France, the Western Alliance, and the Origins of the Schuman Plan, 1948-1950

Hitchcock, William I.

doi:10.1111/1467-7709.00090

Cited by 12 publications

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“…French Prime Minister Robert Schuman's proposal of May 1950 to pool French and German coal and steel was a gambit aimed at seizing the diplomatic initiative over European reconstruction, which in early 1950-driven by the United States and Britain-was moving swiftly toward a rehabilitated Western Germany (Hitchcock 1997;Milward 1984, 395). French policy-makers hoped to tie increases in German coal and steel production to the Monnet Plan-a multi-year strategy named after Minister of Modernization Jean Monnet to revolutionize France's industrial base, devastated by the War.…”

Section: The Schuman Plan As a Hegemonic Field Effect 1945-1950mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the one hand, European unification was strongly in America's national interests, promising to stimulate economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic (Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990, 301). America's desire for sort of federation was, in turn, clearly communicated to Europe's leaders from the end of the War (Beloff 1963;Hitchcock 1997). America's emergence as the hegemon was thus an irreplaceable stimulus to changes in French attitudes toward Germany, from animosity to calls for economic integration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hegemonic Field Effects in World Politics: The United States and the Schuman Plan of 1950

McCourt

2020

Journal of Global Security Studies

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This paper casts American influence over the Schuman Plan of May 1950 as a hegemonic field effect, pushing forward recent attempts to develop more dynamic models of hegemonic ordering in world politics. Far from an automatic enactment of US preferences for European unification by French policy-makers, as prevailing macro-level theories imply, the Schuman Plan—French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman's proposal to pool French and German coal and steel—was the product of a “structural homology” that developed between the French and American political fields after 1945. American officials in Paris, empowered by their control of Marshall Aid, fostered an alignment of the French and American political fields, empowering centrist coalitions and technocratic planners in France, who favored pro-capitalist, pro-European integration policies, of which the Schuman Plan was a signature artifact. The paper explores the implications of this historical case for the further development of relational meso-level theories of hegemony.

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Section: The Schuman Plan As a Hegemonic Field Effect 1945-1950mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hegemonic Field Effects in World Politics: The United States and the Schuman Plan of 1950

McCourt

2020

Journal of Global Security Studies

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Security and Defence

Leuffen

Rittberger

Schimmelfennig

2022

Integration and Differentiation in the European Union

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Helmut Schmidt and British-German Relations

Haeussler¹

2019

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The almost thirty years between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and Helmut Schmidt's election as West German chancellor in 1974 saw profound shifts in the relative power balance between Britain and Germany. In 1945, Britain was a victorious power with still global reach; its dominions and colonial possessions stretched across Africa, Asia and Australia, and it still counted over 700 million people as citizens of the British Empire and Commonwealth. 1 The scope of Britain's geostrategic reach was matched by its financial and economic dominance: in 1950, Britain produced almost one-third of Western Europe's industrial output, and half of the world's trade was conducted in pounds sterling. 2 Germany, by contrast, was a comprehensively defeated, divided and occupied country, shouldering the unique historical burden of the Holocaust and the Second World War. 3 Less than thirty years later, however, the situation looked very different indeed. By 1970, the FRG had become Western Europe's undisputed economic powerhouse, with its share of world exports of manufactures amounting to almost 20 per cent. 4 The FRG's economic power had also become increasingly reflected in the political realm, with the country taking on prominent roles inside the multilateral alliances of the EC and NATO. Britain, by contrast, was suffering from a profound loss of military, political and economic strength caused by its transition to a medium-sized post-imperial power. By the mid 1960s, Britain's share

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France, the Western Alliance, and the Origins of the Schuman Plan, 1948-1950

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Hegemonic Field Effects in World Politics: The United States and the Schuman Plan of 1950

Hegemonic Field Effects in World Politics: The United States and the Schuman Plan of 1950

Security and Defence

Helmut Schmidt and British-German Relations

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