Prime Minister Leadership Styles in Foreign Policy Decision-Making: A Framework for Research

Although the institutional contexts of prime ministers in parliamentary democracies and of U.S. presidents are very different, both types of executive leaders influence the decision-making processes through their leadership styles. Leadership style includes how the leaders relate to those around them, how they like to receive information, and how they make up their minds. While there are numerous empirical studies and theoretical frameworks on the leadership styles of U.S. presidents, few studies of prime ministers are concerned with personality and styles of leadership. This paper reviews the literature on U.S. presidential styles and on organizational leadership in order to construct a framework for the study of prime minister leadership styles. Components of the proposed framework are illustrated with examples of British prime ministers and German chancellors. In addition, categories of dependent variables to be explained by leadership style are discussed. I argue that leadership style has the greatest impact on the decision-making process and that although the direct effect of leadership style on foreign policy behavior is less, leadership style indirectly influences foreign policy through the decision-making process.     

The Effects of Stakes and Threat on Foreign Policy Decision-Making

Decision research demonstrates that individuals adapt decision processing strategies according to the characteristics of the decision task. Unfortunately, the literature has neglected task factors specific to foreign policy decisions. This paper presents experimental analyses of the effects of the decisional stakes (i.e., salience of the values at issue) and threat (risk of loss on those issues) on decision-makers' information acquisition patterns and choice rules with respect to one of four hypothetical foreign policy scenarios. Contrary to the notion that normative (rational) decision-making is more likely in less dramatic settings, the results indicate that elevated threat encourages rational decision processing, whereas heuristic processing was more prevalent in less threatening situations. Interestingly, the added presence of high stakes magnified both threat effects. These results, although preliminary, suggest that stakes-threat effects are not direct reflections of stress and/or complexity effects, but should be considered independently in foreign policy analyses.     

Culture Is More than a Static Residual: Introduction to the Special Section on Culture and Foreign Policy

The literature on international relations frequently refers to culture in broad, macro-level ways to explain what cannot be explained by economic or military power. The assumptions that culture is simple, uniform and the opposite of power are, in the view of the authors, erroneous. Also, the authors note that there is a lack of scholarly interaction among psychologists interested in cross-cultural phenomena and international relations specialists interested in questions of identity and foreign policy. As an introduction to a special section on culture and foreign policy, this article calls for more communication among these scholarly communities; provides a set of observations about foreign policy and culture understood as a complex, dynamic concept; and calls for specific kinds of studies to better understand foreign policy in the context of cultural complexity and richness.     

Worldviews in Foreign Policy: Realism, Liberalism, and External Conflict

International relations studies have been unable to determine whether realist or liberal theories better fit state behavior in various situations, possibly because these studies have attributed motive and action to the states rather than to the decision-makers within them. This article develops a new, more direct approach to resolving this problem. Hypotheses were tested regarding conditions under which decision-makers are likely to articulate a problem representation consistent with liberal or realist elements of a worldview. This was done by content analysis of statements about 36 foreign conflicts by the governments of three "bystander" nations—the United States, Canada, and India—over a 16-year period. The findings indicate that systemic and situational factors are far more important than domestic factors. States tend to represent wars in congruence with liberalism primarily when their security is already assured by another power or when the conflict does not involve allies, rivals, or fellow democracies. Thus, most of the expectations of realism are supported at the psychological level.     

Images and Policy Preferences

This article reports the results of an experiment that tests the independent and interactive effects of two dimensions of international images: perceived historial relationship and cultural differences. Priming techniques are used to manipulate images in subjects who are involved in a simulated international conflict. Dependent variables include attitudes and behaviors, the latter in the form of policy preferences arranged on a cooperative-conflictual continuum. The results indicate that images do matter. When the perceived relationship is hostile, subjects develop more negative attitudes toward their opponents and choose more conflictual policies. Cultural differences produce more negative attitudes in all conditions but result in more negative policy selections only when the perceived relationship is hostile. In other words, in considering policy moves, cultural differences exacerbate conflict between enemies, but make no difference between friends, in spite of the negative outgroup attitudes they elicit.     

The Political Manipulation of Group Composition: Engineering the Decision Context

Group decisions are not made solely by evaluating the merits of the contending positions. Instead, actors may engage in manipulation to increase the fortunes of their policy preference. Actors may manipulate information, group procedures, or group composition. Using a model of group socialization, this paper argues that a manipulator may seek to alter the group composition as to access and/or status. In doing so, the manipulator seeks to create a more favorable decision environment. This political perspective maintains that the dynamic nature of group composition provides an opportunity for a manipulator to engineer the decision context, potentially affecting the group's decisional output. Strategies and tactics of composition manipulation are presented and then utilized to analyze the American decision process during the Iranian revolution.     

Cultural Expectations of One's Own and Other Nations' Foreign Policy Action Templates

One useful conceptualization of culture is that of a preestablished set of behavioral competencies, which in turn form behavioral dispositions. According to this variant of culture theory, decision-makers faced with new situations will rely on established behavioral competencies in forming an initial policy response. This assumption can also be applied at the nation-state level, where established behavioral predispositions may lessen uncertainty and stress in ambiguous yet salient foreign policy situations. Likewise, observers in one nation-state may be able to identify such behavioral dispositions in other nation-states, lending greater transparency and predictability to international interactions. Do such culturally based action templates exist? Are they recognizable even to ordinary citizens? Citizens in Russia, Japan, and the United States were asked to posit the most likely and least likely behavioral responses to a variety of foreign policy situations by their own nation and by the other two nations in the sample. The results indicate that recognition of such templates takes place, and that recognition of one nation's template content by citizens of the other nations typically matches recognition of template content by the nation's own citizens. The research also shows that such action templates can be eroded and become unrecognizable over time, both to insiders and to outsiders.     

Trauma,Emotions, and Memory in World Politics: The Case of the European Union's Foreign Policy in the Middle East Conflict

This article focuses on the impact of emotions on the European Union (EU)'s international identity and agency in the context of the memory of trauma. Emotions are understood as performances through which an actor expresses itself to others while constructing its identity, creating its agency, and potentially affecting the social order. It is argued that the memory of trauma is translated into EU foreign policy practice through emotional performances of EU representatives. Empirically, we explore this impact in relation to the EU's engagement in the Israel‐Palestinian prolonged conflict that has many underlying emotions linked with past traumatic experiences. By doing so, we aim to instigate a discussion between the emotions literature in International Relations and the European Union studies literature to nuance understanding of the politics of emotions that increasingly constrain what kind of a global actor the EU actually is or can become.     

Framing Foreign Policy Alternatives in the Inner Circle: President Carter, His Advisors, and the Struggle for the Arms Control Agenda

This article examines strategic framing efforts within the president's inner circle of foreign policy advisors. The comparative case study method is used to describe and explain the framing process involved in President Jimmy Carter's arms control decisions with respect to the Soviet Union. Carter's two central foreign policy advisors, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, portrayed the Soviets in very different terms. The premise underlying this study is that advisors attempt to frame their policy preferences favorably in order to influence the group process and the president's policy choice. Advisors do so by playing up the positive aspects of an option and downplaying any negative aspects. Three components of the framing process are explored: historical/cultural symbolism, personal beliefs and values, and political cost assessments.     

How Americans Perceive Foreign Policy Threats: A Magnitude Scaling Analysis

This paper evaluates three hypotheses about the structure of threat perceptions in the post-Cold War era: the replacement of a military conception of threat by an economic one; fluidity in threat perceptions because of an absence of a polestar nation; and Huntington's clash of civilizations theory. Using psychophysical magnitude measures of threat perception, these findings provide no support for the notion that threats are perceived economically. There is limited support for the theory that threat perceptions are unstable; most countries are clustered around a core of weakly hostile or friendly perceptions, which is suggestive of instability. At the same time, however, there does appear to be stability in perceptions of strong friends and enemies. The hypothesis best supported by these data is Huntington's theory that culture determines threat perceptions. In this study, not a single Western country is perceived as hostile, and all nations that do receive hostile scores are non-Western.     

Redefining Cultural Diplomacy: Cultural Security and Foreign Policy in Canada

A content analysis of material generated by the 1994–1995 foreign policy review process in Canada was conducted in an effort to understand how culture came to be officially constituted as the third pillar of Canadian foreign policy. The analysis showed significant differences among actors in terms of modes of legitimization of cultural diplomacy. State agents, by refusing to consider culture as a referent object in a broadened notion of security and by assimilating it into a system of civic values, resisted pressures from academics and groups that favored introducing societal conceptions of culture as relevant for the making of foreign policy. The result is nevertheless a new, albeit defensive and still ambiguous, form of implication of foreign policy in the cultural mission of the state in Canada.     

Extending the Three- and Four-Headed Eagles: The Foreign Policy Orientations of American Elites During the 80s and 90s

With the breakdown of the foreign policy consensus of the Cold War years, there has been a resurgence in examining the beliefs of the public and their role in U.S. foreign policy. The most extensive of these studies has been conducted by Holsti and Rosenau who have found first three and then four competing schools of thought. Our purpose is to build off Holsti and Rosenau's analyses and extend their argument. Research based on the content analysis of foreign policy and national opinion journals from 1980 to 1989 demonstrates that there is more diversity and complexity in the range and content of beliefs held by American leaders than Holsti and Rosenau have yet been able to capture through their "three-" and "four-headed eagles." Although the three-headed eagle serves as a useful scheme for categorizing the broad foreign policy perspectives of American leaders, it de-emphasizes important differences in beliefs and ignores at least two foreign policy orientations that exist within their general categories. This is not a mere academic exercise, for it sheds light on the level of diversity and complexity of elite beliefs, which enriches an understanding of the politics of U.S. foreign policy since Vietnam. A preliminary examination of foreign policy and national opinion journals from 1990 to 1994 indicates that American elites are changing and adapting while at the same time, they are absorbing profound global changes into their prevailing belief systems, as predicted by the political psychological literature. This suggests that the diversity and complexity present in the 80s is likely to persist and grow throughout the 90s. Our research also suggests the importance of developing alternative methods to complement reliance on survey research in order to capture more fully the diversity and complexity of the foreign policy beliefs of Americans.     

How Irish Citizens Negotiate Foreign Policy: A Social Representations Approach to Neutrality

The present study investigates the relationship between the foreign policy orientation of Irish neutrality and national identity using a social representations approach (Elcheroth, Doise, & Reicher, 2011; Moscovici, 1961/76). In four focus groups conducted in the Republic of Ireland, 22 participants discussed vignettes in which hypothetical conflicts were described. The findings pointed towards the dynamic relationship between neutrality and Irish national identity and more generally to the importance of macropolitical phenomena for identity construction. The process of categorization was key to participants' decision making regarding the hypothetical conflicts; the decision to support or oppose the Irish state's involvement in the conflicts frequently revolved around a reconsideration of the boundaries of the ingroup. Furthermore, social representations were laden with the possibility of social change; the construction of neutrality as morally ambivalent, motivated by pragmatism rather than principles, opened up a space for younger participants to resist dominant, pragmatic interpretations of the policy and offer alternatives. Theoretical and empirical implications of the findings are discussed. Taken together, the findings demonstrate the critical potential of extending a social representations approach to issues of political psychological significance.     

道德直觉背景下的道德决策：影响因素探究

以往对道德直觉的研究表明了情绪因素在道德决策中的重要作用, 研究者提出道德决策中存在有意识认知和无意识情绪两种加工过程, 二者之间不能够完全分离与孤立。针对这种认知—情绪过程解释、经典电车和人行桥困境中的道德判断差异等问题, 近年来大量研究通过对道德行为者和道德判断者自身原因、道德情境等主客观因素的深入考察, 试图从不同角度来揭示认知—情绪过程解释的合理性及道德决策差异背后的其他原因, 形成了道德直觉背景下相关领域诸多新的关注点。未来研究有必要针对道德决策研究的方法学、情境的扩展及认知—情感系统内部交互等问题作进一步探讨。     

情绪背景和社会预期对社会经济决策行为的影响

采用最后通牒博弈范式,探讨不同情绪背景对社会经济决策中社会预期效应的影响。以90名大学生为被试,利用不同效价的电影片段(正性、负性和中性)诱发相应的目标情绪。通过操作社会规范性信息启动被试对分配方案公平性的不同预期。结果发现:在负性和中性情绪背景下,高预期组更倾向于拒绝接受不公平分配。在正性情绪背景下,高预期组和低预期组面对不公平提议时的接受率没有显著差异。结果表明正性情绪背景使社会预期效应发生改变,回应者对分配方案的高预期不再对决策结果产生显著影响。     

组织中的政治技能及相关研究

政治技能是个体在工作中影响他人以实现组织目标的能力,对个体的工作绩效和某些工作态度、缓解工作中压力带来的紧张感等具有一定的作用。个体的洞察力、控制、亲和力、主动影响及发展经验被视为政治技能的影响因素,通过实践练习、替代学习等方法可实现政治技能的培训和开发。在未来的研究中,对政治技能概念的理解、测量多源性等方面的问题还需要进一步的探讨     

All Against All: How Beliefs about Human Nature Shape Foreign Policy Opinions

Although the American public's increasingly cynical views about human nature have drawn considerable attention from scholars, existing research says little about how interpersonal trust shapes mass foreign policy opinions. This study analyzes survey data to test the claim that citizens use their beliefs about human nature to reason about international affairs. The results indicate that cynical citizens are more likely than trusting citizens to endorse the principle of isolationism and to oppose cooperative forms of intervention in other nations' problems. Citizens' use of interpersonal trust as an information shortcut helps them to make inferences regarding a topic about which they typically know little, but such inferences are not necessarily realistic ones.     

焦虑情绪对决策的影响

焦虑情绪会对人类的决策行为及其结果产生深刻的影响,其中最突出的表现是,焦虑水平的提高会使决策者倾向于回避风险,做出保守的选择。近年来,国外研究者从不同的角度分析这一现象的原因,归纳出了几种可能的影响因素——包括认知资源因素、信息加工因素、概率偏向因素与情绪取向因素等。这些因素的提出,促进了对焦虑影响决策的机制的认识。它们间虽有密切联系,但有待于整合成为一个统一的体系     

论小康社会的政治文明建设

政治文明包括政治思想、政治制度、政治行为文明的丰富内涵。社会主义政治文明建设的提出与实施对全面推进社会主义现代化建设,实现我国小康社会的发展目标具有深远意义。社会主义政治文明建设的基本任务是社会主义民主政治建设与法制建设。