The international dimension of Southern European Dictatorships: Spain, Portugal and Greece in the Cold War system, 1968-1975
Workshop
19 June 2012
LSE IDEAS, Cold War Studies Programme
SUMMARY
Less than half a century ago, three Southern European countries still lived under right-wing dictatorial rule. Spain, Portugal and Greece were the last European countries outside the Soviet orbit to emerge from the shadows of dictatorships and join the democratic nexus of Western Europe. Although their dictatorial regimes varied considerably in terms of implementation, duration, nature and practice, they did nonetheless share a number of common characteristics. These included sharp social divisions and relative economic underdevelopment, as well as the contemporaneousness of their demise and a democratisation process within a relatively short amount of time.
While a burgeoning corpus of scholarly literature devoted mainly to various domestic facets of those regimes has emerged over the years – focusing especially on their establishment, collapse and subsequent transition to democracy – the ramifications of the international environment in which those dictatorships functioned have not been adequately explored, certainly not within a comparative context. Ironically, this lacuna may mask the regimes’ vulnerability to international circumstances and the influence of broader Cold War trends.
Internationally, the critical period of the late 1960s and early 1970s was marked by a widespread pursuit of new approaches to old conflicts. The two superpowers USA and Soviet Union sought to bring relief to decades of escalating tension through détente – an array of negotiations and treaties recognising each other’s ‘interests’. Initiatives such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), the Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions talks (MBFR) and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) raised hopes for a more peaceful future. In turn, the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system in 1971 and the oil price shock of 1973 ushered the end of almost thirty years of Western European economic prosperity. Simultaneously, the rise of mass media facilitated an outburst of protest movements against local and global manifestations of capitalism, imperialism and colonialism.
The aim of this workshop is to examine whether and to what extent the three southern European right-wing dictatorships were exposed to these strong international currents, including political, economic and cultural effects emanating from powerful actors, most notably within the Western sphere of influence. The workshop will also look beyond traditional governmental agents into the resistance movements and social protest in order to broaden our understanding of the dynamics of this period. The discussion will thus address the existing scholarly dearth by exploring the linkages between international factors and domestic developments, taking advantage of the increasing availability of archival sources from within and outside the region.
PROGRAMME
09.00 – 9.30 Coffee and registration
09.30 – 11.15 Panel I: International dimension of the Greek Dictatorship Discussant: Prof Evanthis Hatzivassiliou
Konstantina Maragkou (Yale) The international politics of the Greek Colonels’ regime. Any role for human rights?
Effie Pedaliu (UWE), Unintended Consequences: Human Rights, European Security and the International Implications of the Greek Dictatorship.
Dionysis Chourchoulis (Queen Mary) & Eirini Karamouzi (LSE), «Between rhetoric and realpolitik: the Western alliance and the Greek Colonels, 1967-1970».
Christos Christidis(University of Athens). “Battle for Legitimacy: Trends of Greek Resistance against the Colonels (1967-1974)”
11.15 Coffee Break
11.30 – 13.15 Panel II: International dimension of the Portuguese Dictatorship Discussant: Carlos Gaspar (IPRI, FCSH-UNL)
Aurora Santos (IHC, FCSH-UNL). Portuguese and Spanish Colonial Issues in the United Nations
Rui Lopes (LSE, IHC). Confronting Portugal within NATO, 1970-1974
Pedro Aires Oliveira (IHC, FCSH-UNL). A sense of hopelessness? Portuguese exile communities and the opposition to the New State (c. 1968-1974)
Jose Neves (IHC, FCSH-UNL). Between Clandestinity and Statehood – the geopolitics of Portuguese communists
13.15 – 14.15 Lunch
14.15 – 16.30 Panel III: International dimension of the Spanish Dictatorship Discussant: Antonio Moneo (LSE IDEAS)
Eduardo Trillo (UNED). The Spanish Decolonization. Guinea Equatorial 2and Western Sahara (1967-1974)
Elisa Chulia (UNED). The Road to Press Freedom in Late Francoism (1966-1975). Domestic Conquest or International Concession?
Romina di Carli (University of Navarra). Anticommunism and Ostpolitik. The Holy See’s foreign policy towards dictatorships in Southern Mediterranean in the times of the Déténte
Emmanuele Treglia (LUISS). Eurocommunism and national approach: the case of the Spanish Communist Party in comparative perspective
16.15 Coffee Break
16.30 – 17.15 Détente – a turning point for the international position of the Southern European regimes?
Roundtable: Piers Ludlow, Arne Westad, Paul Preston and Antonio Varsori
Chair: Svetozar Rajak
PARTICIPANTS
Romina di Carli, Dionysis Chourchouli, Christos Christidis, Elisa Chulia, Carlos Gaspar, Evanthis Hatzivassiliou, Eirini Karamouzi, Rui Lopes, Piers Ludlow, Konstantina Maragkou, Antonio Moneo, José Neves, Pedro Aires Oliveira, Effie Pedaliu, Paul Preston, Svetozar Rajak, Aurora Santos, Emmanuele Treglia, Eduardo Trillo, Antonio Varsori, Odd Arne Westad
BIOS
Romina di Carli is Assistant Lecturer at Public University of Navarra. She graduated in Modern History by the Studies University of Trieste. She did a European PhD in Spanish Modern History (UCM, 2007). Her research focuses on the relationships between the Catholic Church and the Spanish Government from 1960 to 1978. She held a Hispanic grant holder of the Italian Foreign Office in 2011 (Humanities Department of CSIC), pre-doctoral grant holder from 2002 to 2006 (Contemporary History Department of UCM) and Marie Curie grant holder in 2004-2005 (Jean Monnet Faculty of South Paris University). She took part in various conferences and seminars in Spain, France and Germany. She is the author of the book El derecho a la libertad religiosa en la transición democrática de España (2009) and of several articles in academic journals such as Historia Actual Online, Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea, Cristianesimo nella Storia and Spagna Contemporanea. She worked as Marie Curie researcher for the research project Convictions et croyances religieuses des individus et des communautés en droit eropéen et communautaire (South Paris University; director: Brigitte Basdevant-Gaudemet), and from 2011 onwards, she is member of two research group: research group UPNA-315 “Historia y Economía” (Public University of Navarra; director: José Miguel Lana Berasain) and research group HUM315 “Población, medio ambiente y desarrollo urbano en la provincia de Cádiz” (Cádiz University; director: Julio Pérez Serrano).
Dionysis Chourchoulis holds a PhD on the Southern Flank of NATO in the 1950s, from the Department of History, Queen Mary University of London. He also holds an MA in Modern and Contemporary Greek History from National University of Athens, as well as an MSc in History of International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His academic interests include political, military and economic history during the Interwar, Second World War and Cold War periods in the Balkans, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Currently he writes the biography of Themistocles Sofoulis.
Christos Christidis studied History at the department of History and Archeology of the University of Athens. He holds an MA in Modern and Contemporary Greek History from the University of Athens and he is currently doing his PhD at the same department. His thesis topic is “The Center Union’s ‘Relentless Struggle’, 1961-1963”. His research interests include Political Ideology, Modern Greek Political History and the Cyprus Question. Recent publications include Christos Christidis (ed.), Cypriot Reflections (Athens, 2011) [in Greek]
Elisa Chulia. Magister Artium in Communication (major), History and German Philology from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (GFR), master’s degree from the Center of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences of the Juan March Institute (Madrid) and PhD in Political Science and Sociology from the Complutense University Madrid. Since 2003 she is associate professor of the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology of the National Distance Education University. Between December 2007 and July 2011 she held the position of dean of this Faculty. Her main research has focused on mass media and public opinion control in dictatorships, the role of families in the Spanish society and the political and social challenges derived from population ageing, in particular pension reforms.
Carlos Gaspar. Senior Researcher, Portuguese Institute of International Relations. Professor of International Relations, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Senior Advisor to the Board of the Fundação Oriente. Read Law and History at the Universidade Clássica de Lisboa. MA in Political Science and International Relations, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. Former Adviser to President Ramalho Eanes (1977-1986), President Mário Soares (1986-1996) and President Jorge Sampaio (1996-2006). Director of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI-UNL) (2006-2011). Advisor, Instituto de Defesa Nacional. Lecturer, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Member of the European China Research and Academic Network.
Evanthis Hatzivassiliou is an associate professor of contemporary history at the History Department of the University of Athens. He is the editor of the ‘Modern and Contemporary History’ series of Patakis Publications (Athens), a member of the Greek-Turkish Forum, and member of the Consultative Committee of the Foundation for Parliamentarianism and Democracy of the Greek Parliament. He has published six books amongst which Greece and the Cold War: Frontline State, 1952-1967(Routledge).
Eirini Karamouzi is a Pinto Post-Doctoral Fellow at LSE IDEAS for the 2011-2011 academic year. She completed her PhD entitled ‘Greece’s Path to EEC membership, 1974-1979: The View from Brussels’ at the International History department of LSE. She has an MSc on European Politics and Governance from the LSE and a BA in History and Archaeology from University of Athens. She is currently Book Review Editor for the Cold War History Journal and was until recently Programme assistant of the Balkans International Affairs Programme. She teaches at LSE and Queen Mary mostly on post-war Western Europe.
Rui Lopes has recently completed a PhD in International History at the LSE, with the title: “Between Cold War and Colonial Wars: The making of West German policy towards the Portuguese dictatorship, 1968-1974”. At LSE, he is currently a teaching fellow for the course ‘LSE100’ as well as a graduate teaching assistant for the course ‘International History of the Cold War, 1945-1975’. He is also managing editor of the journal Cold War History, as well as researcher with the Instituto de História Contemporânea, at the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. In 2010/2011, he was visiting tutor and lecturer for the course ‘Africa in the Global Political Economy’ in the Department of Politics of Goldsmiths, University of London
Piers Ludlow’s main research interests lie in the history of Western Europe since 1945, and in particular in the historical roots of the European integration process and the early stages of development of the EU. He is also interested in the history of the cold war in Europe and is an editor of Cold War History. His recent research has focused on the development of transatlantic relations during the cold war – and in particular in the way in which the Americans sought to balance their bilateral and multilateral dealings with their Western European allies. The eventual plan is to produce a wide-ranging monograph on this theme, drawing upon research from both US and European archives. In the shorter term, Dr. Ludlow is also planning a detailed historical investigation of the Treaty of Rome negotiations.
Konstantina Maragkouis a lecturer at Yale University. She received
her PhD in History and MPhil in Historical Studies from the University of
Cambridge and a BA in Modern History, Economic History and Politics from the
University of London. She had previously held fellowships at Yale, LSE, NYU.
Her first book on Britain and the Greek Colonels is published by Columbia
University Press/Hurst & Co, and her articles have appeared in edited volumes
and peer-reviewed journals. Her current project deals with the comparative
development, resolution and legacy of the Southern European human rights
crises.
Antonio Moneo obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (Spain), in which he explored the constitutional transformations in Yugoslavia (1946-1989). His research focuses on the institutionalisation of authoritarian regimes, the Cold War, the Balkans, and post-electoral revolutions in Eurasia. He has been a fellow at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia and a visiting fellow at LSE IDEAS (UK, 2009), the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade (Serbia, 2008) and at the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights (Serbia, 2007). He is the co-director of www.eurasianet.es, a virtual platform for researchers interested in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and has been the Balkan International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS. His publications include several articles on the institutionalisation of the titoistregime between 1946 and 1989. He has been a teaching assistant at the UNED (Spain) of Comparative Politics, and Spanish Political System in 19th and 20th centuries, and has also taught History of Eastern Europe at the University Juan Carlos I.
José Neves is Assistant Professor at the Department of History of the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. His main publication is the book “Comunismo e Nacionalismo em Portugal – Política, Cultura e História no Século XX” in 2008. He was Visiting Professor in the Department of History at King’s College London in 2011.
Pedro Aires Oliveira is an Assistant Professor at Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (History Department) and member of the Instituto de História Contemporânea (IHC) and Instituto Português de Relações Internacionais (IPRI-UNL). In 2007 he published Os Despojos da Aliança. A Grã-Bretanha e a Questão Colonial Portuguesa, 1945-1975 (awarded with the Fundação Mário Soares prize for Contemporary History), which examines the role of the colonial question on the evolution of the Anglo-Portuguese relationship after the Second World War. He is now working on a collective project, a new history of the Portuguese overseas empire, in which he will be responsible for the contemporary period (1825-1975).
Effie Pedaliu is a senior lecturer in International History at the University of the West of England-Bristol. She is the author of Britain, Italy and the Origins of the Cold War, (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2003) and many articles in journals and chapters in edited collections on the Cold War. She co-edited with J. W. Young, the Special Issue: Conflict, Security and the Cold War: Essays in Memory of Saki Dockrill, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 22/1, March 2011. Her book The Contemporary Mediterranean World will be published by Routledge in 2012. Dr Pedaliu is a member of the peer review college of the AHRC and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Paul Prestonstudied for his undergraduate degree at the Oriel College, Oxford before moving to the University of Reading where he gained his MA in European Studies. He moved back to Oriel College to work on his PhD. He returned to Reading to take up a post of Lecturer before moving on to Queen Mary College, London. He joined the LSE as a Professor in International History in 1991. Professor Preston has been awarded the 2005 Premi Internacional Ramon Llull, awarded jointly by the Institut de Estudis Catalans and the Institut Ramon Llull. The prize is the most prestigious international prize for academic achievement given in Catalonia. In 2006 he won the Premi Trias Fargas and has also been awarded Spain’s highest honour, the Gran Cruz de la Orden de Isabel la Católica. On 20 June 2006, at a ceremony presided over by the King of Spain, Professor Paul Preston was inaugurated into the of the Academia Europea de Yuste, where he was given the Marcel Proust Chair.
Svetozar Rajakis a lecturer in the LSE’s international History department. He is also the Academic Director of LSE IDEAS, centre for the study of international affairs, diplomacy and grand strategy at the LSE and is the Head of the Balkan International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS. Dr Rajak is the editor of the journal Cold War History, and co-editor of a multi-volume Collection of Documents on the ‘Soviet-British Relations in the Cold War’, sponsored by the British and Russian Academies of Sciences. He has recently published a book Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union In the Early Cold War: Reconciliation, Comradeship, Confrontation, 1953-1957” (London, New York: Routledge, 2010). He has contributed a chapter on The Cold War in the Balkans, 1945-1956: From the Greek Civil War to Soviet-Yugoslav-Normalization in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (eds), Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume I: Origins (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010) and is the author of numerous articles on the Cold War and contemporary history of the Balkans.
Aurora Santos is a PhD candidate at Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. For her Master, she studied the work of the Decolonization Committee – brought up by the United Nations Organization in 1961 – concerning the Portuguese colonialism. Now she continues her research regarding the United Nations efforts in the struggle for independence of the national liberation movements of Portuguese colonies. In her proposed dissertation, entitled “The United Nations and the Portuguese Colonial Issue (1960-1975)”, she intends to explore the international dimension of Portuguese decolonization.
Emmanuele Treglia(1982) is a PhD candidate in Political History and postdoctoral researcher at Luiss (Rome). He is a member of the Center of Historical Researches on Spanish Democracy (Madrid) and in 2010 he won the I Prize for Young Historians “Javier Tusell”. Since 2012 he is secretary of the Association of Historians of the Present. His main reasearch fields are the history of antifrancoism, the Spanish Transition, the communism and the anarchism. He is author of several articles in specialized journals. Recently he has coordinated Eurocomunismo(monographic dossier of Historia del Presente) and he has published Fuera de las catacumbas. La política del PCE y el movimiento obrero (1956-1977).
Eduardo Trillo is associate professor of Public International Law and International Relations at UNED University in Madrid, Spain. He successfully obtained his PhD in 2005 at the same university with a research on “statelessness and International Law, the right to have a nationality”. He has also worked for more than 10 years as a consultant for International organizations, such as the United Nations, the OSCE and the European Union, in the fields of democratisation, rule of Law, human rights, good governance, institutional capacity building, support to civil society and public administration reform. Under the pseudonym of Eduardo Soto-Trillo, he has published several books: “Voces sin voz” (voices without a voice), Bogotá, Colombia, 2002, on the conditions the civilians live under the guerrilla group FARC´s rule; “Los olvidados”, Madrid, Spain, 2005, on the historical background and current situation of Equatorial Guinee, and “Viaje al abandono” (Travelling to abandonment), Madrid, Spain, 2011, on the historical background and current situation in Western Sahara. His most recent publication is a chapter on Franco´s sentimental life for the work titled “Dictators´ women”, Madrid, Spain, 2011.
Antonio Varsori is a professor of History of International relations and
Director of the Department of Politics, Law and International Studies at
the University of Padua. He is vice-chairman of the liaison committee of
historians of contemporary Europe at the EU Commission and President of
the Italian Society of International History. He has published extensively
on issues such as the cold war, the European integration, Italy’s foreign
policy, Britain’s foreign policy. Among his recent publications in volume:
«La Cenerentola d’Europa ? L’Italia e l’integrazione europea dal 1947 a
oggi» (Soveria Mannelli: 2010); «European Union History Themes and
Debates» ed. with W. Kaiser (Basingstoke: 2010); «Democrazie. L’Europa
meridionale e la fine delle dittature» with M. Del Pero, V. Gavin, F.
Guirao (Florence: 2010); «Europe in the international arena in the 1970s
Entering a Different World» ed. with G. Migani (Brussels/Bern: 2011). He
is completing a volume on Italy and the changing international system
between 1989 and 1992.
Odd Arne Westad is Professor of International History at LSE and an expert on the history of the Cold War era and on contemporary international affairs. He co-directs LSE IDEAS, a centre for international affairs, diplomacy and strategy, is an editor of the journal Cold War History, and a general editor of the three-volume Cambridge History of the Cold War. Professor Westad lectures widely on China’s foreign affairs, on Western interventions in Africa and Asia, and on foreign policy strategy. Professor Westad’s most recent book, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times, received the Bancroft Price, the Michael Harrington Award, and the Akira Iriye International History Book Award. It has been translated into fourteen languages. He is now working on a history of Chinese foreign affairs since 1750.
Acknowledgements
The organisers would like to thank the LSE IDEAS and Mr Mutilinaios for their continuous support.
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