2.-3.6.2022, University of Vienna

At a time of growing distrust in intergovernmental organizations, a look back at the history of international institutions can help us better understand and appreciate their role during the 20th century. Newly-available archival material of several international organizations, new oral history projects, and an ever-increasing interest of historians in the evolution of global governance call for an in-depth, personal scholarly exchange. The two-part event “Divided Together?” International Organizations and the Cold War (an online workshop in 2021 and a conference in Vienna in 2022) aims to assess the state of the field, present and discuss new and empirically-based research, and identify future research agendas and avenues for cooperation.

Further information, conference registration and location: ioscoldwar.univie.ac.at

Program Vienna Conference 2022:

10:00 – 11:00 Panel 1: International Organizations as Actors: Alleviating Human Suffering

Lukas Schemper (Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin, Germany): Disaster and the United Nations during the Cold War

Agnieszka Sobocinska (King's College London, UK): Giving and Resisting Aid: The UN FAO Freedom from Hunger Campaign as an Institution and at Ground Level

Chair and Comments: Elisabeth Röhrlich (University of Vienna, Austria)

11:15 – 12:45 Panel 2: Vienna in Context: Neutral Cities and International Organizations as Bridge-building Sites (BIAAS-sponsored)

Lucile Dreidemy (University of Vienna, Austria): The Vienna Institute for Development and Cooperation: A Case Study on the “NGOisation” of Development and Foreign Policy in the Context of the Cold War

Liza Soutschek (RWTH Aachen University, Germany): Arena for Cooperation and Competition in Cold War Science: The Vienna International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and East and West Germany

Barbara Hof (University of Zurich, Switzerland): Window to the East. CERN and the Expansion of Scientific Collaboration across the Iron Curtain

Chair and Comments: Glenda Sluga (European University Institute)

12:45 – 14:45 Lunch (for participants only)

14:45 – 16:15 Panel 3.1: US Dominance in International Organizations? (BIAAS-sponsored)

Ljubica Spaskovska (University of Exeter, UK) [via Zoom?]: ‘Infrastructure for Co-operation’? – Visions of Internationalism and Development beyond the Cold War Divide

Michel Christian (Geneva University, Switzerland): The Paris “Centre International de l’Enfance” between East and West

Marek Eby (New York University, USA): Cold War Form, Internationalist Content? The Martsinovskii Institute in the Transnational Networks of the WHO

Chair: Jessica Reinisch (Birkbeck College, UK)

Comments: Bogdan Iacob (Romanian Academy/SNSPA, Bucharest, Romania)

16:30 – 18:00 Panel 3.2: US Dominance in International Organizations? (BIAAS-sponsored)

Chris Dietrich (Fordham University, USA) [via Zoom]: Ralph Bunche, the Cold War, and the Battle over Trusteeship, 1934-1948

Sarah Nelson (Southern Methodist University Dallas, USA): "‘Regenerate, but Unreformed?’ The International Telecommunications Union, the United Nations, and the Making of Technocratic Internationalism(s) in the Early Cold War, 1945-1947”

Henning Türk (Bonn University, Germany): International Organizations as Mediators in the Western Camp: The International Energy Agency and the Gas-pipeline Sanctions between 1981 and 1984

Chair: Monika Baar (Leiden University, Netherlands)

Comments: Martin Rempe (University of Konstanz, Germany)

19:00 Reception (for participants only)

10:00 - 11:30 Panel 4: Negotiating Decolonization

Daniel Gorman (University of Waterloo, Canada): Experiments in Conciliation: The UN, Kashmir, and Decolonization

Lydia Walker (Leiden University, The Netherlands): The Cold War Trap: The United Nations and the Specter of Katanga

Christian Methfessel (Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History Berlin, Germany): Territorial Conflicts on the World Stage: International Organizations, the “Third World,” and the Global Cold War

Chair and Comments: Marcia Schenck (University of Potsdam, Germany)

11:45 - 13:45 Lunch (for participants only)

13:45 – 15:15 Panel 5: Actors in International Organizations and the Production of Expertise

Katja Castryck-Naumann (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe Leipzig, Germany): Polish Economists in the UN Secretariat: Expertise, Political Agendas, and Networks (1945-1960s)

Mikuláš Pešta (Charles University Prague, Czech Republic), Matthieu Gillabert (University of Fribourg, Switzerland): International Union of Students: Strategies of Legitimization from Prague to the Global Cold War

Yi-Tang Lin (Geneva University, Switzerland) [via Zoom]: Catch up to Western Science or Export the Chinese Model? Chinese Experts and the United Nations in the 1970s

Chair and Comments: Sandrine Kott (University of Geneva)

15:30 – 16:30 Panel 6: International Law: Human and Cultural Rights

Debbie Sharnak (Rowan University, USA) [via Zoom]: The UN Human Rights Commission and the Case of Uruguay

Ioana Cîrstocea (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France): Before “Gender Mainstreaming”: Cold War Roots of the Global Women’s Rights Agendas

Chair and Comments: Ned Richardson-Little (Erfurt University, Germany)

16:45 – 17:15 Concluding Discussion

Chair: Ellen Ravndal (University of Stavanger, Norway)

Discussants: Federico Romero (European University Institute), Jessica Reinisch (Birkbeck College, UK), Glenda Sluga (European University Institute), Monika Baar (Leiden University, Netherlands)

19:00 Conference Dinner (for participants only)

The symposium is generously supported by the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies, the Vienna Meeting Fund, the Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft (ÖFG), the Department of Development Studies, the Department of History and the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Science of the University of Vienna and the Department of History of the University of Geneva.