On June 29, 2022, the Institute for Global Governance Research (GGR) hosted the 5th GGR Brown Bag Lunch Seminar titled “Globalizing International Economy and the Cold War: The 1970s to the Early 1980s” with Professor Toshihiko Aono (Graduate School of Law / Graduate School of International and Public Policy) as the lecturer.
In order to capture the transformation involved in the conjunction of globalization and the Cold War situation since the 1970s, Professor Aono discussed the changes in the international economic system after World War II up to the 1970s, and the interaction between economic globalization and the Cold War during the 1970s and 1980s. First, he pointed to economic changes from 1945 to the mid-1970s, including the economic East-West divide, the transformation of Western economies, the globalization of Eastern European economies, the East Asian miracle, and the Third World’s split. Second, as phenomena appearing out of the interaction between economic globalization and the Cold War of the 1970s and 1980s, he pointed to the U.S.-Soviet détente against the background of deteriorating economic conditions in the U.S. and increasing profits through trade on the Soviet side; the globalization and détente of Eastern European economies in relation to the recession in the West; the shift of the world economy to Asia in conjunction with the East Asian miracle and China’s entry into the global market; and the division of the Third World against the backdrop of economic disparity and its impact on the socialist bloc.
During the Q&A session, a variety of discussions took place, including the argument of embedded liberalism from the perspective of historical research, reactions to new issues such as environmental problems associated with the globalization of the world economy, the end of the Cold War from the perspective of a globally expanded civil society, China’s entry into the world market and the acceptance of the Chinese model in Africa, and the link between Cold War globalization and regionalism. A total of approximately 20 faculty members and graduate students attended this seminar.
【Event report prepared by】
SUZUKI Ryohei (Doctoral Student, Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University)
