Personality in Politics: Analyzing George W. Bush Essay

The relationship between disposition, experience, and political decision-making has been established in several studies. This has been undertaken using at a distance techniques which evaluate the relationship using biographies, speeches, and text from inter guesss. One of the most prominent call that focused on the predictive ability of personality on political styles and actions of world leaders has been famous political scientists Margaret Hermann. Hermann lists six factors that do work the impact of world leaders on unconnected policy.1) what their world view is 2) what their political style is like 3) what motivates them to deliver the position they do 4) whether they are interested in and have training in external affairs 5) what the foreign policy climate was like when the leader was commencement out his or her political career and 6) how the leader was socialized into his or her present position. Essentially, personality, background, and previous experiences make up ones mind the foreign political look of world leaders.This becomes especially clear when leaders confront a field of study crisis. How a leader conducts foreign affairs in the midst of crisis heightens his level of govern on decision-making and resources. It is during this quantify that the interplay of personality and experience can be evaluated on their impact on the leaders haggle and actions. Personality is a significant modifier in a leaders foreign policy-making behavior. This was posited by Hermann in her leadership analysis of 51 world leaders. Hermann (2003) defined personality to be a mixture of s yet traits.These were 1) belief in ability to control events, 2) conceptual complexity, 3) need for power, 4) distrust of others, 5) in-group bias, 6) self-confidence, and 7) labor movement orientation. This paper applies this mode of analysis on George W. bush-league, the 43rd President of the united States with an emphasis on his behavior during the family line 11 Cr isis and the Iraq War. Bush displayed high belief in his ability to control events, a personality trait related to how an individual perceives his control over political circumstances and his perception on the influence or significance of his state in resolving a foreign policy issue.Judging on his pronouncements about the righteousness of the Iraq War and the responsibility of the US and its allies to stop Saddam Hussein, Bush was strong, even arrogant in his belief that the US must wage war, even going against the judgment of the United Nations Security Council, America will never seek a permission slip to defend the auspices of our people. In terms of his conceptual complexity, Bush was more inclined to see foreign affairs in black and white terms than appreciate it to be the result of a myriad of factors.Bush displays a straightforward binary stance on the positioning of countries in foreign affairs, most notably the miscellanea that all US action is good and countries better follow it. In his speech precursor to the US campaign after September 11, Bush said, Every nation in every region instantaneously has a decision to make Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. In analyzing the causes of foreign policy problems, Bush went for the superficial explanation in place of the complex one.In terms of self-confidence, Bush displays high levels of optimism and fervor despite being placed in tight situations. His well-known Bushisms, for instance, seemed to have not marred his confidence or his nature. Despite his numerous verbal fiascos such as in addressing families of victims of September 11, They misunderestimated the compassion of our country I talk to families who die, Bush has managed to even make fun of himself. In sum, the foreign policy decisions of George W.Bush were reflective of his personality that is characterized by high belief in ability to control events, low conceptual complexity, and high degree of self-confidence. His pers onality and background created a foreign policy legacy which became detrimental to his partys bid for the 2010 presidential seat. Bibliography CNN. State of the Union Address, (2004) http//edition. cnn. com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/sotu. transcript. 1/index. hypertext markup language (accessed May 8, 2010). CNN. Transcript of President Bushs address. (2001) http//edition. cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen. bush. transcript/ (accessed May 8, 2010). Feller, Ben, depth psychology Bushs Personality Shapes His Legacy. MSNBC (Jan. 3, 2009), http//www. msnbc. msn. com/id/28482517/ (accessed May 8, 2010). Hermann, Margaret, Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of political Leaders. International Studies Quarterly (1983) 247-46. Hermann, Margaret, Assessing Leadership Style Trait Analysis, in The Psychological Assessment of semipolitical Leaders, ed. J. M. Post (Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press, 2003).