Cognitive origins of foreign policy behaviour: The case of Iran and the Soviet Union in the 1953--1962 period

This dissertation probes the influence of perceptions of threat (and opportunity) on Soviet-Iranian mutual behaviour in the 1953--1962 period. Further, it delves into the origins and objects of these perceptions and examines the degree of their commensuration with the external setting, endeavouring to distinguish between erroneous and accurate perceptions.; The dissertation argues that whereas Iranian perceptions of threat mainly derived from affective pre-dispositions, cognitive influences, and historical memory, Soviet perceptions of threat would seem to have originated from Soviet-American global rivalry within the bipolar Cold War international system, which made Iranian military-security co-operation with the United States appear menacing and deleterious to Soviet security and strategic interests.; It was Iran's entry to the Baghdad Pact, and later its conclusion of a bilateral defence agreement with the United States that were mainly responsible for the gradual diminution of initial Soviet perceptions of opportunity in the aftermath of Stalin's death and the onset of the Soviet policy of peaceful co-existence, and their substitution by perceptions of threat and vulnerability, in turn triggering highly hostile Soviet behaviour towards Iran.; On the basis of the above argument, the dissertation characterises Soviet behaviour as mainly contingent upon, and reactive to Iranian strategic moves, differentiating it from Iranian behaviour, which was underpinned by a more consistent level of conflict and non-co-operation vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Iranian behaviour also proved largely impervious to either Soviet conciliatory overtures or its retaliatory and punitive actions ostensibly due to its deeply entrenched affective-cognitive origins as well the Shah's memories of Iran's negative experience with the Soviet Union during World War II.; While perceptions of opportunity were not absent from the Iranian cognitive agenda altogether, they were constrained by perceptions of threat and vulnerability. This would seem to explain the limited and cautious nature of Iran's co-operation with the Soviet Union, which altogether excluded the security-strategic dimension and only partially included the economic-technical domain. This stood in stark contrast to the more extensive Soviet co-operation agenda vis-a-vis Iran.