Nested Games of External Democracy Promotion - The United States and the Polish Liberalization 1980-1989

Acknowledgements

Contents

List of Figures and Tables

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

1 Regime Transitions and External Democracy Promotion

1.1 Research Design and Summary of the Argument

1.2 The Nested Games Model

1.3 Central Contribution

1.4 Outline

2 The International Dimension of Regime Change

2.1 Domestic Causes of Regime Transitions

2.2 International Framework

2.2.1 The Internationalist Argument

2.2.2 Outside Conditions: Diffusion Effects, Contagion and Socialization

2.3 External Democracy Promotion

2.3.1 Strategies, Instruments and Targets

2.3.2 Democracy Promotion versus Democracy Protection

2.4 Quantifying International Factors

2.5 Democratization and International Relations Theories

2.5.1 International Organizations and Domestic Politics

2.5.2 Uncertainty and Crises: Deterring Authoritarian Repression

3 Strategic Transitions

3.1 The Positional School

3.1.1 Transition Politics as Rational Choice

3.1.2 Formal Theories of Democratization

3.1.3 A Question of Life and Death? Uncertainty about Government Repression

3.2 Transitions as Distributional Conflict: The Economic School

3.3 Rationality and Democratization Actors

3.3.1 Why Game Theory?

3.3.2 Rationality and its Critiques

3.3.3 Limitations

4 Nested Games of External Influence on Strategic Regime Transition

4.1 Modeling the International Dimension

4.1.1 Internal-External Linkages: Scope of Theory and Analysis

4.1.2 Constructing Games

4.1.3 Basic Assumptions of the Nested Games Approach

4.2 Regime, Opposition, and Foreign Power

4.2.1 Principal Arena I: Game of Transition

4.2.2 Principal Arena II: Outcomes

4.2.3 International Arena I: Foreign Pressure Game

4.2.4 International Arena II: Outcomes

4.3 Nested Games of Transition and Foreign Pressure

4.3.1 Formalization

4.3.2 Discussion and Interpretation

4.4 The Model’s Implications and Generating of Hypotheses

4.4.1 Preference Change of the Regime

4.4.2 Weighing the Games

4.4.3 Temporal Dimension

4.4.4 Impact on the Opposition and the Democracy Promotion Dilemma

4.4.5 Summary

5 Methodology

5.1 Empirical Research Design

5.2 Case Selection

5.3 Data Basis

5.4 Structure of the Empirical Part

6 U.S. Democracy Assistance in the Polish Liberalization Process, 1980-1989

6.1 The United States Policy Toward Poland

6.2 Poland’s Path to the Round Table Negotiations

6.2.1 The Birth of Solidarity, Strikes, and Martial Law, 1980-1981

6.2.2 Underground and Ostensible Stability, 1982-1988

6.2.3 Induction and Negotiations of the Round Table, 1988-1989

6.3 Supporting Solidarity

6.3.1 Sustaining the Underground

6.3.2 Communications and Propaganda

6.3.3 The Logistics of External Influence

6.3.4 Advice and Influence on Opposition Strategy

6.3.5 How to Elect Jaruzelski without Voting for him?

6.4 Pressuring the Jaruzelski Regime

6.4.1 Sanctions as Policy Instrument

6.4.2 The Post-Martial Law Sanctions Regime

6.5 Sub-Actors and Mechanisms of Democracy Promotion in Poland

6.5.1 National Endowment for Democracy

6.5.2 Waging Underground Political Warfare: The CIA

6.5.3 A Foreign Service of Its Own: The AFL-CIO

6.5.4 Department of State and USIA

7 Correspondence between Theory and Facts

7.1 Effect on Communist Regime

7.2 Effect on Solidarity

7.2.1 Professionalizing the Underground

7.2.2 Underground Press

7.2.3 Morale Boosting

7.3 Costs of Repression

7.3.1 Impact of Opposition Assistance on the Regime’s Cost Structure

7.3.2 Timeline: Nested Costs of Authoritarianism

7.4 Strategy Shifts and Trajectories of External Influence

7.4.1 Repression 1981

7.4.2 Opening 1986

7.4.3 Negotiations 1988/1989

7.4.4 The Juncture of Jaruzelski’s Election to President in 1989

8 Conclusion

8.1 Democracy Promotion as Nested Games

8.2 Key Implications for External Democracy Promotion

8.3 Future Research

Bibliography

Appendix 1: Derivations Repeated Play of Non-nested Games

Appendix 2: Derivations of Nested Game with Varying Frequencies

Appendix 3: List of Interviews