Monographies / monographs

Sandrine Kott. Translated by Arby Gharibian.
A World More Equal.
An Internationalist Perspective on the Cold War
Columbia University Press
The post–World War II period is typically seen as a time of stark division, an epochal global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But beneath the surface, the postwar era witnessed a striking degree of international cooperation. The United Nations and its agencies, as well as regional organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, and private foundations brought together actors from conflicting worlds, fostering international collaboration across the geopolitical and ideological divisions of the Cold War.
Diving into the archives of these organizations and associations, Sandrine Kott provides a new account of the Cold War that foregrounds the rise of internationalism as both an ideology and a practice. She examines cooperation across boundaries in international spaces, emphasizing the role of midsized powers, including Eastern European and neutral countries. Kott highlights how the need to address global inequities became a central concern, as officials and experts argued that economic inequality imperiled the creation of a lasting peace. International organizations gave newly decolonized and “Third World” countries a platform to challenge the global distribution of power and wealth, and they encouraged transnational cooperation in causes such as human rights and women’s rights. Assessing the failure to achieve a new international economic order in the 1970s, Kott adds new perspective on the rise of neoliberalism. A truly global study of the Cold War through the lens of international organizations, A World More Equal also shows why the internationalism of this era offers resources for addressing social and global inequalities today.

Détails

Sandrine Kott
Organiser le monde.
Une autre histoire de la guerre froide
Paris, Le Seuil, 2021
Plongeant dans les archives des organisations internationales – l’ONU et ses agences, en particulier mais aussi des organisations non gouvernementales et de grandes fondations privées –, Sandrine Kott nous dévoile une autre histoire de la guerre froide. Ces organisations, où se rencontrent et s’opposent des acteurs issus de mondes en conflit, se révèlent être des lieux d’élaboration en commun de savoirs et de projets. Elles rendent possible et encouragent des internationalismes structurés autour de causes qui tout à la fois rassemblent et divisent : droit.s de l’homme et de la femme, paix, écologie... Elles promeuvent l’idée qu’il est possible d’organiser le monde en régulant ses déséquilibres et ses contradictions. Enfin et surtout elles donnent la parole à une multitude d’acteurs négligés dans les grands récits, en particulier ceux du « tiers monde » dont les revendications de justice ont puissamment marqué l’agenda international de la période. A la guerre froide a succédé l’ère du globalisme marquée par la généralisation des logiques de concurrence. Leur triomphe met en danger les espace de débats internationaux comme les projets de régulation et d’organisation du monde dont les sociétés humaines et leurs environnements naturels auraient, pourtant, plus que jamais besoin. 

Un entretien avec l’auteur

https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2021/01/21/une-autre-histoire-de-la-guerre-froide/

Sandrine Kott
Sozialstaat und Gesellschaft
Das deutsche Kaiserreich in Europa.
Kritische Studien, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2014.

In this volume the author studies the rise and development of the German social state up to 1914 in a European context. She asks what the conditions were that led to the development of a social democracy, the actual administrative practices and the fundamental repercussions for the nation of installing social insurance. She also touches on the particular situation of women and the role of healthcare politics. This study show that the German social state was an outgrowth of the existing social practices, and that its rise was part of an overall development throughout Europe.

Sandrine Kott
Histoire de la société allemande au XXe siècle III - Tome 3, La RDA 1949-1989.
Paru le : 12.05.2011.
Editeur: La Découverte.
Collection: Repères.

Sandrine Kott (avec Stéphane Michonneau)
Dictionnaire des nations et des nationalismes dans l'Europe contemporaine.
Paris, Hatier, Initial, 2006, 411 pages.

Sandrine Kott
Bismarck.
Presses de la FNSP, collection Facettes, 2003, 385 pages.

Sandrine Kott
Le communisme au quotidien.
Les entreprises d'État dans la société est-allemande (1949-1989).
Paris, Belin, Collection socio-histoire, 2001, 413 pages.

English translation:
Communism Day-to-Day. State Enterprises in East German Society.
Michigan, Michigan University Press, 2014.

Translated from the French by Lisa Godin-Roger
A thoughful examination of how communism was instituted, debated, and "live" in the workplaces and in state enterprises of East Germany.
First published in France in 2001 by Éditions Belin under the title Le communisme au quotidien, Sandrine Kott’s book examines how East German businesses and government carried out communist practices on a daily basis and how citizens and workers experienced the conditions created by the totalitarian state in their daily lives. Kott undertakes a social analysis of the Communist Party’s grasp on state enterprises and the limits of its power. She then analyzes the enterprises themselves and the social, generational, and gender tensions that had a profound impact on the lived experience of socialism. Finally, she considers the development and acceptance of a complex set of rituals and gift exchanges that masked latent conflicts while providing meaning to socialism’s role in ordinary life.
“Kott’s book brings together approaches (socio-economic and cultural/anthropological) that are, in current scholarship, too often kept apart and provides an excellent model of interdisciplinarity within history.”
— Laird Boswell, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Sandrine Kott
L'Allemagne du XIXe siècle.
Paris, Hachette, collection Carré Histoire, 1999, 254 pages.

Sandrine Kott
L'État social allemand. Représentations et pratiques.
Paris, Belin, 1995, 416 pages.

 volumes édités / edited volumes

Sandrine Kott, Kiran Klaus Patel (ed)
Nazism across Borders. The Social Policies of the Third Reich and their Global Appeal
Oxford University press, 2018.

Nazism across Borders argues that Nazi social policies were part of transnational exchanges and processes. Beyond territorial conquest, the Nazis planned to export and internationalize their version of welfare, and promoted a new kind of internationalism, pitched as a superior alternative to its liberal and Communist contenders.
Since the late nineteenth century, the 'German social model' had established itself as a powerful route for escaping from the precarious conditions associated with wage work. The Nazis capitalized on this reputation, continuing some elements, but also added new measures, mainly to pursue their antisemitic, racist, and highly aggressive goals. 
The contributions in this collection shed new light on the complex ways in which German and Nazi ideas were received and negotiated by non-German actors and groups around the world before the Second World War. Why were they interested in what was going on in Germany? To what extent did Nazi policies emulate programmes elsewhere 

Ed. by Christian, Michel / Kott, Sandrine / Matejka, Ondrej
Planning in Cold War Europe
Competition, Cooperation, Circulations (1950s-1970s)

Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, Sandrine Kott, Peter Romijn & Olivier Wieviorka (eds)
Seeking Peace in the Wake of War. Europe, 1943-1947.
Amsterdam University Press, 2015

When the Second World War ended, Europe was in ruins. Yet, politically and socially, the years between 1943 and 1947 were a time of dramatic reconfigurations, which proved to be foundational for the making of today's Europe. Seeking Peace in the Wake of War: Europe, 1943-1947 hones in on the crucial period from the beginning of the end of Nazi rule in Europe to the advent of the Cold War. Through a series of interrelated case studies that span the entire continent, it demonstrates how the everyday experiences of Europeans during these five years shaped the transition of their societies from war to peace. The authors explore these reconfigurations on different scales and levels - the local and regional, the ethnic and national, and the international - with the purpose of enhancing our understanding of how wars end.

Dorothea Höhtker, Sandrine Kott (sous la dir. de),
A la rencontre de l’Europe au travail. Récits de voyage d’Albert Thomas (1920-1932).
Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2015.

Albert Thomas fut entre 1919 et 1932 le premier directeur du Bureau international du Travail. A ce titre il parcourut l’Europe de la Suède à la Grèce, du Portugal à la Pologne pour y rencontrer hommes politiques, responsables syndicaux et patrons, mais aussi de simples travailleurs. Ses récits de voyage dessinent à touches rapides des lieux, des paysages, des personnalités et sont parsemés de réflexions politiques riches et originales. Cet ouvrage offre le tableau d’une Europe complexe et souvent inattendue, à l’image de l’homme qui la sillonne, de son parcours politique et professionnel et surtout de la profonde conviction qui l’anime : il n’existe pas de paix durable sans justice sociale.

Sandrine Kott, Joëlle Droux (ed),
Globalizing social rights. The ILO and beyond.
London: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2013.

Focusing on the ILO, this volume explores its role as creator of international social networks and facilitator of exchange between various national and international actors since its establishment in 1919. It emphasizes the role played by the ILO in the international circulation of ideas, expertise and practices that foster the emergence and shaping of international social models, and examines the impact of its methods and models on national and local societies. By analysing the case of the ILO, the authors rethink the influence of international organizations in the shaping of the contemporary world and the emergence of a global civil society. This collection brings together a variety of new scholarship by a group of highly qualified and internationally renowned scholars and supplemented by a set of young researchers entering the field of global history and the history of international organizations.

Sandrine Kott, Emmanuel Droit (Hg.)
Die ostdeutsche Gesellschaft. Eine transnationale Perspektive.
Berlin, Links Verlag, 2006.

Seit der Öffnung der ostdeutschen Archive nach 1990 hat sich die französische Forschung zur DDR und den neuen Bundesländern dynamisch entwickelt. Dies ist bisher wegen des Übersetzungsproblems kaum wahrgenommen worden. Nunmehr liegt ein Band auf Deutsch vor, in dem Autoren in einem interdisziplinären und internationalen Rahmen die Ergebnisse ihrer Arbeit präsentieren. Die französische DDR- und Transformationsforschung ist durch einen eigenen methodischen Ansatz gekennzeichnet, der sich auf die sozialen Akteure, ihre Praktiken, ihre Erfahrungen und ihre Lebenswelt konzentriert, um die Prozesse und Strukturen innerhalb der DDR-Gesellschaft zu rekonstruieren. Dieser sozio-politische Ansatz (socio-histoire) erlaubt es, die ostdeutsche Gesellschaft in ihrer Geschichte und Gegenwart zu »entnationalisieren« und sie in einem breiten europäischen Rahmen zu diskutieren.