The pursuit of order, welfare and legitimacy: Explaining the end of the soviet union and the cold war

Edward A. Kolodziej

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

This chapter reviews prevailing theories as partial explanations for the transformations in international politics. It discusses a socio-historical approach as a more satisfactory explanation of these massive shifts in global power and governance. The chapter provides a provisional empirical test of a socio-historical explanation. Other analysts prefer political or moral factors as the critical determinants of the Cold War’s end and of the Soviet Union’s demise. Three key concepts - order, welfare and legitimacy -must be first understood as preconditions for a socio-historical explanation for the implosion of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Empire, command economy, and centralized communist rule were at sixes and sevens respectively with the nation-state system capitalist markets and nationally expressed democratic forces as the respective responses to the imperatives of order, welfare and legitimacy of the emerging world society.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationMysteries of the Cold War
EditorsStephen J Cimbala
PublisherRoutledge
Pages19-48
Number of pages30
ISBN (Electronic)9780429832802
ISBN (Print)9781138325920
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 6 2018

Publication series

NameRoutledge Revivals

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Social Sciences

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