Britain, Détente, and the Helsinki CSCE: 'Fathers of the Final Act'

On 7 May 2026, the European Studies Centre hosted a seminar entitled "Britain, Détente, and the Helsinki CSCE: 'Fathers of the Final Act'". Chaired by Anne Deighton (Wolfson College, Oxford), the seminar featured Kai Hebel (Leiden University), who presented research from his forthcoming book on Britain's role in the negotiations leading to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. Responding to the presentation were Paul Betts and Timothy Garton Ash, both of St Antony's College, Oxford. Drawing on extensive multinational archival research and interviews with former negotiators, Hebel argued that Britain's contribution to one of the Cold War's defining diplomatic achievements has been substantially underestimated.

Hebel began by situating the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) within the wider historiography of the Cold War. The Helsinki Final Act, signed on 1 August 1975 after almost three years of negotiations involving thirty-five states, is now widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's most important diplomatic agreements. Yet historians continue to disagree about why it mattered. One school of thought sees Helsinki primarily as a catalyst for the peaceful end of the Cold War, arguing that its human rights provisions encouraged the growth of dissident movements across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. A second interpretation emphasises its more immediate effects, seeing Helsinki as a mechanism for managing rather than transforming conflict by institutionalising dialogue across the Cold War divide, reducing tensions, and creating new forms of cooperation between states. While recognising the importance of both interpretations, Hebel posed a different question: where was Britain in this story?

The question arises because Britain is largely absent from the existing literature. Standard accounts emphasise the Soviet Union, the United States, France and both German states, while Britain's role is frequently overlooked. Hebel suggested that this omission reflects broader assumptions about Britain's international position during the 1970s. The decade is conventionally portrayed as one of economic decline, political crisis and diminishing diplomatic influence. At the very moment when détente appeared to be reshaping East-West relations, Britain seemed marginalised. Relations with Moscow had deteriorated sharply following the expulsion of 105 alleged Soviet intelligence officers from London in 1971, leaving Britain isolated just as its allies were expanding diplomatic engagement with the Soviet Union.

Escaping from inequality: Is Europe trapped by history?

On 5 May 2026, the European Studies Centre hosted a seminar on the long-run history and future prospects of economic inequality in Europe. Chaired by Timothy Garton Ash, the seminar featured Walter Scheidel of Stanford University, best known for The Great Leveler, on the historical forces that reduce inequality, and Escape from Rome, on how Europe’s fragmentation shaped its distinctive path to modernity. Garton Ash challenged Scheidel to combine the arguments of both books into a single account of whether Europe can escape inequality while remaining, in effect, trapped by its own history. Scheidel responded with a deliberately high-level overview, noting that precise measures of historical inequality remain elusive.

He began with the long arc of European inequality, which peaked just before the First World War after roughly four centuries of rising inequality following the Black Death. Within that period, he argued, the Thirty Years’ War was the only major interruption, illustrating his central thesis that only massive, usually violent shocks have historically produced significant levelling: mass-mobilisation warfare, communist revolution, state collapse and catastrophic pandemics. The great compression between 1914 and 1945, followed by further, gentler equalisation into the 1970s, was a semi-global phenomenon. East of the Iron Curtain it was driven by communism; in Western market economies by falling returns on capital, progressive taxation, unionisation and the post-war welfare state. Since the 1980s, however, deregulation, financialisation, automation and, above all, globalisation—which added roughly a billion low-income workers to the world economy—have reversed the trend, steadily increasing the share of income flowing to capital rather than labour.

Shifting Support: Western states, the UN, and local perceptions in conflict zones

At this seminar on 21 October, Stefano Costalli (University of Florence) presented joint research with Irene Costantini (University of Naples L’Orientale) and Valerio Vignoli (University of Siena) exploring how local communities perceive and evaluate international interventions in conflict settings. Drawing on a unique survey experiment conducted in Mali, the study sheds new light on the interplay between identity, effectiveness, and integrity in shaping local support for external actors such as the UN, Western powers, and non-Western states. Federica Genovese (St Antony’s College, Oxford) chaired the talk.

From peacekeeping to multipolar interventions
Costalli opened by situating the study in the broader evolution of peacekeeping and intervention research. Although UN peace operations have long been the cornerstone of international conflict management, no new UN missions have been launched since 2014 despite ongoing crises. Increasingly, non-UN actors—from regional organizations to individual states—have taken the lead in military interventions. Yet, much of the literature still analyses interventions from a supply-side perspective, focusing on the interveners rather than the societies affected by them.

The team’s project aims to reverse this imbalance by centring local perceptions and agency. Their approach moves beyond measuring peacekeeping “effectiveness” in terms of reduced violence, asking instead how affected communities perceive different interveners and what factors drive their willingness to support or reject them.

Ukraine and beyond: Shaping Europe’s security future

On 14 October, the European Studies Centre, in collaboration with the Dahrendorf Programme, started the term with a timely seminar on how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to reshape Europe’s security landscape and the transatlantic alliance. The discussion brought together seasoned policy experts Jim O’Bryan and Olya Oliker to reflect on the ongoing conflict, shifting deterrence dynamics, and the prospects for Europe’s defence posture in a changing geopolitical environment. Dimitar Bechev chaired the seminar.

 
European security transformed
Olya Oliker opened the seminar by noting that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine fundamentally transformed Europe’s security order. What was once considered a “settled” system has been replaced by continuing conflict and uncertainty.
Before 2022, perceptions of Russia varied: while the Baltic States and Poland saw Moscow as a potential aggressor, others considered it dangerous but manageable. Even the annexation of Crimea in 2014 did not fully change that view.

The 2022 invasion, she argued, shattered these assumptions. Russia demonstrated its willingness to use force despite immense costs, breaking prior commitments and underestimating both its adversaries and its own limitations. Deterrence now requires a higher threshold than previously imagined.

Germany’s new government: A fragile coalition in a challenging landscape

On 10 June, the ESC hosted a timely seminar with Andreas Busch, who offered a comprehensive analysis of Germany’s new federal government and the broader political shifts shaping the country. Professor Busch—currently an academic visitor at the Centre and Professor of Comparative Politics and Political Economy at the University of Göttingen—drew on his long-standing expertise to assess the government’s early direction and the challenges ahead. The seminar was chaired by Othon Anastasakis, Director of the Centre, with Timothy Garton Ash serving as discussant.

Following the February 2025 general election, Germany’s political landscape has been dramatically reshaped. While the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) made modest gains, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) surged to over 20% of the vote—an unprecedented rise. The Social Democrats (SPD) suffered their worst result in over a century, the Liberals (FDP) fell below the parliamentary threshold, and the Greens underperformed. Die Linke made a surprise comeback, while Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party narrowly missed entry into parliament. The result was a fragile CDU–SPD coalition led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Professor Busch characterised the coalition as functionally pragmatic but internally fragile. Merz has repositioned the CDU in a more conservative direction, particularly on migration, while also abandoning earlier commitments to strict fiscal rules. The SPD, meanwhile, is undergoing internal consolidation under co-leader Lars Klingbeil, who now also serves as finance minister. Both parties face tensions around strategic direction and long-term viability.

Two pressing domestic challenges featured in Busch’s analysis: migration and economic stagnation. Migration continues to dominate public concern, with a majority of Germans favouring tighter restrictions. However, mainstream parties remain largely clustered on the permissive side of the policy spectrum, leaving political space that the AfD has effectively claimed. At the same time, local authorities report growing strain, as they are increasingly burdened with refugee accommodation and integration responsibilities. The disconnect between political rhetoric and practical implementation has become increasingly apparent.

Understanding climate-related disruption of global financial governance

On June 4, 2025, the European Studies Centre welcomed Professor Jeff D. Colgan of Brown University to give the 2025 ESC Annual Lecture entitled “Climate Politics and Global Financial Governance.” As a Richard Holbrooke Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs—and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre—Colgan spoke to a full house of faculty, graduate students, and practitioners. The event was chaired by Dr Othon Anastasakis, Director of the European Studies Centre.

Colgan opened by reminding his audience that Europe exists not in isolation but at the intersection of three vast global systems: the environmental web that sustains all life, the industrial networks that generate the greenhouse emissions driving climate change, and the financial architectures that allocate the capital for both economic growth and decarbonization. Europe, he argued, views these systems through a unique lens. Its robust embrace of ESG and green finance stands in stark contrast to the more cautious attitude of other regions.

Building on this foundation, Colgan described the shocks reverberating through climate politics today. He observed that the Trump administration’s return has once again disrupted U.S. climate diplomacy and science funding, emboldening right-wing parties abroad. Meanwhile, rising interest rates are making capital-intensive clean-energy technologies more expensive relative to traditional fossil-fuel assets. Across Washington and Westminster, a new strain of “climate realism” has taken hold—one that doubts the feasibility of Paris targets and advocates a more pragmatic, if pessimistic, approach. Colgan cautioned that such realism risks abandoning decades of hard-won progress.

Bridging the gap between research and policy in international affairs: A practitioner's perspective

On 29 May 2025, the European Studies Centre at St Antony’s College, Oxford University, welcomed Giulio Venneri, Deputy Director in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, for a seminar chaired by Eli Gateva, Departmental Lecturer in International Relations at Oxford University. Venneri—who began his career in the Italian Foreign Ministry before joining successive EU institutions—has combined frontline policy work on Albania and North Macedonia with teaching posts in Rome, Trento and London. His new book, Learning Policy Advice, distils nearly two decades of experience into a practical guide for anyone seeking to navigate the leap from academic research to policy-making.

Venneri opened by recalling his own “cold shower” moment on joining Italy’s Foreign Service. Fresh from completing a PhD on Bosnia and sovereignty, he confidently drafted his first briefing on Canada’s embrace of the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine—only to be told by his head of office that, however sophisticated his analysis, it was far too dense for a busy minister. Forced back to the drawing board, Venneri learned that policy writing must be both vertically accessible—so that your political masters can grasp key arguments at a glance—and horizontally calibrated, empowering them to advocate effectively in bilateral or multilateral settings. This anecdote underpins his conviction that academic rigour, rather than being jettisoned, must be re-engineered into concise, audience-tailored advice.

Learning Policy Advice is structured around three pillars. First, Venneri “front-loads” the trauma of that cold shower, inviting readers to test themselves with realistic simulations—drafting talking points or speeches under tight deadlines, armed only with minimal background material. Only after this exercise does he introduce the building blocks of policy writing: defining the scope of “policy advice” (distinct from advocacy or academic argument), mastering template-based briefings, crafting speeches, and preparing press statements. Each chapter concludes with further simulations, and Routledge has generously provided free online exercises to sharpen practical skills.