Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Globalising Ostpolitik

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 9; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14682740802188166

1743-7962

Sara Lorenzini,

European history and politics

Traditional cold war narratives cast Ostpolitik as a policy for dealing with the German question and détente in Europe. Only recently have scholars begun exploring Ostpolitik's broader consequences. This article discusses the transformation of North–South relations prompted by Willy Brandt's foreign policy. On the basis of new evidence from West German archives, I argue that between 1966 and 1972 the Social-democratic leadership, within the broader context of Ostpolitik, took a different approach to North–South relations. I suggest that this change was inspired at first by the United States and by the climate of dissatisfaction with the result of aid, but that it then took special engagement by Willy Brandt to inaugurate the new course in development policy of the Federal Republic. The article also addresses the connection between the awakening of civil society at the end of the 1960s and the content of the Social-democratic reform in development assistance. The article points to the impact of Brandt and his minister Erhard Eppler in transforming aid into a way to regain the consensus of the 1968 rebelling youth.