Randall W. Stone

Satellites and Commissars (eBook, ePUB)

Strategy and Conflict in the Politics of Soviet-Bloc Trade

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Why did the Soviet Union squander the political leverage afforded by its trade subsidy to Eastern Europe? Why did Soviet officials fail to bargain with resolve, to link subsidies to salient political issues, to make credible commitments, and to monitor the satellites' policies? Using an unprecedented array of formerly secret documents housed in archives in Moscow, Warsaw, and Prague, as well as interviews with former Communist officials across Eastern Europe, Randall Stone answers these questions and others that have long vexed Western political scientists.

Stone argues that trade politics revolved around the incentives created by distorted prices. The East European satellites profited by trading on the margin between prices on the Western market and those in the Soviet bloc. The Soviet Union made numerous attempts to reduce its implicit trade subsidy and increase the efficiency of the bloc, but the satellites managed consistently to outmaneuver Soviet negotiators. Stone demonstrates how the East Europeans artfully resisted Soviet objectives.

Stone draws upon recent developments in bargaining and principal-agent theory, arguing that the incentives created by domestic institutions weakened Soviet bargaining strategies. In effect, he suggests, perverse incentive structures in the Soviet economy were exported into Soviet foreign policy. Furthermore, Stone argues, incentives to smother information were so deeply entrenched that they frustrated numerous attempts to reform Soviet institutions.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, D ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. Februar 2021
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780691225135
• Artikelnr.: 60804347

Autorenporträt

Randall W. Stone is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester. The dissertation on which this book is based won the Charles Sumner Prize from Harvard University and the 1994 Helen Dwight Reid Award from the American Political Science Association. He is also the author of Lending Credibility (Princeton).

Inhaltsangabe

List of Tables
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Ch. 1
A Principal-Agent Theory of Soviet Bargaining Failure
3
Ch. 2
The History of Subsidized Trade
27
Ch. 3
The Politics of Bilateral Trade Negotiations
49
Ch. 4
The Costs of Empire?
72
Ch. 5
Three Case Studies of Politics and Trade
89
Ch. 6
The Comprehensive Program
115
Ch. 7
The Long-Term Target Programs
148
Ch. 8
The Comprehensive Program for Scientific and Technical Progress
171
Ch. 9
Perestroika and the Unified Socialist Market
204
Ch. 10
Conclusions and Reflections
238
Appendix: List of Interviews
251
Selected Bibliography
261
Index
277