ABSTRACT

Political competition among Politburo members to shape Soviet foreign policy should inhibit their learning from events or trends in the international situation. Success in political competition depends on the relative persuasiveness to constituents of rival leaders' foreign policy postures, which include both policy recommendations and images of the world situation. The effects of both bargaining and authority building on foreign policy may mimic learning about the international situation. Learning is associated with change in integrative complexity and accompanying variation in both content and flexibility of policy. Bargaining can change the complexity of individual leaders' statements on foreign policy. In competitive politics, rival leaders use their public statements not only to appeal to their own followers but to offer bargaining concessions to rivals and to signal acceptance of compromises. Complexity of policy and leaders' commentary may also vary over time as bargaining produces a rearrangement of issue linkages and a change in the uniformity of images used to justify foreign policy.