Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T01:31:46.104Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shortcut to Greatness: The New Thinking and the Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2003

Deborah Welch Larson  and
Alexei Shevchenko
Get access

Abstract

Why did Soviet foreign policy change during 1985–1991 from viewing conflict between capitalism and socialism as inevitable to favoring cooperation between states in solving global problems? Neither materialist analyses nor ideational accounts explain why Gorbachev adopted the radical new thinking instead of more conventional reform alternatives. We argue that the new thinking offered a means to enhance Soviet status despite retrenchment and accommodation of the West. By promoting principles underlying a new world order, the Soviet Union could achieve greatness based on the exercise of soft power. This explanation draws on social identity theory, which maintains that people are motivated for their social group to have a distinctive, positive identity. Lower status groups may enhance their perceived standing by finding a new domain for comparison or reevaluating an undesirable trait.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , Winter 2003 , pp. 77 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrams, Dominic, and Hogg, Michael A. 1990. An Introduction to the Social Identity Approach. In Social Identity Theory Constructive and Critical Advances, edited by Abrams, Dominic and Hogg, Michael A., 1–9. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Adler, Emanuel. 1991. Cognitive Evolution: A Dynamic Approach for the Study of International Relations and Their Progress. In Progress in Postwar International Relations, edited by Adler, Emanuel and Crawford, Beverly, 43–88. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Adomeit, Hannes. 1998. Imperial Overstretch Germany in Soviet Policy from Stalin to Gorbachev. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Anno, Tadashi. 2000. Collective Identity as an “Emotional Investment Portfolio”: An Economic Analogy to a Psychological Process. In Beyond Boundaries? Disciplines, Paradigms, and Theoretical Integration in International Studies, edited by Rudra Sil, and Doherty, Eileen M., 117–41. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Arbatov, Georgi. 1989. America Also Needs Perestroika. In Voices of Glasnost Interviews with Gorbachev's Reformers, edited by Cohen, Stephen F. and Heuvel, Katrina Vanden, 307–28. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Arbatov, Georgi. 1992. The System An Insider's Life in Soviet Politics. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Asmus, Ronald D., Brown, J. F., and Crane, Keith. 1991. Soviet Foreign Policy and the Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe Santa Monica, Calif: Rand.Google Scholar
Bennett, Andrew. 1999. Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of Soviet-Russian Military Interventionism, 1973–1996 Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Berdiaev, Nikolai 1960. Origin of Russian Communism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Beschloss, Michael R. 1991. The Crisis Years Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963 New York: Edward Burlingame Books.Google Scholar
Beschloss, Michael R., and Talbott, Strobe 1993. At the Highest Levels The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Breslauer, George W. 1987. Ideology and Learning in Soviet Third World Policy. World Politics 39 (3):429–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breslauer, George W. 1994. How Do You Sell a Concessionary Foreign Policy? Post-Soviet Affairs 10 (3):277–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, Marilynn B. 1991. The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same Time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17 (5):475–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, Marilynn B.. 1993. The Role of Distinctiveness in Social Identity and Group Behavior In Group Motivation Social Psychological Perspectives, edited by Hogg, Michael A. and Abrams, Dominic, 1–16. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Brooks, Stephen G., and Wohlforth, William C. 2000./2001. Power, Globalization and the End of the Cold War: Reevaluating a Landmark Case for Ideas. International Security 25 (3):5–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Archie. 1996. The Gorbachev Factor New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bunce, Valerie. 1993. Domestic Reform and International Change: The Gorbachev Reforms in Historical Perspective International Organization 47 (1):107–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capozza, Eliana Bonaldo, and Di Maggio, Alba. 1982. Problems of Identity and Social Conflict: Research on Ethnic Groups in Italy In Social Identity and Intergroup Relations, edited by Tajfel, Henri, 299–332. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Central Intelligence Agency. 1988. Revisiting Soviet Economic Performance under Glasnost Implications for CIA Estimates. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Checkel, Jeffrey T. 1993. Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution World Politics 45 (2):271–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Checkel, Jeffrey T. 1997. Ideas and International Political Change Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Checkel, Jeffrey T. 1998. The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory. World Politics 50 (2) 324–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chernyaev, Anatoly. 1993. Shest'Let s Gorbachevym Po Dnevnikovym Zapisiam. Moscow: Kultura.Google Scholar
Chernyaev, Anatoly. 2000. My Six Years with Gorbachev. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Cialdini, Robert B., Borden, Richard J., Thorne, Avril, Walker, Marcus Randall, Freeman, Stephen, and Sloan, Lloyd Reynolds. 1976. Basking in Reflected Glory. Three (Football) Field Studies Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34 (3):366–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copeland, Dale. 1999/2000. Trade Expectations and the Outbreak of Peace: Détente 1970–1974 and the End of the Cold War, 1985–1991 Security Studies 9 (1–2):15–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deudney, Daniel, and Ikenberry, John. 1991/1992. The International Sources of Soviet Change. International Security 16 (3):74–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckstein, Harry. 1975. Case Study and Theory in Political Science. In Handbook of Political Science Vol. 7, Strategies of Inquiry, edited by Greenstein, Fred I. and Polsby, Nelson W., 79–137 Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Ellman, Michael, and Kontorovich, Vladimir, eds. 1992. The Disintegration of the Soviet Economic System. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ellman, Michael, and Kontorovich, Vladimir, eds. 1997. The Collapse of the Soviet System and the Memoir Literature Europe-Asia Studies 49 (2):259–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
English, Robert D. 2000. Russia and the Idea of the West Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evangelista, Matthew. 1991. Sources of Moderation in Soviet Security Policy In Behavior, Society, and Nuclear War. Vol. 2, edited by Tetlock, Philip E., Husbands, Jo, Jervis, Robert, Stern, Paul, and Tilly, Charles, 254–354. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evangelista, Matthew. 1995. The Paradox of State Strength. Transnational Relations, Domestic Structures, and Security Policy in Russia and Soviet Union. International Organization 49 (1):1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evangelista, Matthew. 1999. Unarmed Forces The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Evangelista, Matthew. 2001. Norms, Heresthetics and the End of the Cold War. Journal of Cold War Studies 3 (1):5–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firth, Noel E., and Noren, James H.. 1998. Soviet Defense Spending A History of CIA Estimates, 1950–1990. Houston: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
Forsberg, Tuomas. 1999. Power, Interests and Trust: Explaining Gorbachev's Choices at the End of Cold War. Review ten of International Studies 25 (4):603–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuller, William C. 1992. Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600–1914. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Gaddy, Clifford G. 1997. The Price of the Past. Russia's Struggle with the Legacy of a Militarized Economy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Garthoff, Raymond L. 1994. The Great Transition American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Garton Ash, Timothy. 1993. In Europe's Name. Germany and the Divided Continent New York: Random House.Google Scholar
George, Alexander L. 1979. The Causal Nexus between ‘Operational Code’ Beliefs and Decision-making Behavior: Problems of Theory and Methodology. In Psychological Models in International Politics, edited by Falkowski, Lawrence S., 95–124. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
George, Alexander L. 1997. The Role of the Congruence Method for Case Study Research. Paper presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, March 18–22, Toronto:.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Judith, and Keohane, Robert O.. 1993. Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework. In Ideas and Foreign Policy Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change, edited by Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert O., 3–30. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorbachev, Mikhail. 1986. a. Political Report of the CPSU Central Committee at the 27th CPSU Congress. February 25. Reprinted in Mikhail Gorbachev Selected Speeches and Articles, 2d ed. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987.Google Scholar
Gorbachev, Mikhail. 1986. b. Time of Perestroika. Speech at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 23 May 1986. Vestnik Ministerstva innostrannykh del SSR [Bulletin of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR], no. 1 (5 August 1987):4–6.Google Scholar
Gorbachev, Mikhail. 1987. Perestroika New Thinking for Our Country and the World. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Gorbachev, Mikhail. 1991. The August Coup The Truth and the Lessons New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Gorbachev, Mikhail. 1996. Memoirs. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Franklin. 1991. Attempted Learning: Soviet Policy Toward the United States in Brezhnev Era. In Learning in U S. and Soviet Foreign Policy, edited by Breslauer, George W. and Tetlock, Philip E., 630–84. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Gromyko, Anatoly. 1997. Andrei Gromyko y Labirintakh Kremlya Vospominaniya i Razmishleniya Syna,Moscow: IPO “Avtor.”.Google Scholar
Herman, Robert G. 1996a. Identity, Norms, and National Security: The Soviet Foreign Policy Revolution and the End of the Cold War. In The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, edited by Katzenstein, Peter J., 271–316. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Herman, Robert G. 1996b. Ideas, Identity and Redefinition of Interests: The Political and Intellectual Origins of the Soviet Foreign Policy Revolution. Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.:.Google Scholar
Hinckel, Steve, and Brown, Rupert. 1990. Intergroup Comparisons and Social Identity: Some Links and Lacunae. In Social Identity Theory Constructive and Critical Advances, edited by Abrams, Dominic and A. Hogg, Michael, 48–70. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Hogg, Michael A., and Abrams, Dominic. 1988. Social Identifications A Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group Processes. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Holloway, David. 1989. Gorbachev's New Thinking. Foreign Affairs 68 (1):66–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopf, Ted. 1998. The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory. International Security 23 (1):171–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hosking, Geoffrey. 2001. Russia and the Russians. A History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hutchings, Robert L. 1997. American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War: An Insider's Account of U.S. Policy in Europe, 1989–1992. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Linda A., Sullivan, Linda A., Harnish, Richard, and Hodge, Carole N.. 1996. Achieving Positive Social Identity: Social Mobility, Social Creativity, and Permeability of Group Boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70 (2):241–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1998. Realism in the Study of World Politics. International Organization. 52 (4):971–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter J. 1996. Conclusion: National Security in a Changing World. In The Culture of National Security Norms and Identity in World Politics, edited by Katzenstein, Peter J., 498–537. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kokoshin, Andrei A. 1998. Soviet Strategic Thought, 1917–91. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Konrad, George, and Szelenyi, Ivan. 1979. The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Kontorovich, Vladimir. 1993. The Economic Fallacy. The National Interest 31 (Spring):35–45.Google Scholar
Koslowski, Rey, and Kratochwil, Friedrich V.. 1994. Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet Empire's Demise and the International System. International Organization 48 (2):215–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kowert, Paul A., and Legro, Jeffrey W.. 1996. Norms, Identity, and their Limits: A Theoretical Reprise. In The Culture of National Security. Norms and Identity in World Politics, edited by Katzenstein, Peter J., 451–97. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, Mark. 1999. Ideology and the Cold War. Review of International Studies 25 (4):539–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kriuchkov, Vladimir A. 1996. Lichnoe Delo. 2 vols. Moscow: Olimp.Google Scholar
Kubálková, V., and Cruickshank, A. A.. 1989. Thinking New About Soviet “New Thinking” Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California.Google Scholar
Larson, Deborah Welch. 1997. Anatomy of Mistrust. U S -Soviet Relations in the Cold War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lebow, Richard Ned. 1994. The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism. International Organization 48 (2):249–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legvold, Robert. 1989. The Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy. Foreign Affairs 68 (1):82–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legvold, Robert. 1991. Soviet Learning in the 1980s In Learning in U S and Soviet Foreign Policy, edited by Breslauer, George W. and Tetlock, Philip E., 684–734. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Lemaine, Gerard. 1974. Social Differentiation and Social Originality. European Journal of Social Psychology 4 (1):17–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lévesque, Jacques. 1997. The Enigma of 1989 The USSR and the Liberation of Eastern Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Jack. 1994. Learning and Foreign Policy. International Organization 48 (2):279–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewin, Moshe. 1988. The Gorbachev Phenomenon A Historical Interpretation. Berkeley University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lieven, Dominic. 1983. Russia and the Origins of the First World War. New York: St. Martin's Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieven, Dominic. 2000. Empire. The Russian Empire and Its Rivals. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Ligachev, Yegor. 1993. Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Meisner, Maurice. 1967. Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendelson, Sarah E. 1993. Internal Battles and External Wars: Politics, Learning and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan. World Politics 45 (3):327–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendelson, Sarah E. 1998. Changing Course Ideas, Politics, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mercer, Jonathan. 1995. Anarchy and Identity. International Organization 49 (2):229–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, Stephen M. 1988. The Sources and Prospects of Gorbachev's New Political Thinking on Security. International Security 13 (2):124–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molotov, V. M. 1948. Voprosy Vneshnei Politiki. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoi Literatury.Google Scholar
Mummendey, Amélie, Kessler, Thomas, Klink, Andreas, and Mielke, Rosemarie. 1999. Strategies to Cope with Negative Social Identity: Predictions by Social Identity Theory and Relative Deprivation Theory Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76 (2):229–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nye, Joseph S. Jr., 1987. Nuclear Learning and U.S.–Soviet Security Regimes. International Organization 41 (3):371–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nye, Joseph S. Jr., 1990. Bound to Lead. The Changing Nature of American Power New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Oberdorfer, Don. 1991. The Turn: From the Cold War to a New Era United States and the Soviet Union, 1983–1990. New York: Poseidon Press.Google Scholar
Parrott, Bruce 1988. Soviet National Security Under Gorbachev. Problems of Communism 37 (6):1–36.Google Scholar
Patman, Robert G. 1999. Reagan, Gorbachev and the Emergence of ‘New Political Thinking.’ Review of International Studies 25 (4):577–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse, Thomas. 1997. The Cold War's Endgame and German Unification (A Review Essay). International Security 21 (4):159–85.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas. 2000. “Let's Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics. International Organization 54 (2):1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse-Kappen, Thomas 1994. Ideas Do Not Float Freely Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War. International Organization 48 (2):185–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1998. What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge. International Organization 52 (4):855–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rush, Myron 1993. Fortune and Fate. The National Interest 31 (Spring):19–25.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Benjamin. 1966. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schweller, Randall L., and Wohlforth, William C., 2000. Power Test: Evaluating Realism in Response to the End of the Cold War. Security Studies 9 (3):60–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sestanovich, Stephen. 1988. Gorbachev's Foreign Policy: A Diplomacy of Decline Problems of Communism 37 (1):1–15.Google Scholar
Shakhnazarov, Georgi. 1993. Tsena Svobody Moscow: Rossika.Google Scholar
Shevardnadze, Eduard. 1989. Foreign Policy and Perestroika. Foreign Minister Shevardnadze's, E. A. Report to the USSR Supreme Soviet October 23, 1989. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts SU/0696/C/1. October 25, 1989.Google Scholar
Shevardnadze, Eduard. 1991.The Future Belongs to Freedom. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Snyder, Jack. 1987/1988. The Gorbachev Revolution: A Waning of Soviet Expansionism? International Security 12 (3):93–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, Jack 1991. Myths of Empire Domestic Politics and International Ambition Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Snyder, Jack. 1994. Russian Backwardness and the Future of Europe. Daedalus 123 (2):179–202.Google Scholar
Snyder, Jack. 1999. Russia: Responses to Relative Decline. In International Order and the Future of World Politics, edited by Paul, T. V. and Hall, John A., 146–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stein, Janice Gross. 1994. Political Learning by Doing: Gorbachev as Uncommitted Thinker and Motivated Learner. International Organization 48 (2):155–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, ed. 1978. Differentiation Between Social Groups Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, Billig, M. G., Bundy, R. P., and Flament, Claude. 1971. Social Categorization and Intergroup Behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology 1 (2):149–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, and Turner, John C.. 1979. An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict. In The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, edited by Austin, William G. and Worchel, Stephen, 33–47. Monterey, Calif: Brooks/Cole.Google Scholar
Turner, John C.. 1975. Social Comparison and Social Identity: Some Prospects for Intergroup Behavior European Journal of Social Psychology 5 (1):5–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Knippenberg, Ad, and Ellemers, Naomi. 1993. Strategies in Intergroup Relations. In Group Motivation Social Psychological Perspectives, edited by Hogg, Michael A. and Abrams, Dominic, 17–32 New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
van Oudenaren, John. 1990. The Role of Shevardnadze and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Making of Soviet Defense and Arms Control Policy. Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1992. Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics. International Organization 46 (2):392–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1994. Collective Identity Formation and the International State. American Political Science Review 88 (2):384–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wohlforth, William C. 1993. The Elusive Balance Power and Perceptions During the Cold War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wohlforth, William C. 1994./1995. Realism and the End of the Cold War. International Security 19 (3):91–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodby, Sylvia. 1989. Gorbachev and the Decline of Ideology in Soviet Foreign Policy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Zelikow, Philip, and Rice, Condoleezza. 1995. Germany Unified and Europe Transformed A Study in Statecraft. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Zubok, Vladislav M. 2001. New Evidence on the “Soviet Factor” in the Peaceful Revolutions of 1989. Cold War International History Project Bulletin 12/13:5–23.Google Scholar