1st Edition
Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures Why So Few Predicted the Collapse of the Soviet Union
By Ofira Seliktar
Copyright 2004
296 Pages
by
Routledge
296 Pages
by
Routledge
296 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Washington's failure to foresee the collapse of its superpower rival ranks high in the pantheon of predictive failures. The question of who got what right or wrong has been intertwined with the deeper issue of "who won" the Cold War. Like the disputes over "who lost" China and Iran, this debate has been fought out along ideological and partisan lines, with conservatives claiming credit for the... Read more
Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Predicting Political Change; 1. Theories of Political Change and Prediction of Change: Methodological Problems; 2. Oligarchic Petrification or Pluralistic Transformation: Paradigmatic Views of the Soviet Union in the 1970s; 3. Paradigms and the Debate on Relations with the Soviet Union: Detente, New Internationalism, and Neoconservatism; 4. The Reagan Administration and the Soviet Interregnum: Accelerating the Demise of the Communist Empire; 5. Acceleration: Tinkering Around the Edges, 1985-1986; 6. Perestroika: Systemic Change, 1987-1989; The Unintended Consequences of Radical Transformation: Losing Control of the Revolution and the Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1990-1991; 8. Reflections on Predictive Failures
Biography
Ofira Seliktar earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and completed her doctorate in political science at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow. She teaches at Gratz College and Temple University and is the author of several books and many articles on the Middle East and predictive failures in intelligence. Failing the Crystal Ball Test: The Carter Administration and the Fundamentalist Revolution in Iran (2000) explores the American failure to predict the Khomeini revolution. Seliktar is currently working on a study of the politics of prediction and the war in Iraq.
