Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:48:39.321Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Approaches to the study of Soviet foreign policy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Margot Light
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

If hell, as Thomas Hobbes once said, is truth seen too late, the road to hell must now be paved twice over with the thousands of books claiming to discover the ‘truth’ about Russia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , July 1981 , pp. 127 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1981

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

1. Bell, Daniel, ‘Ten Theories in Search of Reality: The Prediction of Soviet Behavior’, World Politics, x (1958), p. 315.Google Scholar

3. Hough, Jerry F., The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), p. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Horelick, Arnold L., Johnson, A. Ross and Steinbruner, John D., The Study of Soviet Foreign Policy: Decision-Theory-Related Approaches (Beverly Hills, 1975), p. 41.Google Scholar

5. Singer, J. David, ‘The Incompleat Theorist: Insight without Evidence’, in Knorr, Klaus and Rosenau, James N. (eds.), Contending Approaches to International Relations (Princeton, 1969), p. 77.Google Scholar

5. For a discussion of the effect of liberal values on comparative work see Hough, , The Soviet Union, op. cit. pp. 222–24.Google Scholar

6. Welch, William and Triska, Jan F., ‘Soviet Foreign Policy Studies and Foreign Polities’, World Politics, xxiii (1971), pp. 704–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. The purest use of this model in international relations is usually attributed to Morgenthau, Hans J., in Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York, 1973).Google Scholar

8. Banks, Michael H. in Groom, A. J. R. and Mitchell, C. R. (eds.), International Relations Theory: A Bibliography (London, 1978), p. 199.Google Scholar

9. Brecher, Michael, Blema Steinberg and Janice Stein divide foreign policy systems into these three components, in their article ‘A Framework for Research on Foreign Policy Behavior’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 13 (1969), pp. 75–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Welch and Triska, op. cit. p. 709.

11. Ibid. p. 710.

12. Gordenker, Leon, ‘The USSR, the United Nations and the General Welfare’, World Politics, xvii (1965), p. 497.Google Scholar

13. Barnet, Richard J., ‘Initiative and Response in Soviet Foreign Policy’, World Politics, xvi (1963), p. 181.Google Scholar

14. Horelick, Ross Johnson and Steinbruner, op cit. p. 31.

15. Haslam, Jonathan, ‘The Study of Soviet Foreign Policy: Ideology and Foreign Policy Analysis’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, v (1976–1977), p. 285.Google Scholar

16. Colton, Timothy J., ‘The Zhukov Affair Reconsidered’, Soviet Studies, xxix (1977), p. 213.Google Scholar

17. Adomeit, Hannes, ‘Soviet Policy in the Middle East: Problems of Analysis’, Soviet Studies, xxvii (1975), p. 292.Google Scholar

18. Levgold, Robert, ‘The Nature of Soviet Power’, Foreign Affairs, 56 (1977), p. 50.Google Scholar

19. Adomeit, Hannes, ‘Soviet Risk Taking and Crisis Behaviour: From Confrontation to Coexistence’, Adelphi Papers, 101 (London, 1973).Google Scholar

20. Triska, Jan F. and Finley, David D., Soviet Foreign Policy (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

21. The introduction of the first model of foreign policy decision-making is attributed to Snyder, Richard C., Bruck, H. W. and Sapin, Burton, Foreign Policy Decision Making (New York, 1962).Google Scholar While the number of factors influencing decision-making is undoubtedly large, Snyder's list was so large that it became far too unwieldy to provide a coherent theory of decision.

22. Triska and Finley, op. cit.

23. Petrov, Vladimir, ‘Formatio n of Soviet Foreign Policy’, Orbis, xvii (1973), pp. 819–850Google Scholar, and Tatu, Michel, ‘Decision Making in the USSR’, in Pipes, Richard (ed.), Soviet Strategy in Europe (London, 1976), pp. 45–64.Google Scholar

24. Hammer, Darrell P., USSR: The Politics of Oligarchy (Hinsdale, Illinois, 1974).Google Scholar

25. Schwartz, Morton, The Foreign Policy of the USSR: Domestic Factors (Encino, California, 1975).Google Scholar

26. The Soviet Union was described as a totalitarian society by Arendt, Hannah, in The Origins of Totalitarianism (London, 1966).Google Scholar The term remained in vogue for many years. See, for example, Friedrich, C. J. and Brzezinski, Z. K., Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (London, 1963)Google Scholar, and Wolfe, Bertram D., An Ideology in Power: Reflections on the Russian Revolution (London, 1969).Google Scholar Variations on the theme explain the Soviet Union as a modified version of the original pure type. See, for example, Meyer, Alfred G., The Soviet Political System (New York, 1965)Google Scholar; Brzezinski, Zbigniew and Huntington, Samuel, Political Power USA/USSR (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Kassof, Allen, ‘The Administered Society: Totalitarianism without Terror’, World Politics, xvi (1964), pp. 558–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. Cybernetic theory was first applied to political processes by Deutsch, Karl, Nerves of Government (New York, 1963).Google Scholar The model has been amplified, with criticisms, and applied to foreign policy analysis by Steinbruner, John D., The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton, 1974).Google Scholar

28. Paul Cocks, ‘The Policy Process and Bureaucratic Polities’, in Cocks, Paul, Daniels, Robert V. and Heer, Nancy Whittier (eds.), The Dynamics of Soviet Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), pp. 309–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Gehlen, Michael P., ‘The Integrative Process in East Europe: A Theoretical Framework’, Journal of Politics, xxx (1968), pp. 90–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Robinson, Thomas, ‘Systems Theory and the Communist System’, International Studies Quarterly, xiii (1969), pp. 398–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Lindblom is associated with the original statement of the model, and with the terms ‘muddling through’ and ‘disjointed incrementalism’. See Lindblom, Charles E., The Policy-Making Process (Englewood Cliffs, 1968).Google ScholarAllison, Graham T., The Essence of Decision (Boston, 1971)Google Scholar and Steinbruner, op. cit. have also used this model, which is strongly influenced by the seminal work on organizations by March and Simon. See March, James G. and Simon, Herbert A., Organisations (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

31. The use of the bureaucratic politics model to explain foreign policy decisions is associated with the work of Allison, op. cit. and of Halperin, Morton H., Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, 1974).Google Scholar Both the organizational process model and the bureaucratic politics model have been criticized for overemphasizing the domestic origins of foreign policy ‘to the neglect of the international environment’. Hill, Christopher, ‘The Credentials of Foreign Policy Analysis’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, iii (1974), p. 160.Google Scholar

32. Hough, op. cit. p. 51.

33. Reprinted in Skilling, Gordon H. and Griffiths, Franklyn (eds.), Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton, 1971).Google Scholar

3.4. Aspaturian, Vernon V. (ed.), Process and Power in Soviet Foreign Policy (Boston, 1971)Google Scholar; Dallin, Alexander, ‘Soviet Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics: A Framework for Analysis’, in Hoffmann, Erik P. and Fleron, Frederic J. Jr (eds.), The Conduct of Soviet Foreign Policy (Chicago, 1971), pp. 36–49Google Scholar; and Adomeit, Hannes, ‘Soviet foreign policy making: The internal mechanism of global commitment’, in Adomeit, Hannes and Boardman, Robert (eds.), Foreign Policy Making in Communist Countries (Farnborough, 1979), pp. 15–48.Google Scholar

35. Dallin, op. cit. p. 43.

36. Robert H. Donaldson, ‘Global Power Relationships in the Seventies: The View from the Kremlin’, in Cocks, Daniels and Heer, op. cit. p. 310.

37. Kelley, Donald R., ‘Toward a Model of Soviet Decision Making: A Research Note’, American Political Science Review, lxix (1974), pp. 701–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Bruce, James B. and Clawson, Robert W., ‘A Zonal Analysis Model for Comparative Politics: Partial Soviet Application’, World Politics, xxix (1977), pp. 177–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. Bruce, James B., The Politics of Soviet Policy Formation: Khrushchev's Innovative Policies in Education and Agriculture (Denver, 1976).Google Scholar

40. Allison, Graham T. and Halperin, Morton H., ‘Bureaucratic Politics: A Paradigm and Some Policy Implications’, in Raymond Tanter and Richard H. Ullman, Theory and Policy in International Relations (Princeton, 1972), pp. 40–80.Google Scholar

41. Dawisha, Karen, ‘The Limits of the Bureaucratic Politics Model: Some Observations on the Soviet Case’, (forthcoming).Google Scholar

42. Mackintosh, Malcolm, ‘The Soviet Military: Influence on Foreign Policy’, Problems of Communism, xxii (1973), p. 10.Google Scholar

43. Odom, William E., ‘The Soviet Military: The Party Connection’, Problems of Communism, xxii (1973), p. 23.Google Scholar See also his ‘The Soviet Military and Foreign Policy’, Survival, xvii (1975), pp. 276–281.Google Scholar

44. Gallagher, Matthew P. and Spielman, Karl F. Jr, Soviet Decision-Making for Defense: A Critique of U.S. Perspectives on the Arms Race (New York, 1972).Google Scholar

45. Holloway, David, ‘Technology and Political Decision in Soviet Armaments Policy’, Journal of Peace Research, xi (1974), p. 271.Google Scholar

46. Payne, Samuel B. Jr, ‘The Soviet Debate on Strategic Arms Limitation: 1969–72’, Soviet Studies, xxvii (1975), pp. 27–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Remnek, Richard Barry, Soviet Scholars and Soviet Foreign Policy: A Case Study of Soviet Policy towards India (Durham, North Carolina, 1975).Google Scholar

48. Ibid. pp. 290–1.

49. Shulman, Marshall D., ‘On Learning to Live with Authoritarian Regimes’, Foreign Affairs, 55 (1977), p. 329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50. Eran, Oden, The Mezhdunarodniki: An Assessment of Professional Expertise in the Making of Soviet Foreign Policy (Ramat Gan, 1979).Google Scholar

51. Pendill, C. Grant Jr, ‘“Bipartisanship” in Soviet Foreign Policy-Making’, in Hoffmann and Fleron, op. cit. pp. 61–75.Google Scholar

52. Slusser, Robert M., The Berlin Crisis of 1961: Soviet-American Relations and the Struggle for Power in the Kremlin, June-November, 1961 (Baltimore, 1973).Google Scholar

53. Allison, op. cit.

54. Dinerstein, Herbert S., The Making of a Missile Crisis: October 1962 (Baltimore and London, 1976).Google Scholar

55. Paul, David W., ‘Soviet Foreign Policy and the Invasion of Czechoslovakia: A Theory and a Case Study’, International Studies Quarterly, xv (1971), pp. 159–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56. Dawisha, Karen, ‘The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, 1968’, Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, iii (1978), pp. 143–171.Google Scholar

57. Valenta, Jiri, Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia, 1968: Anatomy of a Decision (Baltimore and London, 1979).Google Scholar

58. Ra'anan, Uri, ‘The USSR and the Middle East: Some Reflections on the Soviet Decision-Making Process’, Orbis, xvii (1973), pp. 946–977.Google Scholar

59. Kass, Ilana, Soviet Involvement in the Middle East: Policv Formulation, 1966–1973 (Boulder, Colorado, 1978), p. 232.Google Scholar

60. Dawisha, Karen, Soviet Foreign Policy Towards Egypt (London, 1979), p. 150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61. For a more detailed explanation of the model, see Steinbruner, op. cit.

62. For the effect of belief systems on perception, see Axelrod, Robert (ed.), Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites (Princeton, 1976)Google Scholar, and George, Alexander, ‘The “Operational Code”: A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and Decision-Making’, in Hoffmann and Fleron, op. cit. pp. 165–190.Google Scholar

63. For the pathological approach, see Lasswell, Harold D., Psychopathology and Politics (Chicago, 1930)Google Scholar; and George, Alexander and George, Juliette, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study (New York, 1956).Google Scholar

64. The effect of group dynamics is considered in Janis, Irving L., Victims of Groupthink (Boston, 1972)Google Scholar; and perceptions are studied in Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, 1976).Google Scholar

65. George, Alexander, ‘The “Operational Code”’, op. cit. pp. 170–1.Google Scholar For the original ‘code’, see Leites, Nathan, The Operational Code of the Politburo (New York, 1951)Google Scholar, and A Study of Bolshevism (Glencoe, Illinois, 1953).Google Scholar

66. Triska and Finley, op. cit. p. 114.

67. Brody, Richard and Vesecky, John, ‘Soviet Openness to Changing Situations: A Critical Evaluation of Certain Hypotheses About Soviet Foreign Policy Behavior’, in Triska, Jan F. (ed.), Communist Party-States: Comparative and International Studies (New York, 1969), pp. 377–9.Google Scholar

68. Kelly, Rita M. and Fleron, Frederic J. Jr, ‘Personality, Behavior, and Communist Ideology’, in Hoffmann and Fleron, op. cit. pp. 191–211.Google Scholar

69. Angell, Robert C., Dunham, Vera S. and Singer, J. David, ‘Social Values and Foreign Policy Attitudes of Soviet and American Elites’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 8 (1964), pp. 329–491.Google Scholar

70. Zimmerman, William, Soviet Perspectives on International Relations 1956–1967 (Princeton, 1969).Google Scholar

71. Mitchell, R. Judson, ‘A New Brezhnev Doctrine: The Restructuring of International Relations’, World Politics, xxx (1978), pp. 366–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

72. Kubalkova, Vendulka, ‘Moral Precepts of Contemporary Soviet Polities’, in Pettman, Ralph (ed.), Moral Claims in World Affairs (London, 1979), pp. 170–193.Google Scholar

73. Stoessinger, John G., Nations in Darkness: China, Russia and America (New York, 1975), p. 3.Google Scholar

74. Gilbert, Stephen P., Soviet Images of America (London, 1977).Google Scholar

75. Schwartz, Morton, Soviet Perceptions of the United States (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1978).Google Scholar

76. Tucker, Robert C., Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879–1929: A Study in History and Personality (New York, 1973).Google Scholar

77. Luck, David, ‘A Psycholinguistic Approach to Leader Personality’, Soviet Studies, xxx (1978), pp. 491–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

78. Wright, Quincy, A Study of War (Chicago, 1964).Google Scholar For a later work on comparative foreign policy modelling, see Rosenau, James N. (ed.), Comparing Foreign Policies: Theories, Findings and Methods (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

79. McGowan, Patrick J. and Shapiro, Howard B., The Comparative Study of Foreign Policy: A Survey (Beverly Hills, 1973).Google Scholar

80. Adomeit and Boardman, Foreign policy making, op. cit.

81. For a more detailed account of the literature of foreign policy analysis, see Hill, Christopher and Light, Margot, ‘Foreign Policy Analysis’, in Groom and Mitchell, op. cit. pp. 153–171.Google Scholar

82. Odom, William E., ‘A Dissenting View on the Group Approach to Soviet Polities’, World Politics, xxviii (1976), p. 566.Google Scholar