The Psychological Assessment of Political LeadersTo the extent that the post-cold war environment is weakly struc-
tured and highly charged emotionally, the personalities of both lead-
ers may also have a significant impact and demonstrate each actor's
indispensability in the resolution of conflicts and the coordination of
cooperation among states in the Middle East. Bill Clinton's efforts at
the end of his administration to facilitate the peace process between
Arabs and Israelis are emblematic of both the possibilities for a
leader's significant impact and the difficulties facing leaders with
strategic leverage. Saddam Hussein's continued intransigence in the
face of pressure and sanctions exercised by the international commu-
nity demonstrates the central role of one actor's political personality
in shaping Iraq's relations with the rest of the world during and after
the Persian Gulf conflict.
This kind of analysis of the strategic importance of political lead-
ers and their personalities as important causal mechanisms for
explaining and predicting world politics is an argument for invest-
ing academic talent and government resources in the assessment of
political leadership. It is also a brief for the continuation of two
strands of research identified earlier in chapter i. In this view, the
basic research represented in the academy by the interdiscipline of
political psychology and the applied leadership research imple-
mented inside the U.S. government are more important than ever for
gaining a perspective on the possibilities for peace and progress in
the twenty-first century. However, for this knowledge to influence
the understanding of scholars and the deliberations of policymakers,
there are several gaps to be addressed between and within the aca-
demic and policy communities.
The Gap between Theory and Practice
"Bridging the gap" is a metaphor associated with the influential
book by the same title, by Alexander George (1993) under the aus-
pices of the U.S. Institute for Peace (see also Lepgold 1998). George
wrote about the gap between the academic and policy communities,
characterizing it as the divide between knowledge and action. He
argues that academic knowledge is organized along theoretical and
generic lines in order to explain international relations, while poli-
cymakers need knowledge about specific actors and problems in for-
eign policy in order to take action. These organizational differences