Abstract

From its inception, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) provoked controversy. Today it is widely regarded as having contributed to the end of the Cold War. Bringing together new and innovative research on the CSCE, this volume explores questions key to understanding the Cold War: What role did diplomats play in shaping the 1975 Helsinki Final Act? How did that agreement and the CSCE more broadly shape societies in Europe and North America? And how did the CSCE and activists inspired by the Helsinki Final Act influence the end of the Cold War?

“This excellent volume stands at the forefront of scholarship in the field and will certainly make an important contribution to our understanding of the complex developments that led to the end of the Cold War.” • Aryo Makko, Stockholm University and Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study

“The essays in this volume illuminate just what the Helsinki process entailed and help explain the multidimensional ways in which it facilitated the end of the Cold War—everything from building bridges between groups to keeping dialogue going when the Cold War refroze in the early 1980s and connecting lower-level politics to high politics.” • Jaclyn Stanke, Campbell University

“Bold in ambition and scope, this collection highlights transnational history at its finest. It covers an impressive amount of terrain, allowing for a more layered and nuanced understanding of the CSCE.” • Garret Martin, American University

Sarah B. Snyder is Associate Professor at the School of International Service, American University. She is the author of two books: From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy (2018) and Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (2013).

Nicolas Badalassi is Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the Institut d’Etudes politiques d’Aix-en-Provence (Sciences Po Aix). He is the author of the award-winning En finir avec la guerre froide: La France, l’Europe et le processus d’Helsinki, 1965–1975 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014). He has also co-edited with H. Ben Hamouda the publication Les pays d’Europe orientale et la Méditerranée, 1967-1989 (Paris: Cahiers Irice, 2013).