Hermann, Margaret. "Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of Political Leaders". International Studies Quarterly, Vol.24, No.1 (1980): 7-46.

Hermann, Margaret. "Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of Political Leaders". International Studies Quarterly, Vol.24, No.1 (1980): 7-46.

• A source mine of previous studies on the influence that personal characteristics of leaders have on foreign policy is available on page 7.
• The study conducted in this article looks at how the foreign policy of 45 different political leaders is affected by their desire for power, conceptual complexity of ideas, nationalism, perceived influence of self on global events, trust of others, and need for affiliation with other powers (8).
• The 6 personal characteristics selected for use in the article were done so because they reflect the beliefs, motives, decision-making style, and interpersonal style of each leader (8). The study uses nationalism and perceived impact to measure beliefs (9), need for affiliation and need for power to measure motives (9), conceptual complexity to measure decision-making style (10), and trust of others to measure interpersonal style (10).
• A full list of leaders included in this study is available from page 16 to page 18.
• The personal characteristics of leadership are important because most leaders are in a position where "Information about situations [...] is usually incomplete; [...] knowledge of ends-means relationships is generally inadequate to predict reliably the consequences of [...] action; [...] it is often difficult for him to formulate a single criterion [...] to choose which alternative course of action is 'best" (10). In these circumstances, personal characteristics provide a map for action (11).
• An aggressive leader will have, "A need to manipulate and control others, little ability to consider a range of alternatives, suspiciousness of others' motives, a high interest in maintaining national identity and sovereignty, and a distinct willingness to initiate action" (11).
• A conciliatory leader will have, "A need to establish and maintain friendly relationships with others, an ability to consider a wide range of alternatives, little suspiciousness of others' motives, no overriding concern with the maintenance of national identity and sovereignty, and little interest in initiating action" (12).
• The author proposes that two factors will determine the extend of the effects which a head of government will have on foreign policy decision-making: the level of interest in foreign affairs, and the level of training in foreign affairs. The more interest a leader has, the more his personality will influence policy, whereas a higher level of formal training will lead to less emotional input and therefore less personal effect on foreign policy (13-14, 23-24).
• The data collected confirms the hypothesis about increased interest in foreign policy resulting in a greater personal involvement in foreign policy. However, data also shows that more training in foreign policy leads to move involvement, not the other way around (28, 43).
• This paper collected information about the different personality traits of world leaders -- most of whom are absolutely off-limits to any form of clinic or psychological testing -- based on the way in which these figures responded to journalists (14).
• This form of interaction between the world leaders and the public was chosen because it required heads of state to produce policy-related answers spontaneously in a public setting. More than screened materials, interview questions give a glimpse of what a leader is like naturally (14-15).
• The ranking system for the personality traits and the convention of these qualitative data into figures raises some big questions, because the processes and rationale behind them are not at all clear.
• "None of the correlations exceeds .45 (or accounts for 20% or more of the variance) for the whole sample of heads of government" (44).
• The author proposes a theory that independently-oriented politicians, who believe in strong nationalism and unipolarity, are loath to upset the international status quo in the long-term, because doing so would affect their ability to operate in the domestic and secure reelection. Conversely, conciliatory politicians are likely to make long-term changes (27).
• Leaders whose policies favor independence and unipolarity believe that they can control critical events and distrust others. Those leaders who favor interdependence have high levels of trust for others. Independent leaders are also more likely to have training in foreign affairs and seek high levels of power (30-32).
• The levels of commitment to action endorsed by leaders is also measured. The results indicate that independent-oriented leaders with low levels of trust and minimal need for affiliation are less likely to make commitments; this trait is exacerbated in leaders who have a low level of interest in foreign affairs (33-35).
• Leaders with an independent-orientation tend to vocalize negative perceptions of other nations and are generally more intense than conciliatory politicians (36-38).
• The behavior of leaders towards other nations is shown to have a strong correlation with the reactions of other world leaders. Independence-oriented leaders provoke strong negative responses, whereas conciliatory leaders invite generally positive reactions. Leaders without an interest in foreign affairs invite less feedback overall and leaders with experience invite more positive feedback (37, 39-41).
• No individual personality characteristic has as strong a correlation with actual foreign policy outcomes as the overall personality archetypes -- independence-oriented and conciliatory -- do with outcomes (41-42).
• The study indicates that nationalism and individual desire for power affected around 40% of measured policy outcomes, more than any other factor. Perception of one's own ability to change circumstances had the least measured effect, with it being statistically significant in fewer than 10% of measured cases (41-43).