Non-State Actors in East-West Relations

This introductory chapter sets out the main goals of the Handbook. It introduces the focus of the project as an appraisal of the impact of the relationship between non-state actors (NSAs) and state actors on the dynamics of “East-West relations” in the Cold War and post-Cold-War periods. That is, between NSAs and Western states; and between NSAs and the Soviet Union (later the Russian Federation) along with the Cold War Eastern bloc countries (later the post-socialist countries of East-Central Europe). The underlying assumption is that there is significant impact in both directions across these lines of interaction: impact on as well as by non-state actors. This makes NSAs “significant others” in the world of international relations. Beyond sketching the present and (to a lesser extent) the historical context of the subject, the chapter’s main contribution lies in conceptualizing key aspects of state-NSA partnerships and proxyships. The 4V and 4C frameworks are introduced as key novel conceptual tools to inform a process-tracing analysis of such relationships, laying the groundwork for a structured inquiry across the chapters in this volume. Beyond partnership and proxyship, hostile and other, more complex, forms of relationships between NSAs and states are also acknowledged in the meantime as important to study within the scope of the Handbook.