The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (44 page)
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Authors: Iain McLean
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coat-tail effect
The ability of the candidate heading a party ticket to help carry into office lesser candidates from the same party who appear on the same ballot. A negative coat-tail effect can occur when an unpopular candidate heading the party ticket is a disadvantage for other candidates of the same party.
cohabitation
In political terms, co-operation between parties for specific purposes without actually forming a coalition. This situation arose in 1986, when a French President of the left, François Mitterrand , was confronted by a government of the right under Jacques Chirac . This represented a major test for the hybrid
Fifth Republic
whose constitution allocates powers and responsibilities in a vague and sometimes contradictory manner between President, prime minister, and government. Cohabitation (the French
cohabitation
has the same spelling and meaning as the English word) was essentially a conflictual relationship, but one involving a temporary collaboration where responsibilities overlapped. The government legislated for domestic matters with the President confined to advice and arbitration. Foreign and European policy was shared although as head of state the President retained his traditional privileged status. Defence, nuclear strategy, and the deterrent, however, remained the exclusive preserve of the President. Mitterrand was the principal beneficiary of cohabitation as he was able to capitalize on the domestic problems of the government. By intervening only on issues where the government was at a disadvantage he laid the basis for a comfortable victory for himself in the 1988 presidential contest, against a divided right. To avert the threat of further cohabitation Mitterrand undertook to reduce the presidential term from seven to five years to coincide with the life of the legislature However, he failed to apply the pledge to himself, and cohabitation returned in 1993.
IC
Fifth Republic
whose constitution allocates powers and responsibilities in a vague and sometimes contradictory manner between President, prime minister, and government. Cohabitation (the French
cohabitation
has the same spelling and meaning as the English word) was essentially a conflictual relationship, but one involving a temporary collaboration where responsibilities overlapped. The government legislated for domestic matters with the President confined to advice and arbitration. Foreign and European policy was shared although as head of state the President retained his traditional privileged status. Defence, nuclear strategy, and the deterrent, however, remained the exclusive preserve of the President. Mitterrand was the principal beneficiary of cohabitation as he was able to capitalize on the domestic problems of the government. By intervening only on issues where the government was at a disadvantage he laid the basis for a comfortable victory for himself in the 1988 presidential contest, against a divided right. To avert the threat of further cohabitation Mitterrand undertook to reduce the presidential term from seven to five years to coincide with the life of the legislature However, he failed to apply the pledge to himself, and cohabitation returned in 1993.
IC
Cold War
The name normally given to the period of intense conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union in the period after the Second World War.
In 1945 the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two leading powers in Europe, with the Soviet Union effectively occupying the countries of Eastern Europe and the United States as the liberator (or in the case of Britain creditor and underwriter) of the countries of Western Europe. In Germany these two ‘superpowers’, along with France and Britain, established zones of occupation and a framework for four-power control. In the conferences at Yalta (February) and Potsdam (July/August) 1945 the two superpowers and Britain attempted to define the framework for a postwar settlement in Europe. However, by the time of the Potsdam conference serious differences had emerged, in particular over the future development of Germany and Eastern Europe. Both conferences also discussed the Far East, in particular the entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan.
By 1947 a general ‘East—West’ division of states was emerging. The Soviets were intent, according to the West, on undermining democracy and establishing puppet communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and in Germany on crippling her wealth and creating an exclusive influence in their zone of occupation. The Soviets defended their actions in Eastern Europe in terms of establishing broadly based anti-Fascist governments which were friendly towards the Soviet Union. Other conflicts elsewhere emerged and the two states began to denounce each other in increasingly violent ideological terms—the Soviet Union portraying the United States as bent on destroying communism while the United States portrayed the Soviet Union as intent on undermining liberal democracy in Western Europe and the United States itself.
The Cold War from 1947 onwards is marked by the Berlin Blockade Crisis of 1948–9, the victory of Mao's Red Army over the American-backed Nationalist Government in China in 1949, the
Korean War
in 1950, the Soviet military occupation of Hungary in 1956, Soviet pressure on Berlin from 1958 culminating in the Berlin Wall crisis of 1961, and the
Cuban Missile Crisis
of 1962. During this period the Americans consolidated their new role as leader of the West: they offered assistance to the economies of the Western European states through the Marshall Plan of 1947; formally allied themselves to an emerging alliance of Western European states in the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949; took the lead in establishing the Federal Republic of Germany from the three Western zones of occupation in 1949 and in the early 1950s worked for the rearmament of this new state and its full membership of
NATO
in 1955. The Soviet Union proclaimed its zone of occupation in Germany as the German Democratic Republic in 1949 and established a formal alliance with its Eastern European ‘partners’ in 1955 (the
Warsaw Pact
Treaty Organization).
In Asia the Americans concluded an alliance and then a peace treaty with Japan in 1951 and 1952 and brought other states, including Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines, within a series of alliances, while the Soviet Union concluded an alliance with China in 1950. The war in Korea ended in 1953 but the Americans gradually became entangled in a more complex war in Vietnam in which it supported the Republic of (South) Vietnam against the Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam which was backed by the Soviet Union and China.
Throughout this period the two sides also pursued policies of nuclear rearmament and developed long-range weapons with which they could strike the homeland of the other.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis relations improved. Agreements were concluded to ‘normalize’ the situation in Europe, particularly the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin in 1971, agreements which led to the two German states entering the United Nations in 1973 and the Helsinki Accords agreed by the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
in 1975 which appeared to mark a tacit peace treaty to conclude both the Second World War and the Cold War. Agreements limiting the nuclear arms race were also concluded. Conflict between the superpowers continued even through this period of
détente
, particularly in new areas of rivalry such as Southern Africa, the Horn of Africa (i.e. north-eastern Africa), and the Middle East. However, improved relations between the United States and China, the work of President Nixon , Secretary of State Kissinger and Premier Chou En-Lai , together with the
détente
between the United States and the Soviet Union and the worsening of relations between the Soviet Union and China, gave a new shape to relations between the two (or perhaps three) superpowers in the 1970s.
By the mid-1970s the Cold War in its original form can be said to have died away. The
arms race
between East and West had all the characteristics of a classic ‘action-reaction’ model of international conflict in which each side reacts to an earlier step by the other side. The explanation of the origins of the conflict is more complex, though three broad categories of explanation can be identified. First, some analysts have emphasized that the Cold War occurred primarily as a result of the destruction of German power, the resulting ‘power vacuum’ in Central Europe and the new bipolar balance of power between the superpowers. From this perspective, the Cold War was a traditional great power conflict in which ideological rivalry was essentially secondary and the structural constraints of bipolarity crucial in throwing the two sides apart. A second explanation, sometimes called the orthodox or liberal interpretation, stresses the American desire for a return to a much more limited international role after the Second World War. However, after having begun to disarm and disengage from Europe, the Americans were obliged by Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe to take up in 1947 a much more active, and unsought for, role in Europe in order to contain Soviet power. A third explanation stresses the long-term objective of the American capitalist power to undermine communism and to expand American power throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. Some writers in this category thus trace the Cold War back to American opposition to the 1917 Russian Revolution. Of course, many accounts weave together two or even all three of these broad categories.
In the 1980s there was a short-lived but intensive reawakening of the Cold War, sometimes called the New Cold War. Détente petered out in the late 1970s, arms control faltered, and in December 1979 the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan. From 1980 onwards the Soviet Union exerted intense pressure over the government of Poland. In the United States and in Britain the governments of Reagan and Thatcher denounced the Soviet Union in ideological terms unheard since the worst days of the Cold War. On the Western side there was rearmament in Europe, under the so-called double-track policy of NATO, changes in the American doctrine of deterrence which appeared to emphasize the political utility of limited nuclear war, and the American pursuit of defences against Soviet missiles (the Strategic Defense Initiative). As in the post-1945 period it is difficult to disentangle action and reaction between the two sides. In any case, by 1987 the two superpowers had moved decisively back towards agreement and by 1989 Soviet power itself was crumbling.
PBy
In 1945 the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two leading powers in Europe, with the Soviet Union effectively occupying the countries of Eastern Europe and the United States as the liberator (or in the case of Britain creditor and underwriter) of the countries of Western Europe. In Germany these two ‘superpowers’, along with France and Britain, established zones of occupation and a framework for four-power control. In the conferences at Yalta (February) and Potsdam (July/August) 1945 the two superpowers and Britain attempted to define the framework for a postwar settlement in Europe. However, by the time of the Potsdam conference serious differences had emerged, in particular over the future development of Germany and Eastern Europe. Both conferences also discussed the Far East, in particular the entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan.
By 1947 a general ‘East—West’ division of states was emerging. The Soviets were intent, according to the West, on undermining democracy and establishing puppet communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and in Germany on crippling her wealth and creating an exclusive influence in their zone of occupation. The Soviets defended their actions in Eastern Europe in terms of establishing broadly based anti-Fascist governments which were friendly towards the Soviet Union. Other conflicts elsewhere emerged and the two states began to denounce each other in increasingly violent ideological terms—the Soviet Union portraying the United States as bent on destroying communism while the United States portrayed the Soviet Union as intent on undermining liberal democracy in Western Europe and the United States itself.
The Cold War from 1947 onwards is marked by the Berlin Blockade Crisis of 1948–9, the victory of Mao's Red Army over the American-backed Nationalist Government in China in 1949, the
Korean War
in 1950, the Soviet military occupation of Hungary in 1956, Soviet pressure on Berlin from 1958 culminating in the Berlin Wall crisis of 1961, and the
Cuban Missile Crisis
of 1962. During this period the Americans consolidated their new role as leader of the West: they offered assistance to the economies of the Western European states through the Marshall Plan of 1947; formally allied themselves to an emerging alliance of Western European states in the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949; took the lead in establishing the Federal Republic of Germany from the three Western zones of occupation in 1949 and in the early 1950s worked for the rearmament of this new state and its full membership of
NATO
in 1955. The Soviet Union proclaimed its zone of occupation in Germany as the German Democratic Republic in 1949 and established a formal alliance with its Eastern European ‘partners’ in 1955 (the
Warsaw Pact
Treaty Organization).
In Asia the Americans concluded an alliance and then a peace treaty with Japan in 1951 and 1952 and brought other states, including Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines, within a series of alliances, while the Soviet Union concluded an alliance with China in 1950. The war in Korea ended in 1953 but the Americans gradually became entangled in a more complex war in Vietnam in which it supported the Republic of (South) Vietnam against the Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam which was backed by the Soviet Union and China.
Throughout this period the two sides also pursued policies of nuclear rearmament and developed long-range weapons with which they could strike the homeland of the other.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis relations improved. Agreements were concluded to ‘normalize’ the situation in Europe, particularly the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin in 1971, agreements which led to the two German states entering the United Nations in 1973 and the Helsinki Accords agreed by the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
in 1975 which appeared to mark a tacit peace treaty to conclude both the Second World War and the Cold War. Agreements limiting the nuclear arms race were also concluded. Conflict between the superpowers continued even through this period of
détente
, particularly in new areas of rivalry such as Southern Africa, the Horn of Africa (i.e. north-eastern Africa), and the Middle East. However, improved relations between the United States and China, the work of President Nixon , Secretary of State Kissinger and Premier Chou En-Lai , together with the
détente
between the United States and the Soviet Union and the worsening of relations between the Soviet Union and China, gave a new shape to relations between the two (or perhaps three) superpowers in the 1970s.
By the mid-1970s the Cold War in its original form can be said to have died away. The
arms race
between East and West had all the characteristics of a classic ‘action-reaction’ model of international conflict in which each side reacts to an earlier step by the other side. The explanation of the origins of the conflict is more complex, though three broad categories of explanation can be identified. First, some analysts have emphasized that the Cold War occurred primarily as a result of the destruction of German power, the resulting ‘power vacuum’ in Central Europe and the new bipolar balance of power between the superpowers. From this perspective, the Cold War was a traditional great power conflict in which ideological rivalry was essentially secondary and the structural constraints of bipolarity crucial in throwing the two sides apart. A second explanation, sometimes called the orthodox or liberal interpretation, stresses the American desire for a return to a much more limited international role after the Second World War. However, after having begun to disarm and disengage from Europe, the Americans were obliged by Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe to take up in 1947 a much more active, and unsought for, role in Europe in order to contain Soviet power. A third explanation stresses the long-term objective of the American capitalist power to undermine communism and to expand American power throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. Some writers in this category thus trace the Cold War back to American opposition to the 1917 Russian Revolution. Of course, many accounts weave together two or even all three of these broad categories.
In the 1980s there was a short-lived but intensive reawakening of the Cold War, sometimes called the New Cold War. Détente petered out in the late 1970s, arms control faltered, and in December 1979 the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan. From 1980 onwards the Soviet Union exerted intense pressure over the government of Poland. In the United States and in Britain the governments of Reagan and Thatcher denounced the Soviet Union in ideological terms unheard since the worst days of the Cold War. On the Western side there was rearmament in Europe, under the so-called double-track policy of NATO, changes in the American doctrine of deterrence which appeared to emphasize the political utility of limited nuclear war, and the American pursuit of defences against Soviet missiles (the Strategic Defense Initiative). As in the post-1945 period it is difficult to disentangle action and reaction between the two sides. In any case, by 1987 the two superpowers had moved decisively back towards agreement and by 1989 Soviet power itself was crumbling.
PBy
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