The Triumph of Broken Promises
The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism
Out with Harvard University Press on August 9, 2022
Why did the Cold War come to a peaceful end? And why did neoliberal economics sweep across the world in the late twentieth century? In this book, I argue that the answer to these questions is one and the same. The Cold War began as a competition between capitalist and communist governments to expand their social contracts as they raced to deliver their people a better life. But the economic shocks of the 1970s made promises of better living untenable on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Energy and financial markets placed immense pressure on governments to discipline their social contracts. Rather than make promises, political leaders were forced to break them.
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The Triumph of Broken Promises tells the story of how the pressure to break promises spurred the end of the Cold War. In the West, neoliberalism provided Western leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher with the political and ideological tools to shut down industries, impose austerity, and favor the interests of capital over labor. But in Eastern Europe, revolutionaries like Lech Wałęsa in Poland resisted any attempt at imposing market discipline. Mikhail Gorbachev tried in vain to reform the Soviet system, but the necessary changes ultimately presented too great a challenge.
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The end of the Cold War, then, was a triumph of broken promises because it was the challenge of imposing economic discipline that ultimately brought the conflict to its end and gave rise to the neoliberal global economy of the late 20th century.
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Praise for The Triumph of Broken Promises
“How did the Cold War, which began as a competition to make promises, mutate into a race to break them? And why did the West win? Bartel offers a bold and compelling interpretation that links the history of the Cold War and neoliberalism to dramatic effect. The Triumph of Broken Promises will be essential reading.”
-Adam Tooze, author of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crisis Changed the World
“A deeply significant history of how the way in which the Cold War ended gave rise to the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism. Bartel traces this trajectory through personal narratives from East and West and through deep archival research. His book is a must read for anyone interested in how the Cold War and its immediate aftermath produced the world we live in today.”
—Odd Arne Westad, author of The Cold War: A World History
"Bartel’s brilliantly conceived and researched study renovates our understanding of how and why the Soviet Union was driven toward collapse precisely as the United States, faced with slowdown after the oil shock, moved toward neoliberal governance. Few books explain the makings of our times as well as this thrilling debut.”
—Samuel Moyn, author of Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War
“An excellent work, attractively written, with a powerful argument that carries a large narrative arc from the oil shocks and international monetary confusion of the 1970s to the end of the Cold War....Well supported by fascinating archival materials, including from the IMF, this is a compelling story.”
—Harold James, author of The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle
Before and After the Fall
World Politics and the End of the Cold War
Co-edited with Nuno P. Monteiro
Out now with Cambridge University Press
As the Cold War came to a close in 1991, US President George H. W. Bush famously saw its shocking demise as the dawn of a 'new world order' that would prize peace and expand liberal democratic capitalism. Thirty years later, with China on the rise, Russia resurgent, and populism roiling the Western world, it is clear that Bush's declaration remains elusive. In this book, leading scholars of international affairs offer fresh insight into why the hopes of the early post-Cold War period have been dashed and the challenges ahead. As the world marks the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, this book brings together historians and political scientists to examine the changes and continuities in world politics that emerged at the end of the Cold War and shaped the world we inhabit today.
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Praise for Before and After the Fall
“Thirty years ago, when the Cold War ended, it seemed that a new world had come into being. But how different was that world from the one it replaced? Monteiro and Bartel have asked a remarkably talented group of scholars – young and old, historians and political scientists – to grapple with that issue. The result is a stimulating collection of essays, all focused on that very basic theme – essays which, taken as a whole, throw a good deal of light on the making of the world we now live in.”
-Marc Trachtenberg, UCLA
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“This is a dynamite collection of essays by a truly illustrious group of scholars. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how the world did – and didn’t – change after the Cold War.”
-Hal Brands, Johns Hopkins University
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“Scholars are going to study the Cold War and its aftermath for decades to come and this superb collection will be a lasting contribution to our understanding of that critical period. With contributions from an outstanding line-up of historians and political scientists, the result is one of those rare collections where every chapter contains fresh and important insights. No serious student of great power politics will be able to ignore this book.”
-Stephen Walt, Harvard University