31210

WiSe 15/16: 25 Years after the End of the East-West Conflict - Lessons Learned and New Challenges

Klaus Segbers

Hinweise für Studierende

The lecture is open to first-semester students participating in the master program East European Studies, as well as to students in the North American Studies Master's program.

Kommentar

About 25 years ago, cracks developed in the comparatively stable system of international bipolarity, ultimately leading to its collapse. People in Eastern Europe seemingly embraced a new democratic momentum, yet political developments in these states remained diverse. While western policymakers initially were cautious and avoided triumphalism, a narrative soon emerged which painted the West with its free-market capitalism as an active winner in the standoff over political ideologies. Influential US thinkers celebrated a "unipolar moment" (Krauthammer 1990) and the advent of a US-led world order, while others predicted the establishment of new democratic systems in the East heralding the "End of History" (Fukuyama 1992). Although the peaceful transition in many East-European countries at the beginning of the 1990s has been celebrated as a success, the current situation in the Ukraine leads to dramatic new frictions within East-West relations. While some scholars have labelled these ruptures as a "new Cold War" (Legvold 2014), others find this analogy misleading (Monaghan 2015). The lecture series - jointly conceptualized and conducted by the East-European Studies Institute (OEI) and the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies (JFKI) at the Freie Universität Berlin - aims to take stock of the major events which occurred at the end of the Cold War and is working to present various, interdisciplinary analytical perspectives. In order to understand the post-conflict processes, the lecture series deals with basic questions about the character of the East-West conflict and the Cold War as its most prominent manifestation, and formulates different explanations for the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. It questions turning points and continuities before and after 1989/1991: What has changed and what has remained the same in East-West relations? The current situation in Ukraine, seen as a culmination in tensions between the Russian Federation and "the West," will serve as one of the main focal points. Schließen

Literaturhinweise

References: " Krauthammer, Charles (1990): The Unipolar Moment, in: Foreign Affairs, 70(1): 23-33. " Fukuyama, Francis (1992): The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. " Monaghan, Andrew (2015): A ‚New Cold War'? Abusing History, Misunderstanding Russia, Research Paper, Chatham House 2015, (http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/20150522ColdWarRussiaMonaghan.pdf ) " Legvold, Robert (2014): Managing the New Cold War. What Moscow and Washington Can Learn From the Last One, in: Foreign Affairs, 93(4): 74-84. Schließen

30 Termine

Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung

Do, 16:00 - 18:00 16 Termine

Do, 15.10.2015 16:00 - 18:00

Dozenten:
Cosima Glahn
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Klaus Segbers
Curd Benjamin Knüpfer