POLI 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Machiavellianism, Congenital Disorder
17 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Hermann- Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of Political
Leaders.
Introduction:
Many have argued whether personal characteristics of political leaders may influence the
international politics of this country.
The data suggests that aggressive leaders tend to be in need of power, low in conceptual
complexity, distrustful of others, nationalistic, and likely to believe that they are in control over
the events they are involved in.
In contrast, conciliatory leaders are high In need for affiliation, high in conceptual complexity,
trusting of others, low in nationalism, and likely to exhibit little belief in their own ability to
control the events in which they are involved.
The study is unique since (1) To date, researchers have not examined all 6 characteristics in the
same study. (2) A conceptual scheme is presented to link these characteristics to foreign policy
behavior. (3) An attempt is made to broaden the foreign policy behaviors that are examined
beyond specifically aggressive (i.e., entry into war, arms increases) and conciliatory (i.e., entry
into international agreements) behaviors.
Conceptual Scheme:
The four out of sic characteristics are beliefs, motives, decision style, and interpersonal style.
Beliefs- refer to fundamental assumptions about the world. They are proposed to affect a
political interpretation of the environment and, in turn, the strategies that the leader employs.
Nationalism and belief i oe’s aility to otrol eets.
Motives- need for power, in some cases need for affiliation and need for approval.
Decision style- preferred styles and strategies for political behavior. Possible components of
decision style are openness to new information, preference for certain levels of risk, complexity
in structuring and processing information, and ability to tolerate ambiguity.
Interpersonal style- how owned politician deals with the other policy makers. Paranoia
(excessive suspiciousness) and Machiavellianism (unscrupulous, manipulative behavior)- are
ofte oted as partiularly prooued i politial leaders (Warfare persoality- Stalin,
Hitler).
An aggressive leader would have a need to manipulate and control others, no alternatives,
suspiciousness, high interest in maintaining national identity and sovereignty, thus such leaders
will try to keep their nations apart from the other nations in the international systems, since it
may lead to dependence on these nations. When interaction is necessary, they expect it to be
o their atio’s terms.
Conciliatory leaders, tend to establish friendly relationship with others, wide range of
alternatives, little suspiciousness, little interest in initiating action, facilitation of participation in
the international system.
The personal characteristics and orientations of heads of government examined in this research
are likely to hae ore ipat o a goeret’s foreig poliy uder soe irustaes
than under others. Two such conditions are: one that is hypothesized to enhance the effect of
leader personality on foreign policy behavior, and one that is thought to diminish such effects.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
The two variables are interest in foreign affairs and training in foreign affairs. affairs. Interest in
foreign affairs will enhance the effect of a political leader's characteristics on government
policy, whereas training in foreign affairs will diminish such an effect.
Interest in foreign affairs acts as a motivating force. The head of the government would be
always interested in what is going on the political international arena, the head of the
government places value on good external relations, he fears an enemy take over, he sees it as
a way of gaining re-election. In contrary, with the little interest in foreign affairs, the head of
the government is likely to delegate authority to other people, as long as that person has the
same personality as the head of the government.
Training in foreign affairs- two types: either trained or not. If yes, then his natural
predispositions come into play, if yes, then there is less dependence on his underlying
predispositions.
Measurement of Personal Characteristics:
PROCEDURE AND SUBJECTS
Press interviews with heads of government were used because they appear to contain the
most spontaneous public material available on such political leaders. Moreover, they minimize
the effets of ghost ritig ad plaed ouiatio. As ost of the ritten materials are
actually not written by heads of the government, but by specialized people, and mostly has a
specific target in writing, thus the material may lead to confusion.
Thus the inteviews were all reported and analyzed in the specific order, and then all put in the
machine readable form. The cards for each leader were then run through the Key World in
Context Concordance program, which reports the frequency of occurrence of each word and
reproduces each word in alphabetical order with the six to eight words coming before and after
it (the word's context). The coding categories for the personal characteristics were designed for
use with the Concordance output.
CODING CATEGORIES FOR THE PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS:
The higher the correlation between scores for odd and even interview responses, the more
stable the characteristic appears to be across time and issues for these heads of government.
DETERMINING ORIENTATIONS TO FOREIGN AFFAIRS:
Hypothesis: In the conceptual scheme we hypothesized that the personal characteristics
interrelate to form two orientations to foreign affairs that affect the content and style of
foreign policy behavior. Two composite measures were created to test this hypothesis:
Aggressive and non-aggressive leaders.
INTEREST IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS:
Interest in foreign affairs refers to the amount of concern or attention which a head of
government directs toward foreign policy-making. Is foreign policy a "passion"? Or does the
head of government only become a participant in foreign policy- making on specific issues?
Perhaps the head of government only deals with foreign affairs when forced to by
circumstances. Interest in foreign affairs was operationalized in this study by noting the
percentage of foreign policy events in which a head of government participated while in office.
Higher interest was indicated by a higher rate of participation.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Hermann- explaining foreign policy behavior using the personal characteristics of political. Many have argued whether personal characteristics of political leaders may influence the international politics of this country. The data suggests that aggressive leaders tend to be in need of power, low in conceptual complexity, distrustful of others, nationalistic, and likely to believe that they are in control over the events they are involved in. In contrast, conciliatory leaders are high in need for affiliation, high in conceptual complexity, trusting of others, low in nationalism, and likely to exhibit little belief in their own ability to control the events in which they are involved. The four out of sic characteristics are beliefs, motives, decision style, and interpersonal style. Beliefs- refer to fundamental assumptions about the world. They are proposed to affect a political interpretation of the environment and, in turn, the strategies that the leader employs. Nationalism and belief i(cid:374) o(cid:374)e"s a(cid:271)ility to (cid:272)o(cid:374)trol e(cid:448)e(cid:374)ts.
