1984, Henning Türk, (University of Bonn, Germany)
5. Experiments in Conciliation: The UN, Kashmir, and Decolonization, 1948-1950, Daniel Gorman, (University of Waterloo, Canada)
   Bridge Building
6. The Paris International Child Center between East and West, Michel Christian, (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
7. A Cold War International Organization Sliding Eastwards: Tom Madden and the Prague-based International Union of Students, Matthieu Gillabert, Lidia Lesnykh and Mikulá Peta, (University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and Charles University Prague, Czech Republic)
8. National in Form, International in Content? :The Moscow Martsinovskii Institute and the Wider Networks of World Health Organization Malariology, 1950s-1980s, Marek Eby, (New York University, USA)
   Global Causes
9. International Organizations and the Issue of Natural Disasters During the Cold War, Lukas Schemper, (**Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin, Germany)
10. The UN Human Rights Commission and the Case of Uruguay, Debbie Sharnak, (Rowan University, USA)
11. Geopolitics In and Out: Framing International Women's Rights Agendas during the Late Cold War, Ioana Cîrstocea, (**University of Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, France)
    Scientific Expertise and Networks
12. Maoist Science and Technology as Alternative Development Solutions: Chinese Exchanges with United Nations Specialized Agencies in the 1970s, Yi-Tang Lin, (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
13. Polish Economists in the Early Years of the UN Secretariat: Perspectives beyond the Cold-War-Lens, Katja Castryck-Naumann, (Leipzig University, Germany)
14. Antifascist networks in international organizations. Beyond the Cold War, Sandrine Kott, (University of Geneva, (Switzerland)
    Bibliography