Altered states in international relations: the role of counterculture in the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Sheeran, PD, 2000. Altered states in international relations: the role of counterculture in the disintegration of the Soviet Union. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

This work seeks to assess the role of counterculture in initiating and achieving change in the former Soviet Union. In the modem world, established political and economic systems were not expected to cease to exist prematurely. The disintegration of a superpower, the former Soviet Union, however, undermines the premise that systemic collapse in mature environments is unlikely to occur. It is suggested that International Relations as a discipline failed to either predict or understand fully the reasons for change in the socialist bloc.

The thesis examines the workings of the Soviet system, its philosophical direction and bureaucratic inertia, and arguably more importantly, the opposition to it. It looks at the specific role of the intelligentsia, the dissident movement and the wider dissension present in the development of an alternative view, to make clear the precise nature of, and resistance within, the system itself.

It is suggested that the influence of attitudes arising from the living of everyday life needs to be calculated in an analysis of the change process; humour and irony being effective weapons against intransigence.

In studying the activity of alternative/counterculture within the former Soviet Union, its methods of coded activity, its ideological heritage (identifiable in one version through a genealogy from Pushkin to indigenous rock music), the limitations of a purely structural analysis are revealed.

The wider purpose of the work lies in addressing the conjecture that International Relations as a discipline is susceptible to limitations in recognising the nuances embedded in the change process at the local and global levels that complicate, distort, and potentially result in unexpected outcomes throughout the international system.

Item Type:	Thesis
Creators:	Sheeran, P.D.
Date:	2000
ISBN:	9781369313109
Identifiers:	Number Type PQ10183012 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	02 Sep 2020 10:04
Last Modified:	15 Jun 2023 10:10
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/40611

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