1. Peace Among States Is Also Peace Among Domestic Interests: Israel's Turn To De-escalation
- Author:
- Yagil Levy
- Publication Date:
- 06-1995
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Studies of Social Change
- Abstract:
- Demilitarization and de-escalation of violent conflicts have seemed to prevail during the last decade. The most significant event -- the collapse of the Soviet Union with the end of the Cold War--has stimulated scholars of international relations (IR) to retest the power of major theories to both explain and forecast the shift in the Soviet Union' 5 foreign policy from competition to cooperation with the U.S. (similar to shifts undergone by other states). Scholars generally agree that the economic crisis in the Soviet Union in a world system dominated by the U.S. played a key role in the former superpower's failure to extract the domestic resources needed to maintain its position of rivalry vis-à-vis the U.S., thus propelling it to embark on a new road. Still, scholars have debated with respect to the shift's timing and the origins of the trajectory opted for by the Soviet Union toward cooperation relative to other options, such as further competition as a means of ongoing internal-state extraction and control. This debate also highlights the analytical weaknesses of the realism/neorealism school of thought when taken against the background of the collapse of the bipolar, competitive world system on which this school has staked so much.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Defense Policy, Diplomacy, and Ethnic Conflict
- Political Geography:
- United States, Middle East, Israel, and Soviet Union