1. See Gaddis, John Lewis, “International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War,” International Security 17 (Winter 1992/1993), pp. 5–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. On structural neorealism, see Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979)Google Scholar; and Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a good review of the problems realism encounters when explaining change, see Walker, R.B.J., “Realism, Change, and International Political Theory,” International Studies Quarterly 31 (03 1987), pp. 65–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. We use the term “constructivist” in the sense elaborated byOnuf, Nicholas, World of Our Making (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989)Google Scholar, especially part 1. See also Wendt, Alexander, “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International Organization 46 (Spring 1992), pp. 391–425CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a further discussion see Wendt, Alexander, “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,” International Organization 41 (Summer 1987), pp. 335–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dessler, David, “What's at Stake in the Agent–Structure Debate?” International Organization 43 (Summer 1989), pp. 441–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. By “conventions,” we mean all types of norms and rules which constitute and regulate practices rather than only those norms which alleviate problems of coordination. For an extensive discussion see Kratochwil, Friedrich, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Until 1988, the conceptualization of perestroika as peredyshka (a “breathing spell”) in which to recharge for more of the same competition with the United States was very popular. See Lefever, Ernest W. and Lugt, Robert D. Vander, eds., Perestroika: How New is Gorbachev's New Thinking (Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1989)Google Scholar, especially Richard Nixon, “Cehallenge and Response,” Henry Kissinger, “A Threat to Global Balance,” and Jeane Kirkpatrick, “A Return to Leninist Orthodoxy.” Also see Serfaty, Simon, ed., “Symposium: Old Adversaries, New Ground,” SAIS Review 8 (Summer–Fall 1988), pp. 1–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and especially the contributions by Zbigniew Brzezinski and William Hyland, pp. 10–11 and 20–22, respectively.

6. The quotations are from Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, p. 113Google Scholar.

7. See Mearsheimer, John, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Summer 1990), pp. 5–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. For a critical discussion of this argument and a statistical analysis demonstrating that Soviet behavior was unaffected by increased U.S. spending, see Chernoff, Fred, “Ending the Cold War: The Soviet Retreat and the U.S. Military Buildup,” International Affairs 67 (01 1991), pp. 111–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Furthermore, for an argument that increased U.S. arms spending did not lead to major concessions in the periphery, see Herrmann, Richard K., “Soviet Behavior in Regional Conflicts: Old Questions, New Strategies, and Important Lessons,” World Politics 44 (04 1992), pp. 432–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Similarly, Garthoff credits a new generation of Soviet leaders rather that the Reagan military buildup for the end of the cold war. See Garthoff, Raymond L., “Why Did the Cold War Arise, and Why Did It End?” in Hogan, Michael J., ed., The End of the Cold War: Its Meaning and Implications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), chap. 11Google Scholar.

9. This was the argument made by Robert Keohane at a conference on multilateralism in La Jolla, California, 6 December 1990. The same point was reiterated by Steve Walt and Kenneth Waltz, among others, at a conference at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., in October 1991.

10. Waltz, Kenneth, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security 18 (Fall 1993), pp. 44–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Layne, Christopher, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security 17 (Spring 1993), pp. 6–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. For a discussion and conceptual clarification of multilateralism as an organizational form, see Ruggie, John, ed., Multilateralism Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

13. Robert Legvold was one of the first to argue that Gorbachev's commitment to multilateralism was genuine and should not be dismissed by the West. See “The Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy,” special issue, Foreign Affairs, vol. 68, no. 1, 1988/1989, pp. 82–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar and particularly pp. 97–98.

14. Blaker, Coit, Hostage to Revolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Security Policy, 1985–1991 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1993), p. 188Google Scholar.

15. A Bush administration analyst with major responsibility for U.S. policy on German unification, Condoleezza Rice, has come to a similar conclusion in an unpublished work entitled, “Soviet Policy Toward German Unification: Implications for Theories of International Negotiation.” See Blaker, , Hostage to Revolution, p. 188, note 3Google Scholar.

16. Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future.”

17. For an early recognition of these facts, see Arnold, Eckart, “German Foreign Policy and Unification,” International Affairs 67 (07 1991), pp. 453–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. This document is quoted in Tyler, Patrick E., “Pentagon Drops Goal of Blocking New Superpowers: Policy Document Revised,” The New York Times, 24 05 1992, p. A14Google Scholar.

19. Beschloss, Michael R. and Talbott, Strobe, At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (Boston: Little, Brown and Company), pp. 102Google Scholar and 109.

20. See David Dessler, “What's at Stake in the Agent–Structure Debate?”

21. For a further elaboration on this point, see Kratochwil, Friedrich, “The Embarrassment of Changes: Neo-realism as the Science of Realpolitik Without Politics,” Review of International Studies, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 63–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. For a further discussion of institutions and the importance of the norms constituting them, see Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions, chaps. 3 and 4.

23. See Kratochwil, Friedrich, “On the Notion of Interest,” International Organization 36 (Winter 1982), pp. 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. On second image reversed interpretations, see Gourevitch, Peter, “The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Politics,” International Organization 32 (Autumn 1978), pp. 881–911CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an example of a structuralist analysis, see Deudney, Daniel and Ikenberry, G. John, “The International Sources of Soviet Change,” International Security 16 (Winter 1991/1992), pp. 74–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. For a further explanation of essentially contested concepts, see Connolly, William E., The Terms of Political Discourse (Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1974)Google Scholar.

26. See Wendt, “Anarchy is What States Make of It.”

27. See Otto Hintze, “The Formation of States and Constitutional Development: A Study in History and Politics” and Hintze, Otto, “Military Organization and the Organization of the State,” both in Gilbert, Felix, ed., The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

28. See, for example, Axelrod, Robert, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984)Google Scholar.

29. This point is eloquently made by Elster, Jon in Ulysses and the Sirens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), part 1Google Scholar.

30. March, James and Olsen, Johan, Rediscovering Institutions (New York: Free Press, 1989), p. 56Google Scholar.

31. Popper, Karl, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957)Google Scholar.

32. See for example, Almond, Gabriel and Genco, Stephen J., “Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics,” World Politics 20 (07 1977), pp. 489–522CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. Nettl, J. P., “The State as a Conceptual Variable,” World Politics 20 (07 1968), pp. 559–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. Stalin is quoted by Rubinstein, Alvin Z., Soviet Foreign Policy Since World War II: Imperial and Global, 3d. ed. (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1989), p. 73Google Scholar.

35. This point was eloquently made by Arendt, Hannah in Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973)Google Scholar. A similar distinction is drawn between traditional dictatorship and the Soviet case in Havel, Václav, “The Power of the Powerless,” in Keane, John, ed., The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe (London: Hutchison, 1985)Google Scholar.

36. Gray, John, “The Politics of Cultural Diversity,” Postliberalism (New York: Routledge, 1993) chap. 18; the quotation is from p. 257Google Scholar.

37. See pp. 43–44 of Adam Michnik, “On Resistance,” in Michnik, Adam, Letters From Prison and Other Essays, trans. Liatynski, Maya (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) pp. 41–63Google Scholar.

38. For a depiction of the perversion of law in totalitarian systems, see The Experience and the Future Discussion Group, Poland Today: The State of the Republic (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1981), pp. 18–43Google Scholar. This report was based on an independent survey of prominent professionals, scholars, and writers from a broad range of political views conducted to make policy recommendations to the Polish Communist government in 1979 and 1980.

39. On the czarist secret police, see Pipes, Richard, Russia under the Old Regime (London: Widenfeld Nicolson, 1974), p. 301Google Scholar. On the Checka, see Dziak, John J., Chekisty: A History of the KGB (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1988)Google Scholar.

40. Kissinger, Henry, A World Restored (New York: Gosset and Dunlap, 1964), chap. 5Google Scholar.

41. For a good review of more recent (revisionist) cold war history, see Eden, Lynn, “The End of U.S. Cold War History? A Review Essay,” International Security 18 (Summer 1993), pp. 174–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42. For an elaboration on this point, see Gaddis, John Lewis, “The Cold War, the Long Peace, and the Future,” in Hogan, , The End of the Cold War, pp. 21–38Google Scholar.

43. Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, p. 171Google Scholar.

44. Ibid.

45. Ulam, Adam, Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1967 (New York: Praeger, 1968), p. 448Google Scholar.

46. See p. 15 of Snyder, Jack, “International Leverage on Soviet Domestic Change,” World Politics (10 1989), pp. 1–30Google Scholar; the quotation is from p. 15.

47. See Rubinstein, , Soviet Foreign Policy Since World War II, p. 119Google Scholar.

48. The Polish Communist government, the Catholic church, and Solidarity announced the beginning of “roundtable discussions” to negotiate political reform on 27 January 1989. “Jaruzelski told the U.S. ambassador in Warsaw, John Davies, that he was consulting frequently with Gorbachev, who fully supported his policies of conciliation.” See Beschloss, and Talbott, , At the Highest Levels, p. 53Google Scholar.

49. On the importance of reasonable sufficiency, Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War,” in this issue of International Organization.

50. For an explanation of Gorbachev's changed image of the adversary in terms of learning theory and cognitive attribution theory, see Hopf, Ted, “Peripheral Visions: Brezhnev and Gorbachev Meet the Reagan Doctrine,” in Breslauer, George W. and Tetlock, Philip E., eds., Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 586–629Google Scholar; for a more organization-based model stressing the impact of academics and policy research institutions, see Checkel, Jeff, “Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution, World Politics 45 (01 1993), pp. 271–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an informative discussion of the national interest, see Sestanovich, Stephen, “Inventing the Soviet National Interest,” The National Interest no. 20 (Summer 1990), pp. 3–16Google Scholar. On the reconceptualization of security, see Legvold, , “The Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy,” pp. 84–87Google Scholar.

51. Fukuyama, Francis, “The End of History?” The National Interest no. 16 (Summer 1989), pp. 3–18Google Scholar.

52. Counterreformation, for Michnik, characterized glasnost and perestroika as a response to delegitimization of Soviet communism and as an attempt to retain control through reform: “[Counterreformation] is a self-critical show of strength with the aim of incorporating those values created against the will of [the established orthodoxy], and outside the social institutions in order to stop them [from] becoming antagonistic and subversive.” See Michnik, Adam, “The Great Counter-reformer,” Labor Focus on Eastern Europe 9 (07–10 1987), p. 23Google Scholar.

53. In resisting military intervention in Eastern Europe, Shevardnadze explicitly rejected the scenarios of 1956 and 1968 by arguing that, “Leaving aside the impossibility of operating in the new conditions with the old methods, we could not sacrifice our own principles regarding the right to peoples to freedom of choice, noninterference in internal affairs, and the common European home.” See Shevardnadze, Eduard, The Future Belongs to Freedom (New York: The Free Press, 1991), p. 120Google Scholar. Similarly, when referring to the Baltics, Gorbachev stated that the use of force “would be the end of Perestroika”; see Beschloss, and Talbott, , At the Highest Levels, p. 164Google Scholar.

54. Doyle defines empires as “relationships of political control imposed by some political societies over the effective sovereignty of other political societies. They include more than just formally annexed territories, but they encompass less than the sum of all forms of international inequality.” See Doyle, Michael, Empires (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 19Google Scholar.

55. The quotation is from ibid., p. 130, Table 3.

56. Ibid., p. 38.

57. Ash, Timothy Garton, “The Empire in Decay,” New York Review of Books 29 09 1988, p. 56Google Scholar.

58. Doyle, , Empires, p. 42Google Scholar.

59. Finlandization originates in Jacek Kuron's 1976 essay, which outlined a program for the newly formed democratic opposition in Poland. He borrowed the term of Western analysts for Soviet objectives in Western Europe and postulated it as an objective for Poland. See Kuron, Jacek, “Reflections on a Program of Action,” The Polish Review, vol. 22, no. 3, 1977, pp. 51–69Google Scholar.

60. Beschloss, and Talbott, , At the Highest Levels, pp. 132–33Google Scholar.

61. For discussions of the collapse of legitimacy see Schoepflin, George, “The End of Communism in Eastern Europe,” International Affairs (London) 66 (01 1990), pp. 3–16 and especially pp. 5–7Google Scholar; and Di Palma, Giuseppe, “Legitimation from the Top to Civil Society: Politico-cultural Change in Eastern Europe,” World Politics 44 (10 1991), pp. 49–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62. See Kuron, “Reflections on a Program of Action”; Michnik, “On Resistance”; Havel, “The Power of the Powerless,” and Konrad, George, Antipolitics (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1984)Google Scholar, respectively. On civil society, see Rupnik, Jacques, “Dissent in Poland, 1968–1978: the End of Revisionism and the Rebirth of the Civil Society,” in Tokes, Rudolf, ed., Opposition in Eastern Europe (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 60–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Arato, Andrew, “Civil Society Against the State: Poland 1980–81,” Telos 47 (Spring 1981), pp. 23–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63. Staniszkis, Jadwiga, The Self-Limiting Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

64. Hungarian dissident George Konrad made this point in an interview with Rey Koslowski, 14 October 1988, Colorado Springs, Colo.

65. See “Joint East European Statement to Commemorate the Twentieth Anniversary of the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968,” and the “Border Declaration” issued on 10 July 1988 by members of Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity after a clandestine meeting on the border between the two countries, both in the East European Reporter 3 (Autumn 1988), pp. 59–62Google Scholar.

66. Shevardnadze, , The Future Belongs to Freedom, pp. 120–21Google Scholar.

67. Ibid., p. 121.

68. Beschloss, and Talbott, , At the Highest Levels, p. 102Google Scholar.

69. On the opposition's tactics and Soviet security interests, see Michnik, Adam, “A New Evolutionism,” (originally written in 1976), in Michnik, , Letters from Prison and Other Essays, pp. 143–44Google Scholar.

70. For Shevardnadze's, term, see The Future Belongs to Freedom, p. 114Google Scholar.

71. Hayes, Peter, ed, “Chronology 1989,” special issue, Foreign Affairs 69 (1990), p. 231Google Scholar.

72. Beschloss, and Talbott, , At the Highest Levels, pp. 82–83Google Scholar.

73. Ibid., p. 82.

74. Ibid., pp. 88–89.

75. Ibid., p. 90.

76. Ibid., pp. 93–94 and 126–31.

77. Fyodor Burlatsky, speech at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 28 January 1991.

78. For a discussion of emulation among bloc members, see Schoepflin, , “The End of Communism in Eastern Europe,” p. 9Google Scholar; and Przeworski, Adam, “The East Becomes the South? The Autumn of the People and the Future of Eastern Europe,” PS 25 (03 1991), pp. 20–24Google Scholar.

79. The Hungarian National Assembly voted to delete the “leading role” from the Hungarian constitution on 18 10 1989Google Scholar. The Czechoslovak parliament followed suit on 11 November 1989.

80. See the discussion of repealing Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution that appeared in Pravda, 8 12 1989, p. 1Google Scholar.

81. On the weakness of state institutions relative to the Communist Party, see Don Van Atta, , “The U.S.S.R. as a Weak State: Agrarian Origins of Resistance to Perestroika,” World Politics 41 (10 1989), pp. 129–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Koslowski, Rey, “Market Institutions, East European Reforms, and Economic Theory,” Journal of Economic Issues 26 (09 1992), pp. 673–705CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an argument that the Communist Party was the force that held the republics together, see Hough, Jerry, “Gorbachev's Politics,” Foreign Affairs 68 (Winter 1989–1990), pp. 26–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82. Roeder, Philip, “Soviet Federalism and Ethnic Mobilization,” World Politics 43 (01 1991), pp. 320–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83. On the spring draft, see Krivov, Andrei, “Many Young Soviets Bid Earnest Farewell to Arms,” Russian Thought, 27 07 1990Google Scholar, reprinted in Glasnost News and Review (October–December 1990), pp. 14–19. In the fall draft only 78.8 percent of those conscripted reported for service. See Foye, Stephen, “Crackdown Ordered to Enforce Military Draft,” Report on the U.S.S.R. 3 (18 01 1991), p. 7Google Scholar.

84. Mihalisko, Kathleen, “Ukrainians Ponder Creation of a National Army,” Report on the U.S.S.R. 3 (22 02 1991)Google Scholar.

85. Interview with Baker, James on NBC's Meet the Press, 24 12 1989Google Scholar.

86. Beschloss, and Talbott, , At the Highest Levels, p. 164Google Scholar.

87. Austrianization was advocated in the early 1960s by the editors and contributors of the emigré journal Studies for a New Central Europe and developed by Hungarian dissident, George Konrad in Antipolitics.

88. Shevardnadze, , The Future Belongs to Freedom, pp. 138–41Google Scholar.

89. Telschik, Horst, 329 Tage: Innenansichten der Einigung (Berlin: Goldmann, 1993)Google Scholar.

90. Beschloss, and Talbott, , At the Highest Levels, p. 220Google Scholar.

91. Ibid., p. 227.

92. Ibid., p. 239.

93. See “General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's Address to the Council of Europe” 6 July 1989, in Freedman, Lawrence, ed., Europe Transformed: Documents on the End of the Cold War (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), pp. 322–32 and especially pp. 327ffGoogle Scholar. Also see “Eduard Shevardnadze Speaks to the European Parliament Committee,” The Current Digest of The Soviet Press, vol. 41, no. 51, 1989, p. llfGoogle Scholar.

94. Thatcher, Margaret, The Downing Street Years (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), pp. 796–99Google Scholar.

95. See “Article by M. Roland Dumas, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, published in The New York Times, March 13 1990,” in Freedman, , Europe Transformed, pp. 508–509Google Scholar.

96. Beschloss, and Talbott, , At the Highest Levels, p. 207Google Scholar.

97. An example of such a foray was Poland's setting up a liaison office in Brussels in 1990. See de Weydenthal, Jan B., “Rapprochement with the West Continues,” Report on Eastern Europe, 20 12 1991, p. 23Google Scholar.