Politics, paradigms, and intelligence failures : why so few predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union / / Ofira Seliktar

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910464017703321
• Autore: Seliktar Ofira
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: London ; ; New York : , : Routledge, , 2015
• ISBN: 1-315-70163-4; 0-7656-1465-0; 1-317-46243-2
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (294 p.)
• Disciplina: 327.73047/09/048
• Soggetti: Electronic books.; Soviet Union Politics and government 1953-1985; Soviet Union Politics and government 1985-1991
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: First published 2004 by M.E. Sharpe.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: ""Cover ""; ""Half Title ""; ""Title Page ""; ""Copyright Page ""; ""Dedication ""; ""Table of Contents ""; ""List of Abbreviations ""; ""Preface ""; ""Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Predicting Political Change""; ""1. Theories of Political Change and Prediction of Change: Methodological Problems""; ""Methodological Problems of Tracking Changes in a Collective Belief System""; ""The Dimensions of a Collective Belief System: Existential Imperatives as Validity Claims""; ""Changing the Collective Belief System: The Process of Delegitimation""; ""Activating the Process of Delegitimation: Trigger Conditions of Change""""The Durability of Legitimacy: Personal and Systemic Factors of Maintenance""; ""Legitimacy of the Soviet Union: The Theory and Politics of a Concept""; ""Rational Choice Theory and Soviet Legitimacy: Coercion and Preference Falsification""; ""2. Oligarchic Petrification or Pluralistic Transformation: Paradigmatic Views of the Soviet Union in the 1970s""; ""The Totalitarian Model: Oligarchic Petrification and Final Doom""; ""The Revisionist Model: Pluralistic Transformation and Final Convergence""; ""The Chernenko-Gorbachev Transition: The View from Moscow """"The Chernenko-Gorbachev Transition: The View from Washington ""; ""5. ; Acceleration: Tinkering Around the Edges, 1985-1986""; ""Revisiting Communist Legitimacy: In Search of a New Formula""; ""Domestic Reforms and Gorbachev's Foreign Policy: Clouding the Vision for a Global Class Struggle""; ""Making Sense of Gorbachev: The Politics of the Predictive Process in Washington""; ""The Revisionist Paradigm Vindicated? Gorbachev and the Reformability of the Soviet System""; ""6. Perestroika: Systemic Change,1987-1989""; ""Experimenting with a New Legitimacy Formula: From Gramsci to ""Socialist Democracy"" and ""Socialist Market""""
• Sommario/riassunto: Washington's failure to foresee the collapse of its superpower rival ranks high in the pantheon of predictive failures. The question of who got what right or wrong has been intertwined with the deeper issue of ""who won"" the Cold War. Like the disputes over ""who lost"" China and Iran, this debate has been fought out along ideological and partisan lines, with conservatives claiming credit for the Evil Empire's demise and liberals arguing that the causes were internal to the Soviet Union. The intelligence community has come in for harsh criticism for overestimating Soviet strength and overlook