The paradox of state strength: transnational relations, domestic structures, and security policy in Russia and the Soviet Union

Abstract

A transnational community of disarmament proponents achieved considerable success in influencing Soviet security policy in the 1980s on several issues, including two examined here: nuclear testing and strategic defenses. Fundamental changes in the Soviet domestic structure after 1989, however, had the paradoxical effect of making transnational actors simultaneously less constrained in promoting their favored policies and less effective in getting them implemented. Transnational relations and domestic structures in combination affect security policy. This interaction likewise has implications for theories of ideas, learning, and epistemic communities.