2013 Recipient

The Marshall D. Shulman Book Prize, established in 1987 and sponsored by the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, is awarded annually for an outstanding monograph dealing with the international relations, foreign policy, or foreign-policy decision-making of any of the states of the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe published in the previous calendar year. The prize is dedicated to the encouragement of high-quality studies of the international behavior of the countries of the former Communist Bloc.

Winner: Ted Hopf
Title: Reconstructing the Cold War: The Early Years, 1945-1958 (Oxford University Press)

Using a form of Constructivism, which emphasizes the role that identity plays in a state’s foreign relations, Ted Hopf explores Soviet foreign policy in the early years of the Cold War. He contrasts what he calls “the discourse of danger” in Stalin’s last years with a “discourse of difference” in the five years after Stalin’s death. He argues that the ideas motivating post-Stalin policy toward China and Eastern Europe were already present in Soviet society, lodged in institutional homes that enabled them to survive the repression of the late Stalin years. Hopf calls his theoretical approach “societal constructivism.” He argues that state identities are formed not so much in the interaction with other states as in the discourses in domestic society. This ambitious book explores, with great originality, the relationship between societal change and foreign policy in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It challenges us to think in new ways about the Cold War and about international relations more generally.

Honorable Mention: Rinna Kullaa