The Leadership Trait Analysis: Individuals, Foreign Policy and Generalisability

Many have debated the issue of at which level of analysis International relations should be studied in order to make inferences about foreign policy. A growing body of literature has emphasized the personality of the individual policymaker as an important variable that shapes foreign policy. The study of individuals in foreign policy analysis, however, copes with the problem of generalizing to a larger universe of cases. Therefore, the aim of this study is to come to testable, generalizable hypotheses about the role of individuals in foreign policy making. The paper applies M.G. Hermann’s Leadership Trait Analysis to assess the leadership styles of foreign ministers across European countries. The resulting dataset allows for a comparison across countries and between political systems, as well as for taking into account career patterns, experience, and gender. This study is innovative for taking foreign ministers into account and because it conducts a cross-case analysis.