The Politics of the New Europe

Atlantic to Urals

Ian Budge, Kenneth Newton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138836518
• eBook ISBN: 9781317892397
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Proceso político

A pioneering textbook which explains the dynamics of politics across Europe in the post-Cold war era. Comparing democratisation, transition to a market economy and increasing economic and political integration in the countries of central and eastern Europe with experiences in Scandinavia, and southern and western Europe, the book provides a wealth of information and analysis on the state of Europe at the end of a momentous century of European and World history.

Part I

The new European order

Chapter 1

Security and peace

The post-war settlement

Europe today has been shaped primarily by the collapse of communism in 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet bloc in Central and Eastern Europe. Previous changes of this magnitude have occurred only as the result of major wars, of which Europe has seen two this century (1914–18, 1939–5). The end of the Second World War in 1945 saw Nazi Germany defeated and partitioned between the USA, France and Britain, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union (Russia with its satellite states) on the other. Not only was Germany prostrate, but most other European states had also been decisively weakened by the conflict. Many had been occupied during the war. Even Britain, the only one successfully to defy Germany, was greatly enfeebled.

Possibly the only European power in a better military position after 1945 than before was the Soviet Union (the USSR). In spite of massive destruction, its vast natural resources, large population, and highly centralized and militarily effective dictatorship enabled it to play a major role in defeating Germany. In the process, the Soviet army occupied most of Central and Eastern Europe. In the following years the Soviet Union absorbed much territory to the west of its pre-war frontiers (notably the western Ukraine and the Baltic states). It also converted most governments of Central and Eastern Europe into satellite dictatorships dominated by communist parties subservient to Moscow.

These moves were undertaken largely for defensive reasons – to put a massive belt of territory between the Russian heartland and any possible invader. However, the United States and its West European allies interpreted them as aggressive – an impression intensified by the efforts of the large French and Italian communist parties to take over their countries electorally.

The extent to which Western communist parties, once in power, would have been puppets of Moscow is debatable. Yugoslav communists, under President Tito, defied the Soviet Union as early as 1948, and other communist parties asserted their autonomy between 1948 and 1985: Romania and Albania successfully, Poland and Czechoslovakia unsuccessfully. However, communists were seen in the West as agents of the Soviet Union. The USSR itself was credited with an unlimited appetite for expansion.

To counter this perceived threat America, Canada and practically all the non-Communist countries of Western Europe formed NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization). In spite of its title, NATO also included Italy, Greece and Turkey – about as far east in the Mediterranean as one could go! The United States also consolidated the economies and the democratic stability of its wartime allies through an extensive programme of aid in the late 1940s known as the Marshall Plan. This laid the foundations for a sustained economic boom from about 1950 to 1975.

As part of the consolidation of ‘Western Europe’ the western parts of Germany – occupied after the war by British, US and French troops – were united in the Federal Republic of (West) Germany. In the eastern part of the country the USSR set up a communist regime (the German Democratic Republic). The division of the country came to symbolize the Cold War – that is, a state of constant military preparedness on both sides, the stockpiling of huge nuclear and other military armouries, and the maintenance of huge armies. As part of their commitment to NATO and the European allies the Americans maintained a large military presence in Germany to guard against the (perceived) threat posed by the Soviet empire.

BRIEFING 1.1

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Created after the Second World War, NATO is the most important international military organization for the defense of the Western world. It provides for a unified military command in war time. For much of its history it has concentrated on the perceived threat of the Soviet blos, in this sense, its opposite number in Eastern Europe is the Warsaw Past (see Briefing 1.2). Membership Includes the USA and Canada, and most west European nations, although after 1966 France was only a partial member, and Switzerland, Sweden, and Ireland maintained their neutral status by remaining outside. The USA contributes disproportionately to the costs of NATO and for this reason it has always been under the leadership of a US military officer.

When the Warsaw pact was dissolved in 1991, and the Soviet Union was no longer the same sort of threat. NATO redefined its role somewhat by creating a smaller, lighter and mobile strike force. It was Involved in the Gulf War, and played a peacekeeping role in Bosnia. France re-established formal links in 1995

BRIEFING 1.2

Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO)

The Warsaw Treaty Organization was set up by the Warsaw Pact which was signed by the countries of the Soviet bloc in 1955 primarily as a military response to the creation in the West of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Its members were the Soviet Union and most other countries in the Soviet bloc in central Eastern Europe, except Albania which formally left the organization in 1988. Hungary tried to leave in 1956, and Czechoslovakia tried again in 1868, both provoking Russian invasion of their countries as a result. The USSR dominated the organization and provided most of its military capacity – perhaps more so than the US dominated NATO. The USSR was the only country in the WTO with nuclear weapons, and it provided by far the largest and best equipped part of the alliance. The WTO was formally dissolved in 1991 after the Soviet bloc collapsed.

In response, the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) creating a unified military command in the communist dominated states of Central and Eastern Europe. This was buttressed by the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) which operated on a barter basis, trading, for example, Russian oil for consumer goods from Central Europe. These arrangements contrasted with mechanisms intended to broaden and deepen the operations of the free market in the West. Countries in West Europe participated in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), established to stabilize monetary transactions between countries: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), established to finance large-scale capital projects such as roads or factories: the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), which fostered worldwide agreements on mutual reductions in tariffs on imported goods and services. These arrangements meant that west Europe was increasingly integrated into a global market, which was, in turn, dominated by the USA. The incorporation of the Eastern bloc into these arrangements in the early 1990s had the effect of increasing dependence on capitalist world markets, particularly US dominated ones. However, at the same time, the internal integration of the west European economy, and its growing independence of the USA, led to a reduction in American economic influence.

Map 1.1 The cold war: Europe divided between NATO and the Warsaw Pact (1948–89)

BRIEFING 1.3

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or COMECON)

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (or CMEA) is the formal name for the organization more usually referred to as COMECON. It was the economic counterpart of the Warsaw Pact Organization and played the same sort of role in the east as the European Community in Western Europe. It was created in 1949 with a membership of the USSR, Hungary, Poland, Romania. Czechoslovakia. East German, Albania and Bulgaria. Albania ceased to be a member in 1962, when it also started to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact Organization. Mongolia, Cuba, and North Vietnam joined in the 1960s and 1970s. It implemented economic plans for East Europe but members outside the USSR often regarded it as a mechanism used by the USSR to exploit them.

Like the Warsaw Treaty Organization, COMECON was dissolved in 1991 after the Soviet bloc collapsed.

BRIEFING 1.4

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

The International Monetary Fund was sat up by United Nations after the Second World War as part of the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 (see below). Its main concern is to secure stability in the international currency market. It tries to achieve this by acting like a bank for nation-states which allows them to overdraw their account when they are in need of extra funds to maintain their economies and the exchange value of their currencies. In return the IMF has the power to require its debtor nations to follow certain national economic policies, usually reducing Inflation by cutting public spending and borrowing.

The IMF has managed to achieve its aims to a certain extent insofar as countries have used their borrowing capacity to avert financial and currency crises. However, it has not been able to deal with some of the structural problems of the world economy, such as nations which have a large and constant balance of trade surplus, so creating deficits for other trading partners. Nor has it been able to avoid shocks dealt to the world economy by such things as the rise in oil prices in 1973–74. Some COMECON countries were admitted to IMF mambership aftar COMECON was dissolved in 1991

...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• List of briefings
• List of maps
• List of abbreviations
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I The new European order
• Part II Mediating internal conflicts
• Part III Steering states
• Part IV Political economy
• Part V The future of the new Europe
• Author index
• Subject index