504326 - HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

This course comprises 4 modules of 3 credits each offered in succession by the course's conveners and by rotating visiting professors each year. In the coming academic year, Prof. Jan Zahorik, University of West Bohemia, will teach the second module.
MODULE 1: TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS FROM 1945 TO THE PRESENT (Prof. Ilaria Poggiolini)
Module Description: This course is focused on the history/politics of the relations between the United States and Europe. Security issues and the economic, political, and cultural dimensions of transatlantic relations will be discussed in relation to key historical phases (i.e.: the Cold War, the 1970s, the end of the Cold War, the post-Cold War era to the present) and to recurrent controversies within the Atlantic alliance and between the United States and some of its European allies. The framework of these lectures will be thematic and chronological: we will examine key dimensions of US-European relations and the basic drivers of the process of modern Transatlantic integration/disintegration highlighting issues, themes, events and interpretations.
MODULE 2. COLD WAR IN AFRICA (tentative schedule – subject to change)
(Jan Zahorik, Visiting Professor, University of West Bohemia, Pilsen, Czech Republic) Africa became one of the “laboratories” of the Cold War and deserves significant attention. The course will deal with global impact on Africa (decolonization, nationalism, independence) as well as local proxy wars and activities of superpowers in selected regions of Africa (Congo, Southern Africa, Horn of Africa, Gulf of Guinea).
MODULE 3: EGYPT, ANTI-COLONIALISM, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND AFRICA (Prof. Massimo Zaccaria)
Module Description: Over the last twenty years, the history of the Cold War has undergone a significant renewal. In particular, two new perspectives have emerged: a stress on its global dimension and an emphasis on the diverse interrelationships between Cold War, Decolonization, and the rise of the Third World. Traditionally, the historiography focused primarily on the global competition between the two superpowers. However, the agency of non-Western countries during the Cold War deserves attention and will be the main focus of this course module. Combining global history, transnational history, and area studies, this module will analyze selected case studies to explore the complexities of the Cold War’s confrontations in Africa and the Middle East. In particular, this module will address the issue of the Arab Cold War and the division of the Arab world into revolutionary regimes and conservative monarchies.
After a general introduction to the history of the
Middle East during the Cold War, the module will turn to Egypt. Under Nasser, Egypt claimed leadership of the progressive and revolutionary camp, and particular attention will be paid to its involvement with African countries and the Red Sea region. Egypt’s history and geostrategic interests have shaped a country with multiple identities: its Arab identity has always gone hand in hand with an African one. As Nasser wrote in The Philosophy of the Revolution (1954), Egypt belonged to three worlds at once, the Arab, the African, and the Islamic, and he saw a role for his country in all three. In the 1950s and 1960s, Egypt sought to combine pan-Arabism, pan-Africanism, and anti-colonialism through an ambitious foreign policy. The module will analyze this policy, its objectives, and the instruments used to implement it, highlighting both its strengths and its inherent weaknesses.
MODULE 4: THE COLD WAR IN ASIA – ACTORS, ALLIANCES AND CONFLICTS (Prof. Axel Berkofsky)
This module of the course analyses events, trends, and developments of international relations, politics, and security in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia from the 1950s to the present day. Among others the following topics will be analyzed and discussed: US-Japan relations from 1945-1952, Sino-Chinese relations and the making and breaking of the China-Soviet Union alliance, Chinese domestic and foreign/security policies under Mao Zedong, Chinese-Japanese relations during the Cold War, the Korean War and its impact on regional and global politics and security, Japanese foreign and security policies, the Vietnam War and the US role in and impact on Asian security. Finally, selected aspects of Indian and Indonesian domestic and foreign policies will be analysed.