Introduction

The overthrow of repressive Communist regimes across Eastern Europe in 1989 to 1990 represents one of the most significant advances for civil and political rights in the twentieth century. This chapter's interpretation of the demise of Communism focuses on the societal effects of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, which established human rights as a norm binding on all the states of Europe, and as a legitimate issue in relations between them. The point is not to reduce the complex sources of “1989” to any single cause, but to trace the ways in which international human rights norms, and the transnational activist networks which emerged around them, contributed to this outcome. The Helsinki Final Act's transformation of the normative structure of East – West relations encouraged the mobilization of independent groups, justified transnational networks with sympathetic activists and substate actors in the West, and thereby enabled societal forces in the East to mount unprecedented challenges to regimes which had long monopolized social and political space. Though the depth and duration of this “Helsinki effect” was not equal in all countries of the region, it substantially re-shaped state-society relations throughout the Communist bloc and paved the way for the radical changes of the late 1980s. Beyond their historical significance, the Helsinki cases improve our general understanding of the processes by which the norms of international society transform the identity, interests, and behavior of states (Thomas forthcoming).