Soviet Policies and Kremlin Politics

Abstract

Soviet foreign policy reflects the characteristics of the political process that produces it. Since 1953, the Soviet policymaking process has assumed five distinct forms—here called ‘regimes’. Each regime—Pluralistic, Directive, Primatial, Oligarchic, and Cartelistic—corresponds to a specific pattern of intra-elite competition and division of decisionmaking authority. Each regime, in turn, yields a unique ‘policy syndrome’—a unique combination of policy attributes. Here, four attributes are considered: consistency, responsiveness, coherence, and risk-taking. The relationships between regimes and policy syndromes are tested empirically, using COPDAB measures of Soviet-American interaction between 1953 and 1977.