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

Abstract

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 domestic political systems based on incompatible state socialist and liberal democratic conceptions of political legitimacy. As the Eastern bloc moved away from the ideology and political structures of state socialism in the 1980s, diplomats from East and West found it easier to dismantle the military confrontation that had long divided Europe and the world.The deepening of respect for human rights and the creation of democratic institutions preceded moves away from the hostile attitudes and confrontational military postures of the Cold War. Without these domestic political changes, the Cold War could have endured well beyond the late 1980s and certainly would not have been replaced by the political amity between former East and West that emerged in that period.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 willingness 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 desperate) initiatives of politically conservative elites motivated by concern about the Soviet Union's economic decline and lack of strategic competitiveness. Instead, it focuses on the effects of ideas about human rights that were embedded in European institutions and disseminated throughout the Soviet Union by a transnational network of human rights activists and other dissidents.

Accounts and Accountability: Corruption, Human Rights, and Individual Accountability Norms

“…Bob, although introducing important questions of why some norms become more prominent than others, focuses his explanation on “the strategic action by local-level human rights victims.” Bob 2002, 134. Thomas's work on the end of the Cold War concludes that the causal effect of ideas and norms “depends on political agency.” Thomas 2005, 139. Kelley's recent study of the international election monitoring norm is based on the norm life cycle theory.…”

Dissident Words, Western Voices: The Relationship Between Samizdat and Radio Liberty During Detente

“…Additionally, Radio Liberty broadcasts exposed Soviet listeners to the Western perspectives on humanitarian issues and perpetuated the international normative environment of the West, which would eventually make respect for human rights non-negotiable under Gorbachev. 221 For the Soviet government during détente, the rapid rise of the dissident human rights movement came as a surprise. In 1975, in the immediate aftermath of the publication of the Helsinki Final Act, the number of KGB arrests dropped significantly, and the Soviet government attempted to explain away the flurry of dissident activity in its relations with the other signatories.…”