From Cold War to collapse

The 1980s was a decade of upheaval unprecedented since the conclusion of World War Two. In 1980 superpower detente had been abandoned and there was no sign of an end to the competition and conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Yet by the end of the decade the Cold War was officially declared to have ended. Communist elites had been overthrown in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union was in a state of disintegration, and the two superpowers had embarked on a process of unparalleled international cooperation. The suddenness and rapidity of change took most observers by surprise, and led many to reassess their assumptions about global politics. This volume brings together a number of scholars who review their own ideas alongside the writing of others (such as Kenneth Waltz, John Lewis Gaddis and Stanley Hoffmann) to discuss how well their international relations theories have survived the collapse of the Cold War. It asks a number of relevant questions about how the Cold War should be conceptualized; why theorists overlooked the potential for change in Eastern Europe; why the Soviet Union shifted its foreign policy; the contribution of radical and feminist theory; and the future of International Relations theory itself.