A01=Daniel C. Thomas
Activism
Adam Michnik
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Alexander Dubcek
American Enterprise Institute
Andrei Amalrik
Author_Daniel C. Thomas
Brezhnev Doctrine
Category=JPA
Category=JPFC
Category=JPVH
Charter 77
Chronicle of Current Events
Cold War
Cold War (1985-91)
Cold War II
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Communism
Counter-revolutionary
Czechoslovakia
Disarmament
Dissident
Eastern Bloc
Eastern Europe
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
European Defence Community
European Political Cooperation
Foray
Foreign policy
Freedom of speech
George Ball (diplomat)
Goulash Communism
Helsinki Accords
Henry Kissinger
Human Rights Watch
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Imperialism
International human rights law
International relations
Jackson-Vanik amendment
Janos Kadar
Jimmy Carter
John Mearsheimer
Leonid Brezhnev
Liberalism
Mikhail Gorbachev
Military dictatorship
Moscow Helsinki Group
NATO
Non-interventionism
Ostpolitik
Peaceful coexistence
Politique
Popular sovereignty
Prague Spring
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Radio Free EuropeRadio Liberty
Ratification
Robert Keohane
Roy Medvedev
Samizdat
Smithsonian Institution
Socialism with a human face
Soviet dissidents
Soviet Empire
Soviet Union
State actor
State socialism
The Anarchical Society
Theory of International Politics
Threat of force (public international law)
Ukrainian Helsinki Group
Warsaw Pact
Western media
Workers' Defence Committee
Yuri Orlov
Product details
- ISBN 9780691048598
- Weight: 397g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 05 Aug 2001
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Human rights norms do matter. Those established by the Helsinki Final Act contributed directly to the demise of communism in the former East bloc, contends Daniel Thomas. This book counters those skeptics who doubt that such international norms substantially affect domestic political change, while explaining why, when, and how they matter most. Thomas argues that the Final Act, signed in 1975, transformed the agenda of East-West relations and provided a common platform around which opposition forces could mobilize. Without downplaying other factors, Thomas shows that the norms established at Helsinki undermined the viability of one-party Communist rule and thereby contributed significantly to the largely peaceful and democratic changes of 1989, as well as the end of the Cold War. Drawing on both governmental and nongovernmental sources, he offers a powerful Constructivist alternative to Realist theory's failure to anticipate or explain these crucial events.
This study will fundamentally influence ongoing debates about the politics of international institutions, the socialization of states, the spread of democracy, and, not least, about the balance of factors that felled the Iron Curtain. It casts new light on Solidarity, Charter 77, and other democratic movements in Eastern Europe, the sources of Gorbachev's reforms, the evolution of the European Union, U.S. foreign policy, and East-West relations in the final decades of the Cold War. The Helsinki Effect will be essential reading for scholars and students of international relations, international law, European politics, human rights, and social movements.
Daniel C. Thomas is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. During 1998-99, he was Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He has coedited three books on international security issues.
