The Role of Personality in the Grexit Negotiations: Perceptions and Misperceptions in International Politics

From the second half of 2014 to September 2015, international news was dominated by the negotiations about the Greek bailout, which soon transformed into discussions about Greece’s membership in the Eurozone. The requirements of the Quadriga for the new payment were tightly connected to austerity measures and deep economic reforms of Greece. However, the Greek government under Prime Minister Tsipras and Minister of Finance Gianis Varoufakis argued that these austerity measures could not be applied to the Greek state because of its (potential) catastrophic effects on the Greek population. These futile discussions between both parties were complemented by the demands of Eurozone governments – particularly in Germany– for Greece to accept the requirements. In addition to economic reasons for the Grexit crisis, there have been ideological clashes between the Socialist Greek government and the neo-liberal Troika (ECB, IMF, and European Commission). The major clash between the Greek government and the Troika was because of austerity measures. These discussions were accompanied by numerous demonstrations of the Greek public against monetary organizations and Germany as the major proponent of austerity. In this article, I aim to determine why the Eurocrisis negotiations between the Greek government and its financial creditors developed into such a critical issue for Greece and the entire Eurozone. I argue that the personality factor has played a substantial role in this process. Specifically, these negotiations were marked by misperceptions of strong political leaders in Europe about the reasons of the crisis and its possible solutions. In order to examine the role of perceptions and misperceptions in international negotiations, a multi-method research using the major methods developed in the framework of political psychology will be applied. More specifically, I will conduct a longitudinal motivational and perceptional analysis of the major participants of the Grexit negotiations: (1) Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Ministers of Finance Gainis Varoufacis and Euclid Tsakalotos (Greece), (2) Chancellor Angela Merkel and Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble (Germany), (3) Chief of the Euro Group, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, (4) President of the European Central Bank, Mario Dragi, (5) Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, and (6) President of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. The interviews with these actors will be analyzed using Winter’s motive imagery analysis (1994) and the operational code construct (Shafer et al.).