Suchergebnisse

This paper provides a brief and admittedly selective history of the struggle for openness in the international institutions, summary descriptions of a few of the more important battles and campaigns in that struggle, an analysis of current transparency policies and institutional structures within the international institutions, an overview of current issues and debates, and a synopsis of lessons learned from the struggle so far. One major limitation of this paper derives from the limitations of the available scholarly and popular literature on transparency in the international institutions, that is, the preponderance of focus on the World Bank, rather than on the regional development banks, the IMF, the WTO, and NATO. While the latter do feature in a number of significant studies, and this paper will draw on that material for illustrative purposes, it is the World Bank that has occupied the central place in the protest movements of the past 25 years as well as in the international openness reforms of the past decade.

Suggests that history will probably call the 10 years from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the destruction of the World Trade Center twin towers the "Decade of Openness." This is the period when social movements around the world used the opportunity to demand more open, democratic, responsive governments. During this decade, countries ranging from Japan to Bulgaria, Ireland to South Africa, & Thailand to the UK, enacted formal statutes guaranteeing their citizens' right of access to government information. Today, some 45 countries boast formal laws guaranteeing the right to information. Adapted from the source document.

This book publishes for the first time in print every word the American and Soviet leaders – Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and George H.W. Bush – said to each other in their superpower summits from 1985 to 1991. Obtained by the authors through the Freedom of Information Act in the U.S., from the Gorbachev Foundation and the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow, and from the personal donation of Anatoly Chernyaev, these previously Top Secret verbatim transcripts combine with key declassified preparatory and after-action documents from both sides to create a unique interactive documentary record of these historic highest-level talks – the conversations that ended the Cold War. The summits fueled a process of learning on both sides, as the authors argue in contextual essays on each summit and detailed headnotes on each document. Geneva 1985 and Reykjavik 1986 reduced Moscow's sense of threat and unleashed Reagan's inner abolitionist. Malta 1989 and Washington 1990 helped dampen any superpower sparks that might have flown in a time of revolutionary change in Eastern Europe, set off by Gorbachev and by Eastern Europeans (Solidarity, dissidents, reform Communists). The high level and scope of the dialogue between these world leaders was unprecedented, and is likely never to be repeated

This book is the culmination of twenty years of research in which the editors gathered thousands of pages documenting the most important conversations of the late Cold War. Every word Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev said to each other in their five superpower summits from 1985 to 1988 is included in this volume. The editors argue in their contextual essays and detailed notes that these summits fueled a learning process on both sides of the Cold War. Their anthology provides insight into the nuanced shifts of monumentally important discussions, showing how Moscow's sense of threat was eased and how a hawkish Reagan softened his tone in negotiations during his second presidential term. Documents from foreign ministers Eduard Shevardnadze and George Shultz offer a particularly intriguing look into the handful of conversations that ended almost half a century of conflict. These verbatim transcripts, until now top secret, are combined with fascinating photos and crucial information from declassified preparatory and after-action documents from both the Americans and Soviets, obtained in the US through the Freedom of Information Act and in Russia from the Gorbachev Foundation, the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow, and from the personal files of Anatoly Chernyaev, Gorbachev's foreign policy adviser