The CSCE and the End of the Cold War

This collection of essays on diplomacy, societies and human rights spanning the early 1970s to the end of the Cold War enriches the recently mushrooming literature on the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) that led to the signing of the Helsinki Accords. The inclusion of diverse prisms through which the effect of this multilateral negotiation is considered adds significant, original contributions to the theme. The various perspectives encapsulated in its thirteen chapters, written by experts from North America, Eastern and Western Europe and edited by Nicolas Badalassi and Sarah B. Snyder, evolve around the central sub-themes of human rights and related issues and complement the main tenets of the book’s central argument. More specifically, they embolden the editors’ thesis pertaining to the CSCE’s success ‘in giving human rights a prominent place in international relations’ (p. 354). The first part of the book concentrates on the anthropocentric analysis of the CSCE process. In his chapter on the human dimension, Andrei Zagorski examines the pertinent challenges faced by Western diplomats and ‘the interaction between civil society ... with the diplomatic framework of the Helsinki process’ (p. 18). Likewise, the other authors place a clear emphasis on the ‘treaty-negotiators’ rather than the ‘policy-makers’ (p. 60). Their chapters study the prosopography and personal attributes of several diplomats, mainly from Western Europe, and the various ways in which their input reflected their backgrounds, whether generational, educational, political or professional. Martin D. Brown and Angela Romano investigate actors from the English and French delegations, while Stephan Kieninger focuses on the diplomat Max Kampelman, a member of the US delegation. Their appraisals highlight the contribution of diplomats on the ground, who managed, with their insistence on the human dimension, to circumvent the frequent rigidity or even apathy of central administrations; they also explore the vertical and horizontal connections between diplomats and low-level actors. Nicolas Badalassi’s comprehensive account of the French delegation also proves this connection convincingly

Diplomacy · Human rights · Media studies · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Theme (computing · Treaty · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Law · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics