A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EASTERN EUROPEAN STATES' FOREIGN POLICIES WITH THE USSR: THE ALBANIAN, ROMANIAN AND YUGOSLAV CASES

Despite theoretical developments in the foreign policy field, few scholars have studied comparatively the foreign policies of Eastern European states with the USSR. Furthermore, there has been no single comparative study of autonomy aspect using theoretical frameworks for foreign policy.;The central hypothesis of the dissertation is that, within the Soviet Union Eastern European subsystem, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Romania achieved autonomy in their relations with the USSR, though there are some differences in the approaches to autonomy. Additionally, the achievement of autonomy is closely related to the political, economic, societal, and systemic variables in each of three states.;The achievement of autonomy by each of the three Eastern European states is closely associated with the role of the top leadership, solidarity of the party and government members, foreign trade, and aid from outside. However, each differed in the sources of their foreign trade and aid. Yugoslavia and Romania approached the West. Albania approached the People's Republic of China. The reasons for these differences in the sources are analyzed in terms of the unique situations surrounding the three Balkan countries. Suspension of Soviet aid, withdrawal of Soviet troops, and geographical remoteness are also identified as factors closely related to the Yugoslavian and Albanian achievement of autonomy.;The Romanian achievement of autonomy is related to the withdrawal of Soviet troops from its territory. However, the Soviet Union has not suspended its economic relations with Romania and geographically shares its borders with Romania. These different situations, along with other factors--the variations in the nature of the Soviet threat and its relationship to the leaders' sense of political power--contributed to the emergence of two different approaches to achieve their autonomy; the Yugoslavian and Albanian approach on the one hand, and the Romanian approach on the other hand.;The general purpose of the dissertation is to analyze comparatively three Eastern European states' autonomy (Yugoslavia, Albania, and Romania) using theoretical frameworks for foreign policy developed during the 1960's and 1970's. The proposed tasks are, specifically to describe and to compare the factors related to the achievement of the Balkan countries' autonomy.