Switzerland and Sub-Saharan Africa in the Cold War, 1967-1979: Neutrality Meets Decolonisation

In Switzerland and Sub-Saharan Africa in the Cold War, 1967-1979, Sabina Widmer analyses Swiss foreign policy in Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Somalia in the late 1960s and 1970s, at the crossroads of the global East-West confrontation and decolonisation. Focusing on the independence wars in Angola and Mozambique, the Angolan War and the Ogaden War as well as regime changes that brought Soviet-allied governments to power, this book sheds new light on Switzerland’s role in the Third World during the Cold War. Based on extensive multi-archival research, it exposes the limits of neutrality in North-South relations, reveals the growing marge de manoeuvre of small states during Détente, and highlights the role of non-state actors in the making of foreign policy.

Sabina Widmer, Ph.D. (2018) was a PhD candidate and teaching assistant at the University of Lausanne from 2013 to 2018 and afterwards a Research Associate at that university. In early 2016, she was a Visiting Research Student at the research centre IDEAS at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has published on Swiss foreign policy during the Cold War and Switzerland’s relations with sub-Saharan Africa.