Identity In The Cold War

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Recommended: Short paragraphs nature of the cold war

Was the Cold War an identity conflict?

INTRODUCTION

Cold War was a controversial war. Unlike previous wars the main actors never really frontally fought each other. By using client states to fight on their behalf, USA and Soviet Union fought for their beliefs and identities.
Identity in IR can many times be related to Nationalism and that is one of the reasons that make the Cold War be related as as ‘Identity Conflict’. The Cold War was in fact an opposition of different cultural, political, power and ideological Identities.
This essay tries to clarify the semantic of the word ‘Identity’, when this word started to have importance between the scholars and in particular why it has a great importance to understand better International Relations. In this essay it will also be reviewed the main protagonists and events related to the Cold War. After the explanations of these important backgrounds the role of …show more content…

If we extend this concept to IR we can see how identities had a major role in the Cold War, in particular if we analyse the ‘Red Scare’

Geopolitical divisions = clash of identities

CONCLUSION

To summarise, it has been noted that identities have a major role in wars

(1) Definition of “identity” from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press
(2) Fearon, J. What is Identity (as We Now Use the Word)?, unpublished manuscript (Stanford University, 1999)
(3) Burke, A. (2006): Identity/Difference. In M. Griffiths (ed.) Encyclopedia of International Relations and Global Politics. London: Routledge, pp.394-6

--- Notes ---

War is good?

Wars influence nationalism? (And viceversa)
Are wars necessary for nationalism?

Nationalism as an identity

Nationalism --> (human nature = social beings) desire to belong to a community

You get taught your identity (by education, for example inni nazionali)

You construct your identity by excluding

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