On 28-29 October 2021, the international online conference ‘COLD WAR (A)SYMMETRIES: Conflict, Cooperation and Trade’ takes place. Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations Laurien Crump and Dr Angela Romano (University of Glasgow) have been confirmed keynote speakers.
This conference aims to explore how asymmetric/unequal relationships shaped the Cold War in bilateral, multilateral, regional or global frameworks. More specifically, it intends to discuss the relationship between small and weaker actors versus great and stronger international actors, both in theory and in practice.
During the last few decades, benefiting from the opening of a multitude of state and party archives from the ‘Eastern side’ of the Cold War, a flourishing scholarship on the role and policies of small powers has emerged. In many cases, it has shown that the weaker actor could impose its preferences on the stronger one or that the stronger actor could not always impose its preferences on the weaker one. Observing the imbalanced relationships between the small and the great powers, this scholarship usually focused on the interplay between the hegemons and their clients investigating how the hegemon struggled to maintain its dominance and control or how the client tried to break the hegemon’s hold or find more room for manoeuvre. This conference, however, aims to explore Cold War asymmetric relationships beyond the traditional East-West divide, beyond the hegemon-client relationship, and beyond Europe.
This conference is organised by the Valahia University of Târgoviște, Romania, as part of a research project financed by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research.