Small States, Alliances and the Margins for Manoeuvre in the Cold War : Sweden, Norway and the CSCE

• In this chapter, I will be studying the similarities and differences in how Sweden and Norway explored the comparatively far-ranging opportunities that the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) offered to smaller states during the 1970s. The CSCE was unique in that it brought together all European states (except Albania), the United States and Canada in a several-year multilateral conference setting where daily negotiations, limited attention from the broader public and the absence of official minutes of meetings created a particular environment that allowed smaller states to play more significant roles. Cold War historians have developed a growing interest in the CSCE over the last decade. As a result, there has been a flow of publications on individual countries, groups of countries and subjects treated at the conference that have all stressed the significance of the CSCE and its Final Act to the international development in the 1970s and 1980s and to the end of the Cold War. But the approach taken here is innovative in at least two ways. Interestingly, there virtually has not been any historical research on Norway in the CSCE. More importantly, small states in the CSCE have usually been studied as part of either alliance or as part of a group of states outside of the blocs, like the group of neutral and non-aligned countries. Comparing the strategies and policies of two countries as similar as Sweden and Norway, which viewed each other as sister countries (brödrafolk) but belonged to different camps in this context, will generate fresh conclusions and hopefully allow for a valuable contribution to the discussion on the opportunities of smaller states within and outside of the Cold War alliances.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Historia (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- History (hsv//eng)

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