First published 2012 by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Taylor & Francis 2012
Sotiris Rizas 2012
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BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Rizas, Sotiris.
The rise of the left in southern Europe: Anglo-American responses.
1. Right and left (Political science) Europe, Southern History 20th century. 2. Greece Politics and government 20th century. 3. Portugal Politics and government 20th century. 4. Spain Politics and government 20th century. 5. Italy Politics and government 20th century. 6. Great Britain Foreign relations 1945 7. United States Foreign relations 19451989. 8. United States Foreign relations 1989 9. Great Britain Foreign relations Europe, Southern. 10. United States Foreign relations Europe, Southern.
I. Title
320.940904-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-1-84893-260-9 (hbk)
Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
Southern Europe as a region sharing common features emerged as a concept in the thinking of American and British policymakers during the 1970s. The collapse of authoritarian regimes in Portugal and Greece and the end of the dictatorship in Spain, taking place almost simultaneously in the mid-1970s, were the political facts underlying this assumption. It was not however only a problem of transition from authoritarianism to democracy that shaped events. The rise of the Communist Party of Italy and the prospect of communist participation in a NATO member-states parliamentary government posed questions of viability of democracy within the Cold War context. Seen from this angle the main southern European dilemma was the relation of authoritarianism and democracy with Cold War imperatives that shaped international relations from the immediate post-war era to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Till the 1970s these countries were treated ad hoc and separately by Western policymakers. Greece had entered the post-war period seen in its Near East and Balkan context. Portugal was perceived as an integral part of the Atlantic area, seen by naval powers as an important staging post to Europe while Spain, although isolated as a result of domestic political developments, belonged to the western European geographical and historical setup. Italy was perceived as belonging to a Mediterranean context, a crucial circle in the chain connecting the western and the eastern Mediterranean ends, and simultaneously to a western European one. Thus it is clear that southern Europe as a political concept was mainly a construct of the 1970s, a consequence of political developments that signified a rise of the left, a problem related directly to the Cold War waged by the superpowers and their allies.
Nevertheless, as Edward Malefakis has demonstrated, southern Europe, although not constituting a clearly defined and homogeneous area in economic, social and cultural terms, shared some common features, rendering it distinct from the core of western Europe or the east central European region that fell within the Soviet sphere of influence after World War II.
This book is an attempt to explore from an Anglo-American perspective the relationship between political developments in the four southern European countries during the 1960s and the 1970s and the US and British policies towards them in the light of available American and British diplomatic archival sources and bibliography. Moreover it examines the way political outcomes were influenced, primarily, by the US and, secondarily, by Britain operating mostly in the context of the Anglo-American special relationship.
The main argument of this book is that in the formulation of US and British policies, Cold War considerations were preponderant and that although external influence to the countries involved was not standard and given from the start, it was significant though not quantifiable. Moreover, it is argued that the tenets and assumptions of the special Anglo-American relationship were not affected by the developments in Southern Europe but, to the contrary, the policies of the US and Britain and the particular ways the two powers interacted in the southern European context were subject to the power realities that already underpinned the relationship between Washington and London.
The Anglo-American Relationship and Southern Europe
The Anglo-American policy towards Southern Europe is mostly conforming to the general pattern of Anglo-American relations. Since 1946 the USs and Britains relative position in the countries involved shifted along with the shifting pattern of their relative power. The centre of gravity of the Anglo-American relationship was moving to the American side.an article of faith the necessity of conservative rule, but their objections would not be put to test in practice.
Overall, the Anglo-American relationship was paramount in the formation of the Western alliance in the 1940s. Both America and Britain were powerful enough to shape events at this early Cold War period. Changes in the international and the European context in the late 1950s and the early 1960s made the special relationship less important internationally: Britains economic decline was reflected in its reduced defence capabilities. The Suez crisis of 1956 amplified its inability to pursue a policy independent from the US while the European integration process signified the re-emergence of France and the Federal Republic of Germany as important factors in western Europe.
During the 1960s the initiative in Italy and Greece remained clearly in American hands. The centre-left formula was endorsed by Washington under the Kennedy administration in 19623, and the British became more active, after the formation of the centre-left coalition in Rome, with the return of the British Labour Party to government in 1964. In the Greek context the British were mostly observers of the political crisis of 19657 that eventually led to the demise of parliamentary institutions. The British tended to share the analysis of the Americans and the monarchy on the dangers posed for the Atlantic alliance by a prospective victory of the Centre Union. This stance more or less determined the formulation of a tolerant policy towards the junta which was seen as the lesser of evils.
During the coexistence of the Heath and Nixon administrations developments in southern Europe were not so serious as to become a part of the Anglo-American agenda which was directly concerned with the basic questions of US relations with Britain and the European Community.
