Monitoring the Integrative Complexity of American and Soviet Policy Rhetoric: What Can Be Learned?

Abstract

Research psychologists cannot tell us the ultimate motives behind Soviet foreign policy or the true causes of the cold war. They can, however, use content analysis methods with records of successful application in other contexts to explore the links between rhetoric and action in American-Soviet reiations. This article describes a series of studies on the integrative complexity of American and Soviet foreign policy rhetoric. An ongoing time-series study reveals a variety of determinants of policy rhetoric: the rhetoric of the other side, imp'ending or current policy initiatives, American presidential election campaigns, and changes in both the American and Soviet leadership. The paper also describes preliminary work on the integrative complexiiy of statements of key Soviet leaders on economic and foreign policy issues, demonstrating that the current Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, is significantly more complex than either his immediate predecessors or his traditionalist rivals for the leadership. The article considers implications of the ' 'Gorbachev effect' ' for our understanding of domestic Soviet politics and for designing American policy toward the Soviet Union.Debates over the political intentions of the Soviet leadership provoke sharp conflicts among American foreign policy analysts. Advocates of "liberal" conflict-spiral positions argue that Soviet motives are fundamentally defensive (driven by security concerns) and that the current geopolitical and military competition between the superpowers derives less from the incompatibility of the actual interests of the United States and Soviet Union, and more from the propensity of

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