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Rooting for a Serbian-Dominated Yugoslavia?
(2025) Methfessel, Christian
The recognition of Slovenia and Croatia was a defining moment in the history of the post-Cold War order in Europe. From the outset, this step was a controversial one, and scholars focussing on the role of the United Kingdom often claim that London’s responses to the collapse of Yugoslavia can be explained by a long British tradition of pro-Serbian sentiment, the Foreign Office’s realpolitik approach, or Britain’s neocolonial interests. This article analyses British foreign policy on the basis of recently declassified documents in order to critically discuss such assumptions about the motives of British foreign policy and thus contribute to the international history of the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s.
Territorial conflicts on the world stage
(2025) Methfessel, Christian
Broadly speaking, annexations and secessions rarely succeeded during the Cold War, and international borders remained surprisingly stable. The territorial integrity norm, enshrined in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, has proven to be very robust—which is somewhat remarkable, as the UN Security Council, the organ originally expected to prevent breaches of the norm, was for the most part unable to act due to the antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union. Within Europe, this antagonism manifested itself in nuclear deterrence, preventing the outbreak of an open war between East and West, while the division of Europe and the integration of the rival camps into security alliances—NATO and the Warsaw Pact—impeded the escalation of territorial disputes between members within each camp. Yet in Africa and Asia, territorial conflicts repeatedly erupted in the wake of the waves of decolonization in the 1960s and 1970s. Existing explanations for the strength of the territorial integrity norm after the Second World War agree that border changes by violent means were indeed rare during this period, but views on which actors were responsible for this stability differ widely. Mark W. Zacher, building on democratic peace theory, emphasizes the role played by Western liberal democracies. Malcolm Anderson argues that the superpowers “maintained an environment hostile to secessionist movements and to the acquisition of territory by violent means.” Studies on state borders on the African continent tend to focus on the desire of Africa’s postcolonial elites to maintain the borders their states inherited when they became independent. Congruently, historical studies on secessionist conflicts and the norm of self-determination have demonstrated that the leaders of the newly independent states predominantly agreed that only anti-colonial liberation movements could claim the right to independence in a given colony, while separatist demands from national movements within postcolonial states were perceived as illegitimate. This chapter situates the evolution of the territorial integrity norm in the context of the global Cold War and thus contributes to research examining the connections between superpower rivalries and regional conflicts in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It aims to shed light on how the interplay of the rise of Afro-Asian internationalism and the Cold War struggle over influence in the “Third World” shaped debates at the United Nations and thereby facilitated the establishment of an international order of sovereign states with fixed borders on a global scale.
German chemical firms in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s
(2025) Marx, Christian
This article explores foreign multinationals and their analysis of the future economic relevance of Latin American countries amidst the economic and financial turbulences in the 1970s and 1980s. In particular, it investigates how German chemical companies adapted their investment and foreign market strategies towards the fast-changing Latin American markets. Utilising a variety of archival resources, the article presents two case studies (Bayer/Hoechst) from the German chemical industry, which is one of Germany’s most globalised sectors. The article shows the way in which they adapted to Latin America’s state-led industrialisation and macroeconomic uncertainty by strategically managing the emphasis between exports and FDI. Despite the unmet expectations of the 1950s and 1960s, these companies maintained their presence in Latin America but progressively shifted towards overseas production through their own subsidiaries.
Claims to universal norms and the forging of transnational networks
(2025) Zöhrer, Michaela; Methfessel, Christian; Stahl, Daniel
The article analyzes the ways in which claims to universal norms promote, or complicate, collaboration in the context of transnational activism. It emphasizes the potential of a constructivist understanding of universality, i.e. not as something intrinsic to certain norms, but rather as an empirically powerful assumption and a strategic tool. The argumentation is based on two case studies. The first looks at how networks of transnational solidarity were formed and conflicts between activist groups emerged in response to conflict-related sexual violence committed during the Bosnian War. The second example looks at responses to the crimes committed by ISIS in Iraq in 2014 and beyond, demonstrating how shifts within the field of transitional justice, and in particular the emergence of norms centered on the concerns and participation of survivors, have shaped the building of networks around the right to reparation.
Young “antisemites” and “rescuers” in Nazi-occupied Soviet Belarus
(2025) Saal, Yuliya von
Children were direct witnesses of the Holocaust “by bullets” in occupied Eastern Europe – and sometimes more than that. They were capable of roles and actions that have little in common with our traditional romanticized ideas and expectations about “innocent childhood”. This article is arguing for a more complex understanding of how children and adolescents confronted the Holocaust in the occupied Soviet Union. Minors, like adults, continuously faced the decision to passively watch acts of discrimination, to participate in them, or even to take part in humiliating and harassing Jews – or, conversely, to come to their aid. In this respect, youngsters were more than just victims or “bystanders”. The range of behaviors was very wide, and it is important to realize that children’s agency had different cosequences for the Jewish population.