International Organizations and the Cold War: Competition, Cooperation and Convergence

The post-WWII era was a time of superpower confrontation and antagonistic bloc politics, but it was also a period in which organized internationalism reached its peak as both an ideological value and a political practice. This open access volume explores how international organizations affected the evolution and nature of Cold War rivalries, and how they in turn were shaped by them.

In seeking to understand the role that international organizations have played as sites of confrontation, this volume also highlights their role as spaces for mediation and negotiation, particularly for middle-size powers and colonized or newly decolonized countries. Through multiple perspectives, based on a diverse array of historical sources, the authors collectively explore how international organizations were able to bridge and move beyond the Cold War divide by promoting common causes and shaping common scientific knowledge, communities and practices.

Rather than focusing exclusively on western-dominated institutions within the UN system which have received the most scholarly attention to date, International Organizations and the Cold War highlights the role of lesser-known groups such as the Paris-based International Child Center, the Prague-based International Union of Students and historical actors such as Soviet public health experts and Chinese development specialists. In doing so, it asks new questions about the role of international organizations in securing peace and security across the modern world, and their role as negotiator in times of tension and crisis.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Sandrine Kott is Professor of History at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Her most recent book Organiser le Monde (2021) studies the Cold War through the lenses of international organizations.

Elisabeth Röhrlich is Associate Professor of History at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her book Inspectors for Peace on the International Atomic Energy Agency was published in 2022.

Eva-Maria Muschik is Assistant Professor in the Department of Development Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her book, Building States, on the UN Secretariat published in 2022.