The Politics of Foreign Policy

Abstract

Issues of national security and foreign policy penetrated Soviet domestic politics more narrowly than is generally the case in capitalist states. Traditionally the political reach of international issues was restricted both in terms of the groups able to influence the development of external policy and in the range of its domestic ripple effect. The number of actors involved in making international policy has been smaller than in democratic states. Soviet policy making in general was highly secretive and centralised: this was especially the case in defence and foreign policy, fields universally associated with closed decision making. The political reach of external policy was also restricted inasmuch as the USSR remained relatively cut off from the international political and economic system. International contacts certainly grew in the post-Stalin period, yet the country remained relatively closed. As a result the spectrum of domestic issues affected by external policy, and thus the range of domestic constituencies with strong vested interests in foreign policy, has remained quite narrow.