Presidential Leadership Style and the Political Use of Force

Abstract

A growing body of work seeks to explain the lack of clear evidence for the diversionary use of force by casting doubt on such strategies' attractiveness for policy makers: while domestic political and economic problems may provide incentives for diversion, such strategies involve political and military risks that frequently outweigh these incentives. Such theories correctly identify the objective risks involved in diversion but do not account for variation in leaders' risk-taking propensities. We develop a "first image" theory of diversion that suggests a key psychological variable (locus of control) shapes leaders' willingness to engage in risky diversionary strategies. A statistical analysis of the American use of force, 1953-2000, finds strong support for this model. We conclude that the lack of clear evidence for diversion in general is a reflection of the contingent nature of the phenomenon and call for greater attention to how agents and structures interact to produce policy behavior. KEY WORDS: diversionary war, foreign policy, presidential leadership style, risk taking, elite decision making

Rallies and the “First Image”

“…To obtain basic estimates relevant to Hypothesis 1, and following from Keller and Foster (2009), we conduct quarterly monadic and directed-dyadic analysis of the US use of force from 1953 to 2000. To obtain basic estimates relevant to Hypothesis 1, and following from Keller and Foster (2009), we conduct quarterly monadic and directed-dyadic analysis of the US use of force from 1953 to 2000.…”

“…In-group bias is constructed using the Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA) system (Hermann, 1987), which relies upon content analysis of leaders' verbal patterns. Hermann and Hermann, 1989;Boettcher, 2005;Keller, 2005;Dyson, 2007;Shannon and Keller, 2007;Keller and Foster, 2009), and is regarded as both broadly valid in regard to other psychological assessment tools (Hermann, 1984(Hermann, , 1988 and internally reliable and consistent (Hermann, 1987). The LTA system has been used to produce several measures of leadership psychology and managerial style which have been employed by numerous psychological studies of foreign policy (e.g.…”

“…Indeed, it should be quite obvious that leaders differ significantly in terms of several "first image" factors (including morality, personality, managerial philosophy, and cognitive capabilities and tendencies) which should lead ultimately to differences in political action. Of greatest interest to use of force scholars, recent work by Keller and Foster (2009) develops expectations about leaders' conceptualization of diversion-related tenure threats from their general psychological predispositions to accept, discount, or ignore risks. Satterfield, 1998;Keller, 2005;Boettcher, 2005).…”

“…Following from Keller and Foster (2009), our central goal in this article is to gauge the degree to which certain psychological proclivities affect leaders' views about whether or not the use of force can be employed to generate domestic political cohesion in times of crisis (i.e. whether and how "armed diversion works").…”

“…Indeed, recent work by Keller and Foster (2009), which links presidents' acceptance or ignorance of diversionary risk to the prevalence of various psychological attributes and managerial styles, provides robust evidence that the incorporation of "first image" variables regarding perception, cognition, and self-assessment is essential to a complete understanding of diversionary incentive. In general, while studies that focus exclusively on outcomes can produce conclusions about the success of diversionary endeavors, they cannot determine whether or not leaders actually conceive of diversion as a viable and useful option; by extension, their evidence cannot, by itself, undermine the plausibility of the hypothesis as a predictor of leadership action.…”