1. Explanations of foreign policy change are less extensive than explanations of stability and obstacles to change. Most analyses of change are focused at the system level. See, for example, Jones, R. J. Barry, “Concepts and Models of Change in International Relations,” in Buzan, Barry and Jones, Barry, eds., Change and the Study of International Relations: The Evaded Dimension (New York: St. Martin's, 1981), pp. 11–29Google Scholar;Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gaddis, John Lewis, “Tectonics, History, and the End of the Cold War,” in Gaddis, John Lewis, ed., The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 155–67Google Scholar; and Ruggie, John Gerard, “Continuity and Transformation in the International Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis,” in Keohane, Robert O., ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 131–57Google Scholar. Hermann focuses most explicitly on directed foreign policy change and argues for a multilevel, multivariate explanation. See Hermann, Charles F., “Changing Course: When Governments Choose to Redirect Foreign Policy,” International Studies Quarterly 34 (03 1990), pp. 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. The phrase “new thinking” was first used by foreign policy specialists Anatoliy Gromyko and Vladimir Lomeiko. SeeNation, R. Craig, Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917–1991 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 288Google Scholar.

3. Parrott, Bruce, “Soviet National Security Under Gorbachev,” Problems of Communism 6 (11–12 1988), pp. 1–36Google Scholar.

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5. Vitaly Zhurkin, Sergei Karaganov, and Andrei Kortunov argued that relying exclusively on military-technical instruments was to set Soviet security against the security of others. “Reasonable Sufficiency-Or How to Break the Vicious Circle,” New Times 40 (12 10 1987), pp. 13–15Google Scholar.

6. A recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) National Intelligence Estimate of Soviet military capability in 1983 highlighted the extensive modernization and deployment of Soviet strategic forces. It emphasized the growing capability of a force of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, the intermediate-range SS-20s, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), long-range cruise missiles, and strategic bombers. The CIA estimated that there was significant potential for an increase in the size and capability of the forces, and that political and economic factors would not play much of a role in restraining the expansion of Soviet forces.

7. Kennedy, Paul, Preparing for the Twenty-First Century (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 231Google Scholar.

8. Ibid., p. 295.

9. Gorbachev is quoted in Kaiser, Robert G., Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumph and His Failure (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), p. 76Google Scholar.

10. Personal interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, Toronto, 1 April 1993.

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12. For an examination of the limits of structural explanations for the end of the cold war, see Richard Ned Lebow, “The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism,” this issue of International Organization.

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17. Meyer, , “The Sources and Prospects of New Political Thinking on Security,” pp. 135–38Google Scholar.

18. Pravda, 6 August 1988.

19. Weber, Steven argues this point cogently in “Interactive Learning in U.S.-Soviet Arms Control,” in Breslauer, George W. and Tetlock, Philip E., eds., Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 784–824Google Scholar.

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38. It is difficult to draw definitive conclusions about Andropov, given his short tenure in office. In his fifteen months in office, Andropov withdrew from the INF talks after NATO began its deployment of Pershing Us. Andropov was also the patron of many of the young reformers during the Brezhnev years and was well-placed to tap new ideas. A policy review of the war in Afghanistan was conducted while he was General Secretary, and Arbatov, the director of the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada, suggests that Andropov concluded that no military solution was possible in Afghanistan. However, Arbatov maintains that the review was limited to the problem of Afghanistan and did not touch more fundamental aspects of Soviet security. Personal interview with Georgii Arbatov, Moscow, 19 May 1989.

39. Tetlock identifies four structural dimensions of complexity: cognitive complexity; evaluative complexity, or the degree of inconsistency, tension, or dissonance that exists among the various cognitions; cognitive interaction; and metacognition. Tetlock argues that increasing cognitive complexity increases the likelihood both of pursuing policies that lead to important goals and of setting realistic goals, especially when the environment is highly complex and rapidly changing. See Tetlock, Philip, “Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy: In Search of an Elusive Concept,” in Breslauer, and Tetlock, , Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 20–61Google Scholar, and especially pp. 32–35 and 40; and Tetlock and Boettger, “Cognitive and Rhetorical Styles of Traditionalist and Reformist Soviet Politicians.”

40. Gorbachev developed these arguments in more detail later in his career: “This can only be achieved by learning to live together, to cohabit side by side on this small planet threatened by ecological and environmental degradation, mastering the difficult art of taking into account each other's mutual interests. This is what we mean by peaceful coexistence.” See Gorbachev, Mikhail S., Izbrannye rechi i stat'i (Selected speeches and articles), 7 vols. (Moscow: 1987–1990), vol. 2, p. 461Google Scholar.

41. In related research, Tetlock and Boettger find significant differences in complexity between Soviet traditionalists and reformers. See “Cognitive and Rhetorical Styles of Traditionalist and Reformist Soviet Politicians.” Other scholars have compared Gorbachev with previous Soviet leaders and found that he scored higher on conceptual complexity. He is able to differentiate among alternative principles and policies and then integrate disparate elements into complex higher-order generalizations. See Winter, David G., Hermann, Margaret G., Weintraub, Walter, and Walker, Stephen G., “Theory and Predictions in Political Psychology: The Personalities of Bush and Gorbachev Measured at a Distance: Procedures, Portraits, and Policy,” Political Psychology 12 (06 1991), pp. 215–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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44. An analysis of Gorbachev's speeches before and after he became General Secretary classifies Gorbachev as a traditionalist until March 1985 and an ardent reformer thereafter. See Tetlock and Boettger, “Cognitive and Rhetorical Styles of Traditionalist and Reformist Soviet Politicians.” The speeches Gorbachev delivered before he became General Secretary cannot provide valid data to assess his cognitive complexity because of the constraints operating on Soviet leaders.

45. Tetlock argues that whereas beliefs (or content) can shift without entailing structural change, a change in structure necessarily leads to a change in beliefs. See Tetlock, “Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy.” Tetlock and Boettger argue that integrative complexity is in part a function of role and ideology; see their “Cognitive and Rhetorical Styles of Traditionalist and Reformist Soviet Politicians.” Liberals are far more likely than conservatives to become integratively complex when they assume office.

46. Cognitive psychologists identify a variety of different types of expectancies or schemata. See Jones, Edward E. and McGillis, Daniel, “Correspondent Inferences and the Attribution Cube: A Comparative Reappraisal,” in Harvey, John H., Ickes, William J., and Kidd, Robert F., eds., New Directions in Attribution Research, vol. 1 (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1976), pp. 389–420Google Scholar; Darley, John M. and Fazio, Russell H., “Expectancy Confirmation Processes Arising in the Social Interaction Sequence,” American Psychologist 35 (10 1980), pp. 867–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Higgins, E. Tory and King, Gillian, “Accessibility of Social Constructs: Information-processing Consequences of Individual and Contextual Variability,” in Cantor, Nancy and Kihlstrom, John F., eds., Personality, Cognition, and Social Interaction (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1981), pp. 69–121Google Scholar; Berman, Jeffrey S., Read, Stephen J., and Kenny, David A., “Processing Inconsistent Social Information,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45 (12 1983), pp. 1211–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; andBargh, John A. and Thein, Roman D., “Individual Construct Accessibility, Person Memory, and the Recalljudgment Link: The Case of Information Overload,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49 (11 1985), pp. 1129–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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49. See Vertzberger, , The World in Their Minds, pp. 123–25Google Scholar, for a discussion of relative value stability in the face of belief change.

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51. Kuklinski, , Luskin, , and Bolland, , “Where Is the Schema?” p. 1346Google Scholar.

52. Good, Thomas L. and Brophy, Jere E., Educational Psychology: A Realistic Approach (New York: Longman, 1990)Google Scholar. Developmental psychology is more helpful, but it too works largely with known responses.

53. Haas describes this dimension of political learning as “nested problem sets.” See Haas, Ernest, When Knowledge Is Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 84Google Scholar.

54. Jack Levy, “Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield,” this issue of International Organization.

55. See especially Tetlock, , “Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy, p. 40Google Scholar; Haas, When Knowledge Is Power; and Breslauer and Tetlock, Learning in U. S. and Soviet Foreign Policy. An early study of Soviet and American learning on security issues isGeorge, Alexander L., Farley, Philip J., and Dallin, Alexander, U.S.Soviet Security Cooperation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

56. See Stein, Janice Gross, “Deterrence and Compellence in the Gulf: A Failed or Impossible Task?” International Security 17 (Autumn 1992), pp. 147–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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59. Levy argues that an “efficiency” concept of learning, or one that emphasizes the matching of means to ends, can be assessed only against empirically confirmed laws of social behavior. In their absence, he concludes, it is preferable to exclude efficiency from concepts of learning and include only changes in beliefs. See Levy, “Learning and Foreign Policy.”

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66. Mendelson, Sarah, “Internal Battles and External Wars: Politics, Learning, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan,” World Politics 45 (04 1993), pp. 327–60 and especially p. 344CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gorbachev referred to a broad-based canvas of reports from specialists on the need for change in the Soviet Union that he conducted with the assistance of Nikolai Ryzhkov, then the head of the Economic Department of the Central Committee, before he became General Secretary. See Pravda, 7 January 1989.

67. Shevardnadze, Eduard, The Future Belongs to Freedom, trans. Fitzpatrick, Catherine A. (New York: Free Press, 1991), p. 26Google Scholar.

68. Personal interview with Aleksandr Yakovlev, Toronto, 27 September 1993.

69. Falin is quoted in Oberdorfer, Don, The Turn from the Cold War to a New Era: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1983–1990 (New York: Poseidon Press, 1991), p. 113Google Scholar.

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72. See ibid, pp. 126–29, which cites interviews with senior Gorbachev advisers. Shevardnadze observed that the most important purpose of foreign policy was “to create the maximum favorable external conditions needed in order to conduct internal reform.” See Shevardnadze, , The Future Belongs to Freedom, p. xiGoogle Scholar.

73. Meyer, , “The Sources and Prospects of Soviet New Political Thinking on Security,” p. 129Google Scholar, makes this argument.

74. Personal interview with Anatoliy Dobrynin, former Soviet ambassador to the United States, Moscow, 17 December 1992.

75. Personal interview with Andrei Aleksandrov-Agentov, former Soviet security adviser, Moscow, 12 August 1993.

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77. An analysis of Gorbachev's personality scored him low on “creativity” and predicted that he would be especially receptive to others' ideas and to solutions to problems suggested by his advisers. SeeWinter, , Hermann, , Weintraub, , and Walker, , “Theory and Predictions in Political Psychology,” p. 235Google Scholar.

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82. See Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War,” in this issue of International Organization; and Mendelson, “Internal Battles and External Wars.”

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84. See, for example, Olegovich Bogomolov, “Afghanistan as Seen in 1980,” Moscow News 30,30 July-6 August 1988. For a detailed examination of the impact of policy scientists as an epistemic community, see Shenfield, Stephen, The Nuclear Predicament: Explorations in Soviet Ideology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987)Google Scholar; Lynch, Allen, The Soviet Study of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bruce Parrott, “Soviet National Security Under Gorbachev”; and Herman, Robert, “Soviet New Thinking: Ideas, Interests, and the Redefinition of Security,” Ph.D diss., Department of Government, Cornell University, in progressGoogle Scholar.

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86. Warner, Edward L. III, “New Political Thinking and Old Realities in Soviet Defence Policy,” Survival 31 (01–02 1989), pp. 18–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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88. Personal interview with Yakovlev and with Arbatov.

89. Interviews with Ambassador Leonid Zamyatin, who subsequently headed TASS, Moscow, 16 December 1991; and with Dobrynin. See alsoHerman, , “Soviet New Thinking.”Google Scholar

90. Personal interview with Yakovlev.

91. See Herman, “Soviet New Thinking”; Mendelson, “Internal Battles and External Wars”; and Checkel, “Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution.” For a broader study of epistemic communities, or networks of knowledge-based experts, see the collection of essays in Haas, Peter M., ed., “Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization 46 (Winter 1992)Google Scholar.

92. On the concept of “policy entrepreneur,” see Matthew Evangelista, “Sources of Moderation in Soviet Security Policy,” inTetlock, Philip E., Husbands, Jo L., Jervis, Robert, Stern, Paul C., and Tilly, Charles, eds., Behavior, Society, and Nuclear War, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 254–355Google Scholar, especially pp. 275–77. On the concept of a “policy window,” see Kingdon, John W., Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984)Google Scholar.

93. Gorbachev also institutionalized an informal advisory system that provided a wider flow of ideas and critical advice on security issues. Although Andropov, and at times Brezhnev, had occasionally engaged in private discussions with institute officials, Gorbachev created bodies of experts from the institutes, the press, and the ministries and met frequently to ask their advice and opinions. He made almost no major decision without expert advice. Based on personal interview with Pavel Palazchenko, Gorbachev's long-standing interpreter, Toronto, 1 April 1993.

94. In a complementary stream of evidence, research in cognitive psychology suggests that at times behavior leads to changes in schema as people make inferences from their behavior about their convictions. See Salanick, Gerald R. and Conway, Mary, “Attitude Inference from Salient and Relevant Cognitive Content About Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32 (11 1975), pp. 829–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Zanna, Mark P., Olson, James M., and Fazio, Ralph H., “Attitude-Behavior Consistency: An Individual Difference Perspective,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38 (03 1980), pp. 432–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Once people are convinced that their behavior has been shaped by their prior beliefs, those beliefs become even more important in shaping future behavior. Inference from behavior is a dominant cognitive mechanism in the early stages of development of beliefs and attitudes. See Bern, J. Daryl, “Self-Perception Theory,” in Berkowitz, Leonard, ed., Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 6 (New York: Academic Press, 1972), pp. 1–61Google Scholar; Fazio, R. H., Zanna, M. P., and Cooper, Joel, “Dissonance and Self-Perception: An Integrative View of Each Theory's Proper Domain of Application,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 13 (09 1977), pp. 464–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nisbett, Richard E. and Valins, Stuart, “Perceiving the Causes of One's Own Behavior,” in Jones, Edward E., Knouse, David E., Kelley, Harold H., Nisbett, Richard E., Valins, Stuart, and Weiner, Bernard, eds., Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior (Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press, 1971), pp. 63–78Google Scholar; and Vertzberger, , The World in Their Minds, p. 169Google Scholar. Decision makers who have little prior experience develop their beliefs while on the job; their beliefs and attitudes can change as a result of the inferences they draw from their behavior.

95. Personal interview with Gorbachev.

96. Gorbachev, , Perestroika, p. 11Google Scholar.

97. See Thane Gustafson and Mann, Dawn, “Gorbachev's First Year: Building Power and Authority,” Problems of Communism 35 (05–06 1986), pp. 1–19Google Scholar; and Hough, Jerry F., “Gorbachev Consolidating Power,” Problems of Communism 36 (07–08 1987), pp. 169–70Google Scholar.

98. Andrew Bennett, Owen, “Patterns of Soviet Military Interventionism 1975–1990: Alternative Explanations and Their Implications,” in Zimmerman, William, ed., Beyond the Soviet Threat: American Security Policy in a New Era (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), pp. 105–27Google Scholar.

99. See Haas, When Knowledge Is Power; and Ernest Haas, “Collective Learning: Some Theoretical Speculations,” inBreslauer, and Tetlock, , Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 62–99Google Scholar. See also Etheredge, Lloyd, Can Governments Learn? (New York: Pergamon, 1985)Google Scholar; and March, James G. and Olsen, Johan P., “The Uncertainty of the Past: Organizational Learning Under Ambiguity,” in March, James G., ed., Decisions and Organizations (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp. 335–58Google Scholar.

100. Parrott, “Soviet National Security Under Gorbachev.”

101. Winter, Hermann, Weintraub, and Walker, “Theory and Predictions in Political Psychology.”

102. See Odell, John, U.S. International Monetary Policy: Markets, Power, and Ideas as a Source of Change (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 367–76Google Scholar; and Haas, Peter, “Towards an Evolutionary Model of Institutional Learning: Ideas and Structuration,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 1–4 11 1993Google Scholar.

103. For an analysis of part of this debate, see Rey Koslowski and Friedrich Kratochwil, “Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet Empire's Demise and the International System,” this issue of International Organization.