CSCE and the End of the Cold War

Since its inception, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe has faced controversy. Today it is widely regarded as a contributing factor in the end of the Cold War, with some observers even claiming that it ushered in a "post-Westphalian" era in which multilateral diplomacy and social processes drive geopolitics. Bringing together new and innovative research on the CSCE, this volume revisits key questions in Cold War historiography: To what extent did states aid or resist the emergence of a "Helsinki paradigm?" Was the CSCE an effective response to democratic aspirations? And what was the role of nonstate actors in the eventual transformation of Europe?