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Human Rights Ideas, the Demise of Communism, and the End of the Cold War

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Human Rights Ideas, the Demise of Communism, and the End of the Cold War ThomasHuman Rights Ideas, the Demise of Communism, and the End of the Cold War Human Rights Ideas, the Demise of Communism, and the End of the Cold War ✣ The reform and subsequent collapse of one-party Communist rule in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were critical to the end of the Cold War. Despite the huge military arsenals and alliance systems that emerged after 1945, the Cold War was fundamentally a conºict between do- mestic political systems based on incompatible state socialist and liberal dem- ocratic conceptions of political legitimacy. As the Eastern bloc moved away from the ideology and political structures of state socialism in the 1980s, dip- lomats from East and West found it easier to dismantle the military confron- tation that had long divided Europe and the world. The deepening of respect for human rights and the creation of demo- cratic institutions preceded moves away from the hostile attitudes and con- frontational military postures of the Cold War. Without these domestic polit- ical changes, the Cold War could have endured well beyond the late 1980s and certainly would not have been replaced by the political amity between former East and West that emerged in that period. Given the considerable inºuence that Moscow exercised over politics in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, this article focuses on developments in the Soviet Union. Why and how did a peaceful process of democratic change overcome a state socialist regime in the Soviet Union that had long demonstrated its will- ingness to use force in defense of the status quo? Why did Mikhail Gorbachev not follow Winston Churchill’s famous refusal to preside over the demise of the imperial system that he was chosen to lead? This article rejects claims that these changes resulted simply from the instrumental (and increasingly desper- ate) initiatives of politically conservative elites motivated by concern about the Soviet Union’s economic decline and lack of strategic competitiveness. In- stead, it focuses on the effects of ideas about human rights that were embed- ded in European institutions and disseminated throughout the Soviet Union by a transnational network of human rights activists and other dissidents. Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 7, No. 2, Spring 2005, pp. 110–141 © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 110 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520397053630600 by guest on 24 September 2021 Human Rights Ideas, the Demise of Communism, and the End of the Cold War Soviet leaders valued these institutions for a variety of instrumental and in- trinsic reasons. The article acknowledges the considerable (albeit limited) ex- planatory power of material pressures for change and shows how material and ideational pressures reinforced each other. The article is divided into four parts. The ªrst part introduces both mate- rialist and ideationalist explanations for the reform and eventual collapse of one-party Communist rule in the Soviet Union and identiªes the limitations of the materialist arguments. The second part demonstrates how exposure to ideas and norms of human rights contributed to Gorbachev’s (and others’) in- terest in political reform. The third part demonstrates how these same ideas contributed to the escalation of political reform and the demise of one-party rule. Data for these two empirical sections are drawn from translations of newly released Soviet documents, the memoirs of policymakers, and reports from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as newspapers and other secondary sources. The ªnal section evaluates the implications of these ªndings for our understanding of the end of the Cold War and the role of ideas in world politics. Theoretical Perspectives Scholarly disputes about material and ideational determinants of the end of the Cold War tend to be rooted in larger rationalist and constructivist ap- proaches to political theory and social science. Rationalist approaches assume that individuals act in ways that appear most likely to help them achieve pre- existing interests, which are generally deªned in material terms. Rationalists treat ideas as epiphenomenal (albeit sometimes convenient) reasons for action that are cited by actors whose preferences are actually determined by material incentives.1 This logic underlies claims that the demise of the Soviet Union re- sulted from the ºawed efforts of Soviet leaders to improve the productivity, efªciency, and competitiveness of the Soviet economy, and that apparent con- cessions to human rights ideas were nothing more than tactical maneuvers. In contrast, constructivist approaches assume that actors seek to behave in accordance with norms relevant to their identities in particular social con- texts.2 By this logic, the creation and diffusion of new ideas may exert autono- mous and enduring effects on behavioral and institutional outcomes. This ar- ticle emphasizes three causal and constitutive linkages between ideas and 1. See Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ: Prince- ton University Press, 1993). 2. See John Ruggie, “What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge,” International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Autumn 1998), pp. 855–885. 111 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520397053630600 by guest on 24 September 2021 Thomas outcomes: persuasion, rhetorical entrapment, and ideational empowerment.3 Persuasion occurs when actors are exposed to new ideas and convinced of their explanatory power (in the case of ideas about causes and effects) or their moral or social legitimacy (in the case of ideas about right and wrong). Rhetor- ical entrapment occurs when actors who have endorsed a particular idea for in- strumental reasons then adhere to its logic even when the reasons for adhering to it have been exhausted. They do so in order to avoid the costs of rhetorical inconsistency. Ideational empowerment occurs when the legitimization or en- dorsement of an idea by public ofªcials enables otherwise weak societal actors to challenge those ofªcials to carry out social or political change. Based on this constructivist logic, one could hypothesize that exposure to ideas and norms of human rights that were prevalent in the late 1970s and early 1980s would transform the values and identities of (some) Soviet decision-makers. Given the autocratic and repressive nature of the Soviet party-state, one would expect (some) members of the Soviet leadership who were persuaded by the logic of human rights ideas or compelled by the legiti- macy of human rights norms to support policies that would democratize the political system. Over time, reforms they initiated could strengthen societal challenges to the status quo and thus undermine the viability of one-party Communist rule.4 Evaluating these hypotheses empirically is no easy task. Simple evidence of support for political reform would not settle the question of whether this behavior was motivated by persuasion or by the instrumental calculation asso- ciated with the materialist logic. The persistence of key actors’ commitments to political reform would therefore be crucial. One would expect individuals who were genuinely persuaded or entrapped by human rights norms to con- tinue supporting reform long after those with a purely instrumental (i.e., materialist) commitment to reform had reverted to the use of repression to preserve the monopoly position of the party-state. 3. On the relationship between causal and constitutive forms of social explanation, see Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 77– 88. 4. For other constructivist contributions to the literature on the end of the Cold War, see Friedrich Kratochwil and Rey Koslowski, “Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet Union’s Demise and the International System,” in Richard Ned Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen, eds., Inter- national Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 109–126; Tomas Risse, “The Cold War’s Endgame and German Uniªcation,” International Secu- rity, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Spring 1997), pp. 158–185; Thomas Risse, “‘Let’s Argue!’: Communicative Action in World Politics,” International Organization, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2000), pp. 1–40; Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Robert D. English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); and Robert D. English, “Power, Ideas and New Evidence on the Cold War’s End: A Reply to Brooks and Wohlforth,” International Security, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Spring 2002), pp. 70–93. 112 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520397053630600 by guest on 24 September 2021 Human Rights Ideas, the Demise of Communism, and the End of the Cold War Further ambiguities arise with evidence that actors were exposed to human rights ideas and later acted in a manner consistent with those ideas. This behavior may have reºected either persuasion or entrapment. Testimo- nial evidence from the people in question that their choices were shaped by their prior conversion to human rights ideas would be signiªcant but not con- clusive, given the risk of self-serving rhetoric. In contrast, evidence that actors endorsed the
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