UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

FACULTY OF ARTS
INSTITUTE OF DIPLOMACY AND
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
BACHELOR OF ARTS IN INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
NAME: GERRY ROLLINS ODHIAMBO
REG NO: R67/100611/2107
COURSE NAME: FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS
COURSE CODE: RMA 203
LEC NAME: Dr. MUMO NZAO
QUESTION: CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE UTILITY
OF IDIOSYNCRATICVARIABLES TO OUR
UNDERSTANDING OF FOREIGN POLICY IN THE 21st
CENTURY.
INTRODUCTION
Foreign policy is a course of action that a government takes when interacting with other states

and non-state actors in the international system. it’s always about decisions or positions that a

state will take on how it will relate with other actors in the international system.

There is some variable that influences on how these states will make or take those positions

when dealing with the state and non-state actors in the international arena one of the variables is

the idiosyncratic variable these are factors that produce certain changes or variations in the

human behavior or responses they are peculiar to humans but also affect the international system

because these things are intertwined they include the age, sex, beliefs, personality, experiences,

etc.

These variables are very critical in our understanding of foreign policy because they predict how

the policy will be formulated because they are formulated by human beings for human beings.

This paper basis brings an innovative element in the study of foreign policy through the analysis

of the subjective elements (idiosyncrasies) which appear in the decisional process, at the

individual level. The use of psychological methods for the analysis of foreign policy decision-

making opens a new way of investigating the field of international relations.

So we can say that individual characters of different decision makers make a difference in the

foreign policy of a state. The first step to investigate the relationship between the individual and

foreign policy is to refer to the personal characteristics of top level individual decision making of

these leadrers. The kind of personality trait they posses becomes an important variable in

assessing the foreign policy decisions because certain character traits make certain individuals to

behave in certain ways for istance when faced with a situation to deal with leders who have an
authoritarian personality will act diffrerntly from those who have a democratic personality hence

the personality of a leader, authoritarian or democratic; open minded or close minded; excitable

or calm will most likely influence the nature of their policy decisions.

This is also related to to their interllectual capacity and talents of handling information, analysing

it and turning it into concerte policies will affect their process of of policy decision making hence

we may find sigmificant points in the personality characters of leaders or top level decision

makerks in explaining certain foreign policy behaviours of states. Also indivuals can have their

policy decision impacted by their environment because different indivuals can derive different

meanings to from the events occouring in the same environment hence making a forign policy

will determine how one sees the world. Hence we can say that relationship between the

individual and foreign policy will focous on the images, preceptions,beliefs and values of the

individual decision maker.

ANALYSIS

The idiosyncratic variables or rather I can choose to call them personality because it deals with

the way the human being carries him or herself, they also play a role in understanding the way

states will make or go about their foreign policy decision making because as stated earlier it’s the

human beings make these policies on behalf of the states, hence how we as citizens carry

ourselves out will determine which way our policy will go.

A classic example of this is during elections every president in their election campaign draw

their general policy on their more important issues although at times they remain to be only

slogans of rhetoricity they provide a glimpse of what the candidate minds ate is all about and his

future policies but sometimes the policies are not always different the differences occur on how

each leader will prioritize these foreign policy concerns and the means or tools chosen for

achieving the ends defined by the policy. For example, With the onset of Obama’s presidency in

2008, certain foreign policy priorities regarding Pakistan and Afghanistan saw a radical change,

and there was a strategic shift in the policy formulation process. He discarded Republican

President Bush’s expression of “global war on terror” and “replaced it with a covert, laser-like

focus on Al-Qaida and its spawn1. Obama even changed its title from ‘Global War on Terror’ to

‘Overseas Contingency Operations2. The role of US leadership in the policy formulation process

increased with the changing geopolitical environment in the region.

1
Michael Hirsh, " On the Verge of Appeasement in Syria," National Journal, May 5, 2011, sec. Vantage Point.
https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/71521/ verge-appeasement-Syria. Very quickly upon taking office as president,
Obama reoriented the Iraq War back to where, in the view of many experts, it always belonged. He discarded the
idea of a “global war on terror” that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaida to Hamas to Hezbollah.
2
Al Kamen, “The End of Global War on Terror," The Washington Post, March 24, 2009,
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/23/the_end_of_the_ global war
A study conducted by a scholar named Margaret G. Hermann found a strong connection between

idiosyncratic factors and the foreign policy decision-making process3. The best-case scenario of

this can be seen in Pakistan where the personalities of former US presidents did play an

important role. For instance, President Eisenhower had a military background and thus, his

priority list included recruiting the maximum number of allies to contain the Communist Soviet

Union. Defense contracts with Pakistan were signed and it received considerable weapons’

supplies to modernize its military. With the onset of the Kennedy era, especially after 1962,

weapons supply to Pakistan was reduced, and by the end of the Johnson administration, it was

almost halted. Similarly, President George W. Bush being the son of a former President, and

having an aristocratic background, lacked a public “touch” to his foreign policy and most were

‘hawks’ in his administration who affected his general foreign policy orientation4 and this time

again, the personality traits, along with the geopolitical setting of the world played its part and

the US foreign policy towards Pakistan got ‘refashioned’ and unabated assistance started

flowing.

Afterward, as President Obama ascended the office, the situation changed. He did not have an

aristocratic background. His personality gave a “humane” impression to his foreign policy. He

was an “everybody’s man” but he proved more insensitive in his dealings with Pakistan.

So, as we have seen these idiosyncratic variables or personalities will always provide an

insightful explanation as to why some certain decisions are made and reached at and allow for

prediction to regards foreign policy decision making. Margaret Hermann (1980) argues that by

3
Alan S. Gerber et al., "Personality and Political Attitudes: Relationships across Issue Domains and Political
Contexts," American Political Science Review 104, no. 01 (2010): 111–133; Margaret G. Hermann, "Personality and
Foreign Policy Decision Making: A Study of 54 Heads of Government," in Foreign Policy Decision Making:
Perception, Cognition, and Artificial Intelligence, ed. Donald A. Sylvan (Praeger, 1984), 53–80.
4
Michael Lind, "The Weird Men behind George W Bush’s War," New Statesman, April 7, 2003; Ed Vulliamy, "Two
Men Driving Bush into War," The Guardian, February 23, 2003, sec. World news.
examining idiosyncrasies, characteristics, and personality, predictions regarding foreign policy

decision-making can be made because such examinations can create a clear picture of likely

personal behavior, i.e. predispositions. Predictions are usually made by way of cognitive

mapping and analyses of the cognitive and psychological processes involved in decision-making;

thus, it is important to recognize that personality and cognition are innately linked5.

An important aspect of personality that can provide valuable insight into foreign policy decision

making is the ability of leaders to experience attitudinal and policy orientation changes, a

capacity to change from being an aggressive leader to a one who displays more conciliatory

behavior, this appears to be more relevant to the Israeli politicians such as Shimon Peres and

Yitzhak Rabin, who both began their political careers with hawkish foreign policies and ended

them as doves, Rabin was responsible for the signing of peace accords with the Palestinians in

1993 at Oslo, and Peres has consistently sought out domestic and international allies in the latter

part of his career 6.

Another question that is often asked concerning presidents being elected and their actions is

whether their election to office affects their psychological traits or has any impact on their

personality traits in their decision making or whether the weight that comes with the ‘chair of the

presidency’ affects their decisions or it’s the other way round, former White House Press

Secretary noted that the Oval Office “neither elevates nor degrades a man. What it does is to

provide a stage upon which all of his personality traits are magnified.”7 These traits, along with

5
Hermann, M.G (1980) Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of Political
Leaders. International Studies Quarterly 24(1) pp.7-46.
6
Ziv, G (2007) Hawks turned Doves: Foreign Policy Transformations and the case of Shimon Peres. Ph.D. University
of Maryland
7
George E. Reedy, The Twilight of the Presidency (World Publication Company, 1970), 18–19.
the historical experiences, have affected the important decisions made by different US leaders in

history.8

Another case study can be seen in Nigeria where personality traits were seen to be dominant

factors in foreign policy decision making and it was a fact well captured by a Nigerian author

U.Joy Ogwu who studied most of the Nigerian leaders between the First and Second Republics

(1960 to 1966 and 1979 to 1983, respectively) She observes that Prime Minister Sir Abubakar

Tafawa Balewa (1960- 1966) was a “calm and moderate man . . .his personality being more

calculated to placate than to provoke9 She argues that these traits conditioned his position on

foreign policy, which was marked by conservative and moralistic gradualism. For the first ten

months of independence, Balewa reserved for himself the post of Minister of External Affairs,

maintaining rigid personal control over foreign policy matters ignoring the public opinion on the

matter.

Several leaders will always want to have it their way hence they will always want to maintain

their idiosyncrasies even when they are formulating or reviving their policies because they

always want to stand out from the others a case was seen here in East Africa where the President

of Tanzania reduced restrictions of Covid 19 to zero because he felt the disease was a hoax and

nothing major was there to cause an alarm this came in time where Kenya was fully imposing

restrictions to contain the virus this made people wonder how comes its possible because Kenya

is always the gateway to East Africa hence if the virus is bad in Kenya definitely the neighbors

are to be affected but the Tanzanian President placed back everything to normal by removing

restriction that later became a tussle due to the fact that Kenya had decided not to allow its

8
F. Ugboaja Ohaegbulam, A Concise Introduction to American Foreign Policy (Peter Lang Publishing, 1999), 75–84.
9
U. Joy Ogwu, Nigerian Foreign Policy: Alternative Futures (Lagos: Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in co-
operation with Macmillan Nigeria Publishers, 1986), 52.
citizens from the border in and also bn their flights the Tanzanian President felt that he had to

make a decision on his country without regards to the public opinion and he is known for his trait

of making decisions radically and imposing them maybe he doesn’t even need any consultation

maybe it is personality to act that way. We can see that these idiosyncratic variables make a way

for each to view their policies in their way because maybe they feel they are the main

beneficiaries of their policies and others come second.

In some cases, a leader‘s personality becomes much influential rather than the world order, for

the first president of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman‘s personality was a very unique one

that shaped the foreign policy of his nation in some way he undertook many efforts that included

returning of refugees and ensuring shelter for them, reconstruction of the devastated economy;

collecting weapons from freedom fighters which are used in war, send back Indian soldiers to

their own country and became the only leader in the world history that could send back foreign

soldiers and this was possible because of his boldness and fearless personality that he possessed

and this showed his ability to maneuver through the various institutional and political constraints

of the office and to garner support for his policies from the public, international community, and

even his inner decision-making circle his fearless personality impressed all other leaders at cold

war period that influenced on foreign policy decision making.

political decision making is not a set of algebraic processes, and decision-makers do not follow

unbreakable laws of classical mechanics.10 Leaders usually conduct a subjective analysis of

available and at times vague data provided by different institutions of the state such as

intelligence agencies. Although they ‘try’ to follow principles of objectivity, yet their personal
10
Lasha Tchantouridze, "Review: Integrating Cognitive and Rational Theories of
Foreign Policy Decision Making by Alex Mintz," Canadian Journal of Political
Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique 38, no. 1 (March 2005): 256–
58.
preferences, history, ideology, and several other attached factors do transform this rather

objective phenomenon into a subjective one. Theories of international relations often do not

emphasize the link between objective material capabilities and decision maker’s subjective

assessment, which indeed is one of the important issues in the decision-making process. Theories

of foreign policy decision making attempts to explain these anomalous behaviors of the leaders

by saying that: the leaders while analyzing the situation do not ‘necessarily’ go for the option

which is in the best interest of the state, but also the one which is in congruence with their self-

interests and less risky for their political life. Decisionmakers thus reject the policy-options

utilizing the non-compensatory principle.11

Leaders formulate the foreign policy according to their estimations and perception of the

situation. Poliheuristic theory (PHT) postulates that “in reaching a final decision, foreign

policymakers use a set of heuristics”12 to drop the policy options unacceptable to them based on

their perception about the national and personal political interests. The “measure success and

failure, costs and benefits, gains and losses, and risks and rewards using political units”13because

they have to look for their winning prospects in the next elections; hence domestic politics works

as an important constraint while making a decision. PHT states that the first phase of decision-

making involves the cognitive psychological processes in which the leaders drop some of the

policy options unacceptable to them on the domestic political front and also because of being too

risky for the state interests. It results in the simplification of the decision matrix. The second

stage involves the rational decision-making phase in which “the remaining of alternatives are

11
Alex Mintz, "How Do Leaders Make Decisions? A Poliheuristic Perspective,"
Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no. 1 (2004): 3–13.
12
Tchantouridze, "Review: Integrating Cognitive and Rational Theories of
Foreign Policy Decision Making by Alex Mintz," 257.
13
Nehemia Geva and Alex Mintz, Decision making on War and Peace: The
Cognitive-Rational Debate (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1997), 82.
considered in more detail, again by using heuristic reasoning.”14 But still ss the process involves

heuristic reasoning, there are plenty of chances that errors are committed because in the decision-

making process, perceptions of the leaders are involved and subjective analysis is being done by

the president and his team. One example of such errors was the US decision to withdraw from

Afghanistan in the late 1980s, after Soviet withdrawal and leaving Pakistan alone. They still

consider it a result of leadership’s failure to fully appreciate the situation, resulting in disastrous

consequences for the US interests in the region, and the international system15

We can also see the Donald Trump personality trait that tries almost every day to form a policy

that China are the ones responsible for the majority of world problems and he doesn't shy away

from commenting this and it’s a policy in the United States of America and also he tries to build

one that will make its citizens forget that there was ever an Obama lead in the US I can say a

little bit that he is some kind of a racist person but we I also say that it’s the fact that maybe no

one knew that a black man would lead the most powerful state in the world because if Martin

Luther didn’t and he was the most influential black man of his time who would have thought that

a son to a peasant in Kenya would so Trump’ ego and perception always drive shim to make a

foreign policy in the US that will make people see what sees and if he gets re-elected then maybe

he is changing or c rather changed the American policy to his preferences.

CONCLUSION

14
Tchantouridze, "Review: Integrating Cognitive and Rational Theories of
Foreign Policy Decision Making by Alex Mintz," 257.
15
Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Testimony: American Leaving
Pakistan Alone after Afghan Jihad, YouTube (US Congress, 2011),
The idiosyncratic variable is these factors that produce variations to the human system to respond

toa certain situation they are factors that are peculiar to the human and also affect the system and

in turn it makes them make certain decisions that apply to their liking or what will make them

feel at ease and in formulating foreign policies they also apply. After all, we have seen they play

a huge role in our understanding of foreign policy because we can see the drivers that make

people decide on the policies that they want to pursue.

This paper analyzed how personality, human psychology, and its various personal traits of

people or leaders influenced foreign policy decision making.

In conclusion, this paper convinces that a leaders personality can be more influential on foreign

policy decision making and it makes a case in understanding foreign policy based on these

personal traits that these people have that triggers responses in their system that plays a role in

shaping the foreign policies of their states because after all these policies affect people and are

made by people on behalf of the state.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Al Kamen, “The End of Global War on Terror," The Washington Post, March 24, 2009,

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/23/the_end_of_the_ global war

Alex Mintz, "How Do Leaders Make Decisions? A Poliheuristic Perspective,"

Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no. 1 (2004): 3–13.

Alan S. Gerber et al., "Personality and Political Attitudes: Relationships across Issue Domains

and Political Contexts," American Political Science Review 104, no. 01 (2010): 111–133;

Margaret G. Hermann, "Personality and Foreign Policy Decision Making: A Study of 54 Heads

of Government," in Foreign Policy Decision Making: Perception, Cognition, and Artificial

Intelligence, ed. Donald A. Sylvan (Praeger, 1984), 53–80.

F. Ugboaja Ohaegbulam, A Concise Introduction to American Foreign Policy (Peter Lang

Publishing, 1999), 75–84

George E. Reedy, The Twilight of the Presidency (World Publication Company, 1970), 18–19.

Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Testimony: American Leaving

Pakistan Alone after Afghan Jihad, YouTube (US Congress, 2011),

Hermann, M.G (1980) Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of

Political Leaders. International Studies Quarterly 24(1) pp.7-46.

Lasha Tchantouridze, "Review: Integrating Cognitive and Rational Theories of

Foreign Policy Decision Making by Alex Mintz," Canadian Journal of Political

Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique 38, no. 1 (March 2005): 256–58
Michael Lind, "The Weird Men behind George W Bush’s War," New Statesman, April 7, 2003;

Ed Vulliamy, "Two Men Driving Bush into War," The Guardian, February 23, 2003, sec. World

news.

Michael Hirsh, " On the Verge of Appeasement in Syria," National Journal, May 5, 2011, sec.

Vantage Point. https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/71521/ verge-appeasement-Syria. Very

quickly upon taking office as president, Obama reoriented the Iraq War back to where, in the

view of many experts, it always belonged. He discarded the idea of a “global war on terror” that

conflated all terror threats from al-Qaida to Hamas to Hezbollah.

Nehemia Geva and Alex Mintz, Decision making on War and Peace: The

Cognitive-Rational Debate (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1997), 82.

Tchantouridze, "Review: Integrating Cognitive and Rational Theories of

Foreign Policy Decision Making by Alex Mintz," 257.

U. Joy Ogwu, Nigerian Foreign Policy: Alternative Futures (Lagos: Nigerian Institute of

International Affairs in co-operation with Macmillan Nigeria Publishers, 1986), 52.

Ziv, G (2007) Hawks turned Doves: Foreign Policy Transformations and the case of Shimon

Peres. Ph.D. University of Maryland.