![]() ![]() In the United States and Britain, working people have suffered joblessness and declining living standards while political leaders have prescribed policies that have enriched the elite - more trade deals, fewer strictures on bankers. The causes of this turn vary from country to country, but a common element is public distrust of institutions amid a sense that the masses have been abandoned. This, too, has dashed hopes that China’s integration into the global economy would lead to its democratization.Īnd Russia, which joined the trading organization in 2012, has since intensified a foreign policy that is centered on confrontation.įor anyone still inclined to believe that liberal democracy is the inevitable outgrowth of human progress - an outcome hastened by the postwar institutions - these events have provided a sobering rejoinder. ![]() in 2001 - to reinforce the authority of a state still controlled by the Communist Party. Things went differently.Ĭhina has used its economic power - enhanced by its entry to the W.T.O. Expanding NATO and the European Union by bringing in Eastern European nations was supposed to have prompted the newcomers to adopt the liberal democratic values of their fellow members. This re-emergence of authoritarian impulses has undercut a central thrust of European policy since the end of the Cold War. Poland and Hungary, once viewed as triumphs of democracy flowering in post-Soviet soil, have shackled the media, cracked down on public gatherings, and attacked the independence of their court systems. “Masses of people feel they have not been properly represented in liberal democracy.” “What we’ve seen is a kind of backlash to liberal democracy,” said Amandine Crespy, a political scientist at Free University Brussels (ULB) in Belgium. The language of multilateral cooperation has been drowned out by angry appeals to tribal solidarity, tendencies that are heightened by economic anxieties. In place of shared approaches to societal problems - from trade disputes, to security, to climate change - national interests have captured primacy. Its tenets are being challenged by a surge of nationalism and its institutions under assault from some of the very powers that constructed them - not least, the United States under President Trump. They promoted democratic ideals and international trade while investing in the notion that coalitions were the antidote to destructive nationalism.īut now the model that has dominated geopolitical affairs for more than 70 years appears increasingly fragile. In the aftermath of World War II, the victorious Western countries forged institutions - NATO, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization - that aimed to keep the peace through collective military might and shared prosperity. The 60s and 70s saw the emergence of feminist groups and heightened awareness of gender inequality – campaigning for more rights and greater opportunities saw very many more women aware of their potential and the need for change.LONDON - History was not supposed to turn out this way. Mothers told their daughters what they had done during the war, and how their horizons had been limited afterwards. They could not fly aircraft, command ships or fire weapons. Permanent Women’s Services had been created the previous year, with a primarily supporting role. The Women’s Land Army continued until 1950 – due to post-war food shortages. Trade unions still defended higher wages for men, despite an increase in women’s union membership. By 1951 the number of working women had returned almost to the pre-war level and a bar on married women working continued in many jobs. The government encouraged a return to domesticity. As after WW1, there was an assumption that their temporary roles had been specifically linked to wartime. Women were praised for their wartime work, but expected to make way for the returning troops. Once the jubilation at war's end had subsided, did women have anything else to celebrate? ![]()
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