The operational code approach to profiling political leaders: understanding Vladimir Putin

Dyson, Stephen Benedict; Parent, Matthew J.

doi:10.1080/02684527.2017.1313523

Cited by 29 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The studies utilising operational code analysis have mostly focused on heads of states, such as US presidents (Renshon, 2008, 2009; Schafer and Crichlow, 2000; Walker, 1995; Walker et al, 1998, 1999), British prime ministers (Dyson, 2006; Schafer and Walker, 2006a), German chancellors (Malici, 2006), Israeli prime ministers (Crichlow, 1998), Chinese leaders (Feng, 2005), Cuban and North Korean leaders (Malici, 2011; Malici and Malici, 2005), Russian leaders (Dyson and Parent, 2017), and Islamist leaders (Özdamar, 2017; Özdamar and Canbolat, 2018). In addition, studies have been conducted on foreign policy decision-makers other than heads of states, such as Holsti’s (1970) work on Dulles, and Starr’s (1984) work on Kissinger.…”

Section: Operational Code Analysis: Theory and Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

European populist radical right leaders’ foreign policy beliefs: An operational code analysis

Özdamar

Ceydilek

2019

European Journal of International Relations

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Despite the significance of the subject, studies on the foreign policy preferences of European populist radical right leaders are scarce except for a handful of examples. Are European populist radical right leaders more hostile than other world leaders or comparatively friendly? Do they use cooperative or conflictual strategies to achieve their political goals? What are the leadership types associated with their strategic orientations in international relations? Using the operational code construct in this empirical study, we answer these questions and depict the foreign policy belief systems of seven European populist radical right leaders. We test whether they share a common pattern in their foreign policy beliefs and whether their foreign policy belief systems are significantly different from the norming group of average world leaders. The results indicate that European populist radical right leaders lack a common pattern in terms of their foreign policy belief systems. While the average scores of the analysed European populist radical right leaders suggest that they are more conflictual in their world views, results also show that they employ instrumental approaches relatively similar to the average group of world leaders. This article illuminates the microfoundations of strategic behaviour in international relations and arrives at conclusions about the role of European populist radical right leaders in mainstream International Relations discussions, such as idealism versus realism. In this sense, the cognitivist research school complements and advances structural accounts of international relations by analysing leadership in world affairs.

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Section: Operational Code Analysis: Theory and Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

European populist radical right leaders’ foreign policy beliefs: An operational code analysis

Özdamar

Ceydilek

2019

European Journal of International Relations

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“…OCA started as a research program in the 1950s to get a better understanding of the beliefs of the Soviet Union's Politburo, and its possible impact on the conflictual relationship with the US government (Leites, 1951). Since then, OCA has been used for explanatory and even predictive applications (Dyson & Parent, 2018; Walker et al, 2018; Yang, Keller, & Molnar, 2018). As a specific subset of beliefs, operational codes are generally used to study foreign policy behavior and international relations.…”

Section: The Role Of Beliefs In Foreign Policy Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a large body of literature that uses operational codes as independent variables for studying foreign policy decision making. For example, OCA was used for understanding the foreign policy decision making of Dean Acheson (McClellan, 1971), Henry Kissinger (Walker, 1977), John Foster Dulles (Holsti, 1970), Woodrow Wilson (Walker, 1995), Daniel Arap Moi (Adar, 2000), Vladimir Putin (Dyson, 2001; Dyson & Parent, 2018), Mao Zedong (Feng, 2005), Tony Blair (Schafer & Walker, 2001), Margaret Thatcher (Crichlow, 2006), George W. Bush (Robison, 2006), Bill Clinton (Schafer et al, 2002), and Xi Jinping (Feng & He, 2017; He & Feng, 2013). The OCA literature not only studies individual cases, but also offers comparative analyses of decision makers.…”

Section: The Role Of Beliefs In Foreign Policy Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…OCA is one of the dominant actor‐centric approaches to foreign policy that analyzes a specific subset of beliefs (the “operational code”) that leaders hold about the political world and their role and position within this political world. The operational code focuses on the conflictual and cooperative nature of foreign policy decision making, which makes it particularly suited to explain foreign policy behavior from an actor‐centric perspective (see, e.g., Dyson & Parent, 2018; Schafer & Walker, 2006a, 2006b; Walker et al, 2018). Using OCA is thus well suited for our analysis, as the downing of MH17 was especially relevant for Dutch foreign policy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trauma and belief systems; an operational code analysis of Dutch Prime Minister Rutte and the downing of flight MH17

Willigen

Bakker

2021

Risk Hazard & Crisis Pub Pol

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What is the impact of a crisis on the belief systems of leaders? We know from a substantial body of research that the beliefs of leaders impact their decision making processes. These beliefs are generally assumed to be stable, which makes them a reliable tool for explaining decision making behavior. There is, however, some limited evidence that suggests that when crises are experienced by leaders as a traumatic event, their beliefs can be affected. This article studies the potential impact of crisis‐induced trauma on leaders' belief systems by measuring the operational codes of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte before and after the shooting down of flight MH17 in 2014 in Ukraine. We use quantitative content analysis of written texts such as the speeches by Rutte. Our aim is to contribute to the crisis management literature that focuses on individual leadership and crises by finding out whether Rutte's operational code changed significantly after the downing of flight MH17. We conclude that there were two significant changes in Rutte's belief system, but these cannot be attributed to the effects of the traumatic event only. Therefore we offer an alternative explanation that combines the traumatic event hypothesis with the crisis‐learning hypothesis.

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“…In proximate policy terms, the Russian élite that came to power at the turn of this century has been consistent in its preference for pragmatism rather than grand schemes. Both journalistic insider accounts and quantitative coding-based political science analysis have Putin as an opportunist rather than an ideologically driven strategist (Zygar', 2016;Dyson and Parent, 2018). The maintenance of an array of potential policy positions within the frame of an overarching unifying narrative has the benefit of facilitating programmatic flexibility.…”

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confidence: 99%

Policy change and the narratives of Russia’s think tanks

Bacon

2018

Palgrave Commun

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Russia's ruling regime, dominated by Vladimir Putin since he first became president in 2000, is often seen as presenting a consistent and coherent narrative and allowing little space for plurality of opinions. While it is the case that at the level of metanarrative, a consistent official story of a Russia resurgent both domestically and internationally has been told, analysis of the work of think tanks within the purview of Russia's political leadership reveals that conflicting narratives remain at play within the regime's political tent. Analysis of a decade of think tank activity shows that the Medvedev presidency (2008-2012) saw the rise and then decline of the liberal INSOR think tank, while the most prominent think tank in Putin's third term as president (2012-2018) was the anti-liberal Izborskii Club, which followed a similar pattern of waxing and waning prominence. From the point of view of Russia's leadership, the existence of these think tanks has a functionalist explanation, allowing what is essentially a non-ideological regime to engage with and adopt different positions according to its proximate requirements. Such a functionalist approach runs the risk of undermining the coherence and persuasiveness of the regime's narrative(s). From the point of view of the political science classification of the extant Russian regime, Russia's post-Soviet 'transition' remains to be resolved in terms of its chosen course even a quarter of a century on from the collapse of Communism.

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The operational code approach to profiling political leaders: understanding Vladimir Putin

Cited by 29 publications

References 29 publications

European populist radical right leaders’ foreign policy beliefs: An operational code analysis

European populist radical right leaders’ foreign policy beliefs: An operational code analysis

Trauma and belief systems; an operational code analysis of Dutch Prime Minister Rutte and the downing of flight MH17

Policy change and the narratives of Russia’s think tanks

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