Neutral Beyond the Cold: Neutral States and the Post-Cold War International System - Hardcover

by Luca Anceschi (Contribution by), Pascal Lottaz (Contribution by), Nasir A. Andisha (Contribution by)

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the wars in Yugoslavia radically changed the security environment in Europe and Central Asia. Some predictions assumed the emerging unipolarity of the liberal world order would end neutrality policies in East and West, but, as this volume shows, this was not the case. While some traditional Cold War neutrals like Sweden and Finland have been edging closer to security alignment with western institutions, there are others like Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, and Malta that remained committed to their traditional nonaligned foreign policy approaches. More importantly, there are areas of Eurasia that developed new forms of neutrality policies, most of them only noticed on the margins of academic discourse. This is the first book to systematically explore this "new neutralism" of the Post-Cold War. In part one, the book analyzes contemporary neutrality discourse on several levels like international organizations (UN, ASEAN), diplomacy, and academic theory. Part two discusses neutrality-related policy developments in Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Serbia, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. Together, the 15 chapters show how on this vast, connected landmass references to neutrality have remained a staple of international politics.

Author Biography

Heinz Gärtner is professor and lecturer in the department of political science at the University of Vienna and Danube University.
Pascal Lottaz is adjunct professor at Temple University Japan and adjunct researcher at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study.
Herbert Reginbogin is professor of international relations and international law and currently fellow at The Catholic University of America.