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The role of international organizations in fostering the evolution of education systems worldwide emerged in the 1950s, and the OEEC-OECD, in particular, contributed to shaping the so-called 'education-economic growth' paradigm. First, its education agenda was the push to spread technical and vocational education, being one of the key means for preparing citizens for modern society in a Cold War context. In addition, the spread of these relevant skills provided solutions to actual problems that affected the less-developed Western European countries. Consequently, Mediterranean Europe became a laboratory for new visions and practices for development. In the educational field, these countries were an ideal environment to observe the changes underway and, above all, evaluate the actual outcomes of these early programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental changes in Europe's political map following the end of the Cold War have led to a new competition of hegemonic interpretations of history and national memory. In particular this has happened in the former socialist Eastern European countries (notably in the Baltic States, Poland, and Western Ukraine) where there has been a big demand to establish a new state identity distancing these countries from the socialist past. For the Russian socio-cultural and political environment the given identity political demand has created a challenging terrain in which symbolic, and irrevocably political, resources for national identity are forced to be calibrated in line with domestic and foreign policy concerns. In this regard, the public usage of "The Great Patriotic War" and its ramifications has been the most notable manifestation, which exhibits the political significance of history in these identity debates. In order to grasp the manifestations of this significance, this article examines the uses of the terms "The Great Patriotic War" (Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina, VOV) and "The Second World War" (Vtoraia mirovaia voina, VMV) in the Russian mainstream media over the course of the last ten years. For this purpose the Integrum databases (Russian-language media corpus of more than 400 million documents) provide a productive tool for specified queries related to VOV and VMV allowing the examination of major themes that these two terms activate in the Russian public discourse. We argue that whereas the VOV signifies the "inner" canonized framework for discussing the war within society, it is the VMV which figures as VOV's counterpoint in terms of activating "outer" frameworks for the war's public discussion. In relation to the broader identity political context, the study expands the question of how the era of the Second World War is treated in Russia, and the potential limits of this discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For much of their existence, the Soviet-type regimes of Central and Eastern Europe were accused of suffering from a “legitimacy crisis”. It is argued in this contribution that not only are such assumptions tainted by Cold War biases but that the nature of these regimes, combined with the inherent complexities of legitimacy, mean that such claims have limited credence. It proposes that studying a particular phenomenon in the post-communist world—in this case lustration—provides us with new insights into the legitimacy of the communist regimes in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic and Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the political, cultural, and social make-up of Europe and its effects on European identity. Teachers of European identities must ensure that they consider migration, the changing role of the nation-state and Europe's reasons, the legacies of the Cold War and imperial practices, and the reshaping of administrative boundaries when educating students. The author details her method in creating a class design for undergraduate students in a European identity course at the University of Minnesota.

Security agendas in Europe have gone through some striking modifications over the last couple of decades, reflecting changes in both the nature and the scope of post-Cold War security concerns. While the traditional security concerns have not completely disappeared, new sources of insecurity and instability have emerged out of the post-Cold War politico-strategic environment in Europe's peripheries. Turkey sits at the nexus of this hitherto marginalized theatre of risks and challenges. Thus, while investigating this new and broader security environment for Europe and then locating Turkey's role and place in such milieu, this article argues that Turkey has a critical role to play in this endeavour of achieving security and stability in both Europe and its surrounding regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The two central vectors of the military confrontation of the Cold War were the strategic nuclear stand-off and the military confrontation in Europe. Both at a political and the military-technical level, the military balance in Europe was a central factor in the perception of the threat and the deliberations about strategy. This article examines the perception that the Warsaw Pact had of its opponent, the NATO alliance, in the military confrontation in Europe. It does so by looking at the evolution of the military balance in Europe and analyzes how military doctrine and strategy evolved in response to the military situation and the perceptions of NATO capabilities in doctrine, using documentation, from East German archives, that sheds new light on the controversies surrounding Warsaw Pact military strategy in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]