Introduction

Extract

Political surprise provides a double stimulus for social scientists. An unexpected regime change, an unanticipated revolution—indeed, any political event that is both dramatic and unforeseen—forces us to analyze not just the origins of the change itself but the origins of our own amazement. The political surprises that emerged in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s have, accordingly, compelled us to ask not simply why events unfolded as they did but why our predictive theories left us unprepared. The five essays collected here address both of these questions and therefore offer insights about both politics and scholarship.