Asserting Independence in the Post-Colonial Sea: Non-Alignment, Russia and the West in the Mediterranean (RUSMED)
Research summary
Many have argued that the shared history of the Mediterranean ended as the Great Powers withdrew from the area after the First and the Second World Wars. As the European colonial powers were expelled from eastern and southern coasts they reorganized themselves in the European Community and carried on with new northwesterly and transatlantic trajectories. Yet, the influence of the two Superpowers, the US and the USSR stepped into the Mediterranean as powerful opposing forces in the bipolar Cold War.
Description
Here the Superpowers searched for loci of hegemony thereafter influencing local national and political conflicts. Economists and political scientists have argued that the newly emancipated countries were obstructed from forming cross-Mediterranean solidarities by the Soviet and American interests. From another point of view, the entry of the Superpowers contributed to the continuation of Mediterranean history: as the formerly colonial and otherwise recently independent states including Yugoslavia, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco became sovereign they searched for third way alternatives outside the Superpowers’ influence and strove towards independent courses in foreign policy and economic development. They were at times successful in finding a passage outside of the two blocs by collaborating with one another within the context of the Non-Aligned Movement. These states faced difficulties in achieving higher levels of economic development and in many cases became fragile democracies led by radical anti-colonial intelligentsias at first and military dictatorships afterwards. This project questions Q1: to what extent the US-Soviet rivalry was responsible for the strength and longevity of unrest in in the Mediterranean? Q2: how did the decision to seek out a path outside of the
Superpower blocs shape choices Mediterranean states made in foreign, economic and to some extent cultural policies during the Cold War? The objectives are accomplished by discovery of new primary sources from French, British, Russian, US, Egyptian and Italian national archives, and regional institutional archives in Aix-en-Provence, Belgrade, Tunis and Zagreb. The primary research method is qualitative content and context analysis of archival documents. The goal of this project is to analyze primary sources systematically and write an international history of the Non-Alignment Movement. Approaches of diplomatic history and 'kulturgeschichte der Außenpolitik' are utilized.
More information
Research info
Research title
Asserting Independence in the Post-Colonial Sea: Non-Alignment, Russia and the West in the Mediterranean (RUSMED)
Research timeline
1.8.2015 - 1.8.2015
Keywords
Cold War history Diplomacy foreign policy International Relations Non-aligned Movement Non-Alignment post-colonial state development Soviet Union The Mediterranean area
Region
Africa
Countries
Egypt, Finland, France, Lebanon, Morocco, Slovenia, Tunisia
Institution
University of Jyväskylä/Academy of Finland
History and Ethnology
Funding instrument
Academy of Finland
Project budget
1-2 million euros
Head of research
Rinna Kullaa
Research team
Mariko Sato, Leyla Dakhli, Houda ben Hamouda.
Partners
SciencesPo, Paris; University of Vienna, Vienna, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg.
Contact information
Rinna Kullaa
rinna.kullaa@jyu.fi
Open link
Record last updated
24.8.2015