Reminder: Reconstructing the Cold War - Soviet Policy 1945-1958 (III)

¡Vótame en los Premios iVoox 2026! How can Soviet foreign policy in the period following the end of the Second World War be understood? Why did Stalin and his successors act as they did in Eastern Europe and the developing world? Instead of realist theories of international relations, or personality-centered diplomatic history, Ted Hopf offers a constructivist perspective on these questions. In his latest book Reconstructing the Cold War: The Early Years, 1945-1958, Hopf develops his earlier approach to "societal constructivism", arguing that Soviet identity discourses at home explain relations abroad. Hopf thus attempts to identify discourses on identity, which he finds expressed in the arts, the press, and the university and scientific systems. Reconstructing the Cold War: The Early Years, 1945-1958 was granted the 2013 American Political Science Association Robert Jervis-Paul Schroeder Award for Best Book in International Relations and History. Date 28 August Time 17:45 - 19:15 Location Sverigesalen, The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Drottning Kristinas väg 37, Stockholm; Sweden Speaker Ted Hopf, Professor of Political Science at National University of Singapore. Hopf has previously served on the faculties of Ohio State University, Ohio University and the University of Michigan. His main field of interest is international relations theory with special reference to the Soviet Union and the former Soviet space. His previous book Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999 (Cornell University Press, 2002) won the 2003 Marshall D. Shulman Award. Commentator Kristian Gerner, Professor of History, University of Lund, Sweden. Moderator Lena Jonson, Senior Research Fellow at UI since 1988 and Head of UI's Russia Program.