Yamamoto, Takeshi
(2007)
The road to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1969-1973: Britain, France and West Germany.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to examine European international politics towards the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) from 1969 to 1973. The importance of the CSCE is widely recognised by historians and political scientists, but the pre-diplomacy of the Conference is poorly understood. Based on the British, French and West German archive documents, and focusing on international political dynamics, this study explores how multilateral European detente represented by the CSCE was realised in the early 1970s. The four-year period leading up to the opening of the CSCE was also highly significant, because these four years saw the crucial transformation of the nature of European detente. When the Soviets proposed the European Security Conference in 1969, their aim was to consolidate the status quo in Europe. However, the West Europeans were the leading actors in convening the Conference, and between 1969 and 1973, they made the CSCE meaningful and substantial in two ways: its procedure and its content. The idea of a three-stage Conference, which was developed by the Europeans during the pre-conference diplomacy, made it possible to negotiate thoroughly on the text of the Helsinki Final Act and steer it in the direction the West wanted. More significantly, the West succeeded in incorporating the human rights and human contact agenda into the Conference. This study will thus examine how the ideas of the constructive procedure and humanitarian subjects were developed. It will further argue that multilateral European detente was uncontrollable by the superpowers, and a transformation of detente was possible in the context of multilateral diplomacy. Britain, France and West Germany respectively played an important role in the opening up and development of the CSCE. As a result, multilateral European detente went beyond the status quo.
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