Synopses & Reviews
Feldman, Valenty, and their contributors present state-of-the-art evaluations of linkages between personality, motivation, decision making, leadership style, and behavior among political leaders across divergent cultures. Leading scholars in the field examine the application of theoretical approaches and research methods used to evaluate these important relationships. They effectively illustrate the concomitant role of cultural and political context, historical circumstance, environmental factors, and socialization agents affecting political leadership and performance.
Contributors evaluate methods currently in use by scholars in political science, psychology, political psychology, social psychology, and history, including psychodiagnostic and psychobiographical approaches, and the application of these methods in profiling the personalities of political leaders. Each chapter presents a unique case study evaluating a political leader or leaders including such major figures as Mao Zedong, Tony Blair, Seyyed Mohammed Khatami, Helmut Kohl, and Stalin, Yeltsin, and Putin.
Review
This volume will interest upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and researchers in political science and international relations as well as psychology.Choice
Synopsis
Feldman and Valenty present state-of-the-art research evaluating relationships between personality, leadership, decision making, behavior, and context among political leaders and across divergent cultures. With chapters from outstanding international scholars, the text is unique in its examination of the utility of current research methods as applied to case studies from disparate societies.
Synopsis
Feldman and Valenty present state-of-the-art research evaluating relationships between personality, leadership, decision making, behavior, and context among political leaders and across divergent cultures. With chapters from outstanding international scholars, the text is unique in its examination of the utility of current research methods as applied to case studies from disparate societies.
Synopsis
Presents research evaluating relationships between personality, leadership, decision making,
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [255]-279) and index.
About the Author
LINDA O. VALENTY is Assistant Professor of Political Science at San Jose State University.
Table of Contents
Assessment of personality and leadership: content analytic techniques. Studying Canadian leaders at a distance -- Political leadership and the democratic peace: the operational code of Prime Minister Tony Blair -- The 1996 Russian presidential candidates: a content analysis of motivational configuration and conceptual/ integrative complexity -- The personality and leadership style of President Khatami: implications for the future of Iranian political reform. Profiling the political personality: psychodiagnostic and psychobiographical approaches. Linking leadership style to policy: how prime ministers influence the decision-making process -- Kings, queens, and sultans: empirical studies of political leadership in European hereditary monarchies -- Mao Zedong's narcissistic personality disorder and China's road to disaster -- Profiling Russian leaders from a psychohistorical and psychobiographical perspective -- Benjamin Netanyahu: a psychological profile using behavior analysis. The cultural context: applications from east to west. Building the war economy and rebuilding postwar Japan: a profile of pragmatic nationalist Nobusuke Kishi -- When and why do hard-liners become soft? An examination of Israeli Prime Ministers Shamir, Rabin, Peres, and Netanyahu -- Predicting the performance of leaders in parliamentary systems: New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange -- Self-presentation of political leaders in Germany: the case of Helmut Kohl -- The comparative psychoanalytic study of political leaders: John McCain and the limits of trait psychology.