The Global 1970s: Radicalism, Reform, And Crisis

256 Pages·2019·2.972 MB·English

by  Duco Hellema

THE GLOBAL 1970s
No other decade evokes such contradictory images as the 1970s: reform and
emancipation on the one hand, crisis and malaise on the other. In The Global
1970s: Radicalism, Reform, and Crisis , Duco Hellema portrays the 1970s as a period
of global transition.
Across the world, the early and mid-1970s were still years of political mobilization
with everything seemingly an object of public controversy and conflict, including
economic development, education, and family matters. Social movements called
for the reduction of social inequalities, for participation, and the emancipation
of various groups at the same time as the rise of ambitious and reform-oriented
governments. Ten years later, a different world was emerging, with the call for
state-controlled social and economic changes in decline and new economic policies
centred on liberation and deregulation taking their place. This book examines a
range of explanations for this radical transformation, highlighting how economic
problems, such as the oil crisis, political battles, and dramatic confrontations,
resulted in a free-market-oriented conservatism by the end of the period.
Divided into nine broadly chronological chapters and taking a global approach
that allows the reader to see the familiar themes of the decade examined on an
international scale, The Global 1970s is essential reading for all students and scholars
of twentieth-century global history.
Duco Hellema studied political science at Leiden University, the Netherlands.
In 1998, he was appointed Professor of the History of International Relations at
the History Department of Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He has published
widely on the history of post-World War II international relations and particularly
on developments in the 1970s.
DECADES IN GLOBAL HISTORY
This series takes a fresh view of decades in history, discussing each period from
a truly global perspective and interrogating the traditional trope of a decade. In
asking questions about what each decade actually represents throughout the wider
world and exploring the transnational connections that shaped its course, this
global approach allows the reader to see the great events of each decade as intri-
cately bound into and moulded by international forces.
Titles in the series :
The Global 1920s
Richard Carr and Bradley W. Hart
The Global 1930s
Marc Matera and Susan Kingsley Kent
The Global 1960s
Edited by Tamara Chaplin and Jadwiga Pieper Mooney
The Global 1970s
Duco Hellema
For more information about this series, please visit:
www.routledge.com/Decadesin-Global-History/book-series/DECADES
THE GLOBAL 1970s
Radicalism, Reform, and Crisis
Duco Hellema
First published 2019
by Routledge
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© 2019 Duco Hellema
The right of Duco Hellema to be identified as author of this work has
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CONTENTS
Foreword viii
Introduction ix
1 Legacies of the 1960s: the start of the long seventies 1
The welfare state 2
The revolution that failed 4
The Tet Offensive 7
The Prague Spring and the Cultural Revolution 8
Upheavals 10
Conclusion 11
2 Everything is political: the early and mid-1970s 14
Prosperity 15
Students 16
Worker militancy 19
Emancipation 21
The environment 25
Vietnam 28
Violence and terrorism 30
Conclusion 33
3 Reform mania: the early and mid-1970s 38
‘A mania for large scale reforms’ 38
Southern Europe 43
Britain and France 47
vi Contents
Nixon 53
The state 55
Western divisions 58
Conclusion 60
4 Self-reliance: the non-Western world in the early and mid-1970s 64
Self-reliance 64
Africa 66
Latin America 72
Asia 78
Miracles of growth 82
The Middle East 84
The October War 86
A New International Economic Order 89
Conclusion 91
5 The communist states: the early and mid-1970s 95
Détente 96
The Soviet Union 100
Eastern Europe 103
Soviet expansion 107
The Sino-Soviet split 110
Conclusion 112
6 Crisis in the world economy: from the mid- to the late 1970s 116
What crisis? 117
Monetary problems 118
Globalization 120
The oil crisis 122
Unemployment 127
Fighting the crisis 130
The non-Western world 132
Communist states 135
Conclusion 137
7 The free market alternative: the mid- and late 1970s 141
The Me Decade 142
Self-help and identity politics 144
The Great Awakening 146
The New Right 149
Grass-roots mobilization 152
Contents vii
Neoliberalism and supply-side economics 154
Human rights 156
Neoliberal experiments 159
The newly industrializing countries 161
Conclusion 162
8 Confrontation and deadlock: the late 1970s 166
Deadlock 166
Watergate 168
Carter 170
A German Autumn 173
Governing Western Europe 175
The Winter of Discontent 177
Southern Europe 178
Eurosclerosis 180
Debts and violence in the Third World 182
Charter 77 186
Conclusion 188
9 Dawn of a new world: the end of the seventies 191
The personal computer 191
Revolution in Iran 193
The second oil crisis 195
The lady’s not for turning 198
Reagan’s ‘Second American Revolution’ 199
Western Europe 201
Weakening Left 202
The Second Cold War 205
Solidarnosc 207
The end of the Third World 209
Deng Xiaoping 211
Conclusion 212
Postscript: the end of progress? 216
Bibliography 221
Index 231
FOREWORD
This book is in many ways the result of joint efforts. It is a follow-up to a previ-
ous book that dealt with ‘the Dutch 1970s’, entitled Nederland en de jaren zeventig
(‘The Netherlands and the Nineteen Seventies’). 1 Both books, and a series of other
publications by myself and others, were inspired by, and resulted from three inter-
national conferences on the ‘global 1970s’ that I organized in collaboration with
prof. Beatrice de Graaf and prof. Jacco Pekelder (Utrecht University), prof. Bruce
Schulman (Boston University), and prof. Friso Wielenga (University of Münster),
conferences that were financially supported by the Dutch Organisation for Scien-
tific Research (NWO) and by Boston University and the University of Münster.
I would like to thank several colleagues and friends for their comments on
early versions of this manuscript: Paul Aarts, Nigel Ashton, Michiel Baud, Frans
Becker, Frits Boterman, Laurien Crump, Leon van Damme, Beatrice de Graaf,
Jacco Pekelder, Remco Raben, Hilde Reiding, Roland Richter, Bruce Schulman
(and other BU colleagues), Jan Luiten van Zanden, Ryszard Zelichowski, and not
least, Murray Pearson, who corrected the manuscript and also pointed out several
errors and inconsistencies. I am, of course, personally responsible for any inaccura-
cies that remain in the book. There is nobody else to blame.
Last but not least, I dedicate this book to Linda Westerink, my wife and travel
companion. Hopefully, there are more wonderful road trips across Italy and the
United States (our favourite destinations) to come.
Duco Hellema, Amsterdam/Utrecht,
February 2018
Note
1 Duco Hellema, Nederland en de jaren zeventig , Amsterdam: Boom, 2012.
INTRODUCTION
There is, perhaps, no other decade that has evoked such divergent and even con-
tradictory images. For some the seventies are – at least as the Western world is
concerned – a decade characterized by the return of a neoliberally tinged conser-
vatism which settled accounts with the rebellious sixties. Others refer to the seven-
ties as a decade of social malaise, or the ‘Me Decade’, in which the social discipline
and inhibitions of the first post-war decades evaporated and an almost narcissistic
individualism asserted itself, dedicated to unbridled consumption and gratifica-
tion. ‘In the life of the mind’, the British historian Tony Judt summarizes, ‘The
nineteen seventies were the most dispiriting decade of the twentieth century.’ 1
And, moreover, it was little better in economic terms, given two major economic
(oil) crises, inflation, and rising unemployment.
Yet, for many, in particular continental European historians, the seventies are
especially a ‘red decade’, ‘das rote Jahrzehnt’, a period in which the movements
and parties of the Left – at least until the late 1970s – dominated the political
arena and in which even a more enraged left-radicalism came to the fore. 2 There
is, in particular, considerable interest in the violent forms of expression of this
left-radicalism. In retrospect, and in line with the aforementioned observations,
such violent radicalism, by the Rote Armee Fraktion (‘Red Army Faction’), may be
seen as a desperate attempt to turn the conservative tide, but one that would only
contribute to increasing malaise and pessimism. However, there were also more
constructive and successful forms of political opposition and social protest. Several
‘new social movements’ flourished typically in the 1970s: for instance, the wom-
en’s movement, which had a great impact on everyday life; the gay movement, to
give another example; or the start of environmental activism.
Remarkably, more recent American historiography has focused more on the
rebellious or (in the American sense) liberal aspects of the decade, whereas Euro-
pean historians ‘discover’ the conservative side of the 1970s. Although social