Exogenous Dynamics and Leadership Traits: A Study of Change in the Personality Traits of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Year 2021, , 149 - 164, 16.07.2021

Ali Balcı İbrahim Efe

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.956105

Abstract

Do leadership attributes change/persist with experience in office, and after a dramatic event? Answers to this agent-structure question represent the main division line between dispositional and situational theorists. While the first posits that leader’s actions are a product of configuration imposed by experience, and traumatic events, the latter focuses on persistent set of beliefs in leaders. This paper aims at testing the role of these two variables, experience, and traumatic event, on the personality of political leaders with a special focus on Recep Tayyip Erdogan. To recover the personality attributes of Erdogan, and measure their resilience or weakness against experience and traumatic events, the paper uses Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA) developed by Margaret Hermann. LTA assumes that leaders’ choice of certain words in public speeches reflects their personality traits, through which they can be compared with other leaders, and even themselves in different roles and times.

Keywords

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leadership trait analysis, tenure in office, traumatic event

References

• Bak, Daehee, and Glenn Palmer. “Testing the Biden Hypotheses: Leader Tenure, Age, and International Conflict.” Foreign Policy Analysis 6, no. 3 (2010): 257–73.
• Bleidorn, Wiebke, Christopher J. Hopwood, and Richard E. Lucas. “Life Events and Personality Trait Change.” Journal of Personality 86, no. 1 (2018): 83–96.
• Boin, Arjen, Bengt Sundelius, and Eric Stern. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership Under Pressure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
• Cagaptay, Soner. The New Sultan: Erdoğan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey. London: IB Tauris, 2017.
• Cuhadar, Esra, Juliet Kaarbo, Baris Kesgin, and Binnur Ozkececi‐Taner. “Personality or Role? Comparisons of Turkish Leaders Across Different İnstitutional Positions.” Political Psychology 38, no. 1 (2017): 39–54.
• ———. “Examining Leaders’ Orientations to Structural Constraints: Turkey’s 1991 and 2003 Iraq War Decisions.” Journal of International Relations and Development 20, no. 1 (2017): 29–54.
• ———. “Changes in Personality Traits and Leadership Style Across Time: The Case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting, International Society of Political Psychology, Edinburgh, 29 June -3 July 2017.
• DiCicco, Jonathan M. “Fear, Loathing, and Cracks in Reagan’s Mirror Images: Able Archer 83 and an American First Step toward Rapprochement in the Cold War.” Foreign Policy Analysis 7, no. 3 (2011): 253–74.
• Dille, Brian, and Michael D. Young. “The Conceptual Complexity of Presidents Carter and Clinton: An Automated Content Analysis of Temporal Stability and Source Bias.” Political Psychology 21, no. 3 (2009): 587–96.
• Dyson, Stephen Benedict. “Alliances, Domestic Politics, and Leader Psychology: Why Did Britain Stay out of Vietnam and Go into Iraq?” Political Psychology 28, no. 6 (2007): 647–66.
• ———. “Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, and the Great Financial Crisis: Leadership Traits and Policy Responses.” British Politics 13, no. 2 (2018): 121–45.
• ———. “Personality and Foreign Policy: Tony Blair's Iraq Decisions.” Foreign Policy Analysis 2, no. 3 (2006): 289–06.
• Erisen, Cengiz. “The Political Psychology of Turkish Political Behavior: Introduction by the Special Issue Editor.” Turkish Studies 14, no. 1 (2013): 1–12.
• Feng, Huiyun. “The Operational Code of Mao Zedong: Defensive or Offensive Realist?” Security Studies 14, no. 4 (2005): 637–62.
• George, Alexander L. Presidential Decision-making in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice. Boulder: Westview Press, 1980.
• George, Alexander L., and Andrew Bennett. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004.
• Goertz, Gary, and Paul F. Diehl. “The Initiation and Termination of Enduring Rivalries: The Impact of Political Shocks.” American Journal of Political Science 39, no. 1 (1995): 30–52.
• Goldsmith, Benjamin E. Imitation in International Relations: Observational Learning, Analogies, and Foreign Policy in Russia and Ukraine . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
• Görener, Aylin Ş., and Meltem Ş. Ucal. “The Personality and Leadership Style of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Implications for Turkish Foreign Policy.” Turkish Studies 12, no. 3 (2011): 357–81.
• Gustavsson, Jakob. “How Should We Study Foreign Policy Change?” Cooperation and Conflict 34, no. 1 (1999): 73–95.
• Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., D. Alex Hughes, and David G. Victor. “The Cognitive Revolution and the Political Psychology of Elite Decision Making. ” Perspectives on Politics 11, no. 2 (2013): 368–86.
• Hermann, Charles F. “Changing Course: When Governments Choose to Redirect Foreign Policy.” International Studies Quarterly 34, no. 1 (1990): 3–21.
• Hermann, Margaret G. “Assessing Leadership Style: A Trait Analysis.” In The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders, edited by J. M. Post, 178-212. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2003.
• ———. “Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of Political Leaders.” International Studies Quarterly 24, no. 1 (1980): 7–46.
• ———. “William Jefferson Clinton’s Leadership Style.” In The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders, edited by J. M. Post, 313¬–23. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
• Horowitz, Michael, Rose McDermott, and Allan C. Stam. “Leader Age, Regime Type, and Violent International Relations.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 5 (2005): 661–85.
• Horowitz, Michael C., and Matthew Fuhrmann. “Studying Leaders and Military Conflict: Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 62, no. 10 (2018): 2072–086.
• Jervis, Robert. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.
• Johnston Conover, Pamela, and Stanley Feldman. “How People Organize the Political World: A Schematic Model.” American Journal of Political Science 28, no. 1 (1984): 95–126.
• Keller, Jonathan W. “Constraint Challenger, Constraint Respecter, and Crisis Decision Making in Democracies: A Case Study Analysis of Kennedy versus Reagan.” Political Psychology 26, no. 6, (2005): 835–66.
• Kertzer, Joshua D. Resolve in International Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.
• Kertzer, Joshua D., and Dustin Tingley. “Political Psychology in International Relations: Beyond the Paradigms.” Annual Review of Political Science no. 21 (2018): 319–39. Kille, Kent J., and Roger M. Scully. “Executive Heads and The Role of Intergovernmental Organizations: Expansionist Leadership in the United Nations and the European Union.” Political Psychology 24, no. 1 (2003): 175–98.
• Malici, Akan, and Johnna Malici. “The Operational Codes of Fidel Castro and Kim Il Sung: The Last Cold Warriors?” Political Psychology 26, no. 3 (2005): 387–412.
• Nye, Joseph S. “Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes.” International Organization 41, no. 3 (1987): 371-402.
• Preston, Thomas. The President and His Inner Circle: Leadership Style and the Advisory Process in Foreign Policy Making. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
• Renshon, Jonathan. “Stability and Change in Belief Systems: The Operational Code of George W. Bush.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52, no. 6 (2008): 820–49.
• Rosati, Jerel A. “Continuity and Change in the Foreign Policy Beliefs of Political Leaders: Addressing the Controversy over the Carter Administration.” Political Psychology 9, no. 3 (1988): 471–505.
• Roberts, Brent W., Jing Luo, Daniel A. Briley, Philip I. Chow, Rong Su, and Patrick L. Hill. “A Systematic Review of Personality Trait Change through Intervention”. Psychological Bulletin 143, no. 2 (2017) 117–41.
• Shannon, Vaughn P., and Jonathan W. Keller. “Leadership Style and International Norm Violation: The Case of the Iraq War.” Foreign Policy Analysis 3, no. 1 (2007): 79–104.
• Tetlock, Philip E. Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.
• Van Esch, Femke. “A Matter of Personality? Stability and Change in EU Leaders’ Beliefs During the Euro Crisis.” In Making Public Policy Decisions: Expertise, Skills, and Experience, edited by D. Alexander and J. M. Lewis, 53–72. London: Routledge, 2014.
• ———. “Why Germany Wanted EMU: The Role of Helmut Kohl's Belief System and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.” German Politics 21, no. 1 (2012): 34–52. Vertzberger, Yaacov Y.I. “The Antinomies of Collective Political Trauma: A Pre‐Theory.” Political Psychology 18, no. 4 (1997): 863–76.
• Walker, Stephen G., Mark Schafer, and Michael D. Young. “Systematic Procedures for Operational Code Analysis: Measuring and Modeling Jimmy Carter's Operational Code.” International Studies Quarterly 42, no. 1 (1998): 175–89.
• Yang, Yi Edward. “Leaders’ Conceptual Complexity and Foreign Policy Change: Comparing the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush Foreign Policies toward China.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 3 (2010): 415–46.
• Yavuz, M. Hakan, and Bayram Balci. Turkey's July 15th Coup: What Happened and Why. Salt Lake: Utah State University Press, 2018.
• Ziv, Guy. “Simple vs. Complex Learning Revisited: Israeli Prime Ministers and the Question of a Palestinian State.” Foreign Policy Analysis 9, no. 2 (2013): 203–22.