The Strategy of Political Liberalization: A Comparative View of Gorbachev's Reforms

Abstract

This article examines three Western European cases from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and shows that political liberalization does not necessarily require a reformer's commitment to democracy. Under the right circumstances, even conservative politicians may find liberalization to be a rational and acceptable means to secure their power and to defeat powerful opponents, despite the risk of future upheavals. Such circumstances were present in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev and his supporters used the strategy of political liberalization to remove the threat posed by their rivals in the party apparatus.