The CWRN is thrilled to announce that along with the Contesting Governance Platform of Utrecht University, it is co-sponsoring the hybrid launch event of Dr Liliane Stadler’s first book, Between Neutrality and Solidarity: Swiss Good offices in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1982.

This book is published in the Brill Series New Perspectives on the Cold War. The volume represents the first in-depth analysis of Switzerland’s diplomatic involvement in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion of 1979. It is a historical case study of the principal challenges that permanently neutral states face in times of international crisis and tension. At the same time, it examines the complex nature of the relationships between neutral state and non-state actors in situations of armed conflict through the perspective of new archival source material.

Dr Liliane Stadler is currently a lecturer in the History of International Relations at the Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University. Her research revolves around the role of permanently neutral states in multilateral diplomacy and conflict resolution during the late Cold War and early post-Cold War periods. She completed her doctorate in History at the University of Oxford (St Antony’s) in 2021, where she focused on Swiss good offices and humanitarian diplomacy in Afghanistan during and after the Soviet occupation of 1979 to 1989 under the supervision of Professor Anne Deighton and Professor Paul Betts. She is a member of the Cold War Research Network at the University of Utrecht and an affiliated researcher at Documents Diplomatiques de la Suisse (DODIS) in Berne, Switzerland.

For more information about the book please visit: brill.com/display/title/69671