186 CHAPTER Six ■ The IndIvIdual
The impact of Elites: Personality
and Personal interests
Even among elite leaders working amid similar external conditions, some individuals
seem to have a greater impact on foreign policy than others do; this situation leads us
to examine both the personal characteristics that matter and the thought pro cesses of
individuals.
Po liti cal psychologist Margaret Hermann has found a number of personality char-
acteristics that affect foreign policy be hav iors. Because top leaders do not generally
take personality tests, Hermann used a diff er ent research strategy. She systematically
collected spontaneous interviews and press conferences with 80 heads of state holding
office in 38 countries between 1959 and 1968. From these data, she found key person-
ality characteristics that she felt influenced a leader’s orientation toward policy.^4 Those
characteristics are listed in the top section of Figure 6.2.
These personality characteristics orient an individual’s view of foreign affairs. Two
orientations emerge from the personality traits. One group, leaders with high levels of
nationalism, a strong belief in their own ability to control events, a strong need for
power, low levels of conceptual complexity, and high levels of distrust of others, tend
to develop an in de pen dent orientation to foreign affairs. The other group, leaders with
low levels of nationalism, little belief in their ability to control events, a high need for
affiliation, high levels of conceptual complexity, and low levels of distrust of others,
tend toward a participatory orientation in foreign affairs. (The bottom of Figure 6.2
illustrates these orientations.) Then Hermann tested whether these personal character-
istics and their respective orientations were related to the foreign policy style and the
be hav ior of the leaders.
Both Hermann and subsequent researchers using the same schema have found that
these characteristics and orientations matter. For example, one study analyzed the
personality characteristics of the former British prime minister Tony Blair using
Hermann’s categories to or ga nize Blair’s foreign policy answers to questions posed in
the House of Commons.^5 The researcher found that Blair had a strong belief in his own
ability to control events and a high need for power, accompanied by a low conceptual
complexity. These personality findings go a long way toward explaining British foreign
policy toward the 2003 Iraq War, a policy that many in the government and the British
public opposed. Thus, even in democracies, where institutional constraints are high,
individual personality characteristics influence foreign policy orientation and be hav ior.
Po liti cal scientist Betty Glad has developed a profile of the former president Jimmy
Car ter that suggests how his personality characteristics played a key role in influenc-
ing the course of U.S. policy during the 1979–81 hostage crisis. The crisis began when
Ira nian militants kidnapped more than 60 Americans and held them for more than a