1. Opportunities and dilemmas
THE NEW GLOBALISM:
Opportunities and dilemmas

2. GLOBAL CHALLENGES
Shift from Cold War bipolarism to new “decentralized” threats:
Pollution
Population
Poverty

3. 1980s: THE AGE OF NEO-LIBERALISM
The Welfare state in question
Thatcher reshapes political culture
Stemming industrial decline through monetarist policies and supply-side theories – the “the trickle down” effect
Cutting income taxes, attacking trade unions, pruning state subsidies
Thatcherism saved by the Falklands war

4. THE REAGAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
The “Great Communicator” and the “moral majority”
Reaganomics: massive reductions in federal spending
…and huge military budgets to counter the Soviet arms buildup of the 1970s
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) – “Star Wars”

5. THE COLLAPSE OF SOVIET COMMUNISM
Breakup of the Soviet empire in 1989
Pulled apart by communications, international trade and democratic movements
Rebellion in Poland: the rise of Solidarity
Stagnation and deteriorating standards of living: food shortages and lack of basic household supplies

6. MIKHAIL GORBACHEV’S REFORMS
World War II hardliners and other veterans passing away – end of the Old Guard or “gerontocracy”
Perestroika: “restructuring” the Soviet economy
Glasnost: “openness” or “publicity”
Impact on foreign affairs: scaling back missile production

7. END OF SOVIET HEGEMONY IN EASTERN EUROPE
: frequent, popular and peaceful demonstrations in Eastern Europe
The “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia
November 1989: Berlin Wall opened
December 1989: N. Ceausescu executed in Romania
Spring 1990: Baltic states announcing secession from the USSR
October 1990: Germany reunited

8. CIVIL WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA AND BREAKUP OF SOVIET UNION
Nationality groups demanding political and cultural autonomy
Ethnicity – effective political slogan for ambitious politicians
Yugoslavia: “ethnic cleansing”
The Soviet Union: Yeltsin’s corrupt political allies and civil war in Chechnya

9. THE FRENCH AND GERMAN PATHWAYS
French and German stagflation: why?
Trying to maintain the welfare state in place
High unemployment rates and xenophobia
New public buildings in Paris and Berlin
Rampant anti-globalism

10. GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Globalization builds the economic future?
Destruction of local agricultures?
Perils of global migration?
Guarding the nation from global mixture?