Explaining Rigidity and Pragmatism in Political Leaders: A General Theory and A Plausibility Test From The Reagan Presidency

Political Psychology, Vol. 30, No.
3, 2009
Explaining Rigidity and Pragmatism in Political

Leaders: A General Theory and a Plausibility Test
from the Reagan Presidency
Jonathan W. Keller
James Madison University
Classic studies of a few extreme, almost pathological cases of rigidity in political leaders
(e.g., Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations debacle) have tended to obscure the fact that
virtually all leaders alternate between periods of pragmatic flexibility and rigid intransi-
gence in the face of political opposition or unpleasant facts. This study develops a general
theoretical framework for explaining rigidity and flexibility in political leaders by extending
insights from classic studies of extreme cases to everyday policymaking and by integrating
these findings with more recent theoretical and empirical work in political psychology. The
plausibility of hypotheses derived from this framework is investigated by examining the
conditions associated with pragmatism and rigidity in 15 cases from the presidency of
Ronald Reagan. The results are generally consistent with the proposed model, which
stresses person-situation interaction and traces rigidity to the arousal of leaders’ sources of
self-validation in a particular policy context. I conclude by evaluating the implications of
this new framework for other areas of theory and research.
KEY WORDS: Pragmatism, Rigidity, Leadership, Personality, Ronald Reagan
Scholars of political leadership have devoted great effort to explaining

extreme cases of “rigidity” in political leaders: Tragic episodes where leaders
remained locked into failing policies despite political opposition and evidence of
failure. Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations debacle and Lyndon Johnson’s
Vietnam escalation are among the most studied cases (Barber, 1992; George &
George, 1956; Halberstam, 1992; Stoessinger, 1985). This focus on extreme cases
has obscured the fact that most leaders alternate between periods of pragmatic
flexibility and intransigence in the face of political opposition or unpleasant facts.
And this variable is of great importance for explaining (and predicting) the policy
process and policy outcomes: When leaders are sensitive to the political context,
465
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466 Keller
variables in the broader environment shape policy choice, but when leaders are
more closed to these influences, their own beliefs and perceptions drive policy
(Hermann & Hermann, 1989; Keller, 2005b). This variable also affects how
leaders make key tradeoffs between policy quality and political support (George,
1980, 2003): Rigidity entails sacrificing political approval for policy “purity,”
while acute political sensitivity may prompt a leader to compromise policy quality
to ensure support. Despite the theoretical and substantive importance of this
variable, we do not yet have well-developed theory that specifies the conditions
under which pragmatism and rigidity emerge in political leaders.
This study develops a general theoretical framework for explaining rigidity
and flexibility in political leaders by extending insights from classic studies of
extreme cases to everyday policymaking and by integrating these findings with
more recent work in political psychology. The plausibility of hypotheses derived
from this framework is investigated by examining the conditions associated with
rigidity and pragmatism in 15 cases from the Reagan Presidency. I conclude by
evaluating the prospects for this theoretical framework to enhance other areas of
theory and research.
Explaining Rigidity and Pragmatism: A Theoretical Framework
The framework proposed here is built from three sets of insights: (1) the
importance of person-situation interaction, (2) classic studies’ findings on the
triggers of rigidity, and (3) research on leaders’ self-validation. I discuss each
building block and then present the resulting framework.
Building Block #1: The Importance of Person-Situation Interaction
Classic studies have shown that leaders’ personalities play an important role in
rigidity and pragmatism. For example, rigidification has been attributed to fragile
self-esteem (George & George, 1956), an active-negative personality type (Barber,
1992), and a cognitively simple missionary zeal (Stoessinger, 1985). Despite
statements that seem to place all the blame on personality (e.g., “Wilson did not fail
because of what he did or did not do. He failed because of what he was”; Stoessinger,
1985, p. 27), these scholars recognize that leaders’ dispositional tendencies may be
triggered, amplified, or diminished by situational factors in any given case:
Assuming that a tendency to political tragedy is present in the active-

negative character, whether it develops depends on other variables which
may or may not materialize during the course of a man’s Presidency. For
one thing, it depends on the occurrence of a situation of the kind that will
trigger rigidification. What are the characteristics of such a situation, and
how likely is it to occur during a President’s incumbency? (George, 1998,
p. 169)
Explaining Rigidity and Pragmatism in Political Leaders 467
Similarly, Keller concludes his study of the crisis behavior of pragmatic

“constraint respecters” versus more rigid “constraint challengers” as follows:
. . . it is important not to reify the leadership categories employed here:

although general predispositions toward domestic constraints may be
discerned, “constraint respecters” may stand firm against opposition in
some contexts, and “constraint challengers” are likely to compromise on
certain issues. Specifying more precisely the conditions under which
these different behaviors manifest themselves is a critical task for future
research. (2005b, p. 860, emphasis added)
This emphasis on contingency and the insufficiency of personality alone is

supported by the historical record: Leaders classified by Stoessinger (1985) as
prototypical “crusaders” based on their dispositional traits (Presidents Wilson and
Reagan) are described by historian Robert Dallek (1996) as great pragmatists
who typically displayed sensitivity to political constraints and only occasionally
became intransigent. In short, any general theory must take into account both the
person and the situation and specify how key elements of leadership style interact
with features of the situational context to produce pragmatism or rigidity in
specific cases.
Building Block #2: Insights from Classic Studies on the

Triggers of Rigidification
One downside of the classic studies on rigidification (e.g., Barber, 1992;

George & George, 1956) is that their focus on extreme cases has led scholars
to marginalize their insights and assume these patterns only apply to particularly
tortured individuals (e.g., Wilson) or unusually compulsive personality types (e.g.,
active-negatives). In reality, these studies are best viewed as extreme cases of more
general phenomena, and their insights have broad applicability for everyday
policymaking.
Woodrow Wilson exhibited a recurring pattern of rigidification when “faced
with genuine and effective opposition to a legislative proposal to which he had
committed his leadership aspirations. . . . To compromise in these circumstances
was to submit to domination in the very sphere of power and political leadership
in which he sought to repair his damaged self-esteem” (George, 1998, pp. 46–47).
Barber emphasizes the importance of a leader’s emotional investment in a policy
as a prerequisite for rigidification. For Wilson, “the League became a highly
personal crusade. He fastened upon the League as his League, his unique contri-
bution to history. As early as January 1917, Wilson had come to see himself as the
leader of an afflicted humanity longing for peace” (Barber, 1992, p. 35). Herbert
Hoover believed that by opposing direct federal assistance to the poor during the
Depression he was single-handedly preserving America’s founding principles
468 Keller
(Barber, 1992, p. 41). Lyndon Johnson personalized the Vietnam war to a degree
unusual even for Johnson, telling the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam after JFK’s
funeral: “ ‘I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the President who
saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.’ . . . [Barber observes:] There in the
emotional backwash of the assassination began Lyndon Johnson’s intense personal
commitment to a line of policy that would lead him, his nation, and Indochina to
disaster” (Barber, 1992, p. 25). Barber concludes: “These are not case studies in
cool calculation, not neutral histories. Wilson, Hoover, and Johnson cared, deeply
and sincerely, about what they were doing. They experienced intense anxiety,
frustration, and near despair as they clung to their battle flags. Their personalities
were engaged—not peripherally, but centrally—in fights against great odds”
(p. 46, emphasis added).
These studies suggest that when a situation arises that arouses a leader’s core
sources of self-validation—the criteria by which one judges one’s worth as a
political leader—the leader becomes willing to endure enormous political oppo-
sition and policy setbacks in order to remain faithful to the policy that has become
identified with that self-worth. Retreat would carry crushing psychic costs. When
these same leaders dealt with policy choices they viewed as peripheral to the
sources of their self-validation, they were much more willing to compromise and
open to information from the environment.
Building Block #3: The Sources and Implications of Leaders’ Self-Validation
While the fragility of Wilson’s self-esteem—and hence the intensity of his

rigidity—may have been unusual, evidence suggests that self-validation is central
to political leaders, as it is for most people, although the source of that validation
varies. Hermann (1993) notes that scholars of political and organizational leader-
ship have repeatedly highlighted a crucial distinction between leaders who are
more dispositionally driven and those who are more situationally responsive: a
distinction captured by such typologies as “crusader” versus “pragmatist”
(Stoessinger, 1985), “ideologue” versus “opportunist” (Ziller, Stone, Jackson, &
Terbovic, 1977), “directive” versus “consultative” (Bass & Valenzi, 1974), “inner-
directed” versus “other-directed” (Riesman, 1954; Riesman, Denney, & Glazer,
1950), “task-oriented” versus “relations-oriented” (Fiedler, 1967), “transforma-
tional” versus “transactional” (Burns, 1978), and “constraint challenger” versus
“constraint respecter” (Keller, 2005a). Importantly, the psychological explanation
for these divergent orientations involves the primary source of one’s self-
validation, or sense of identity, as a political leader. Dispositionally driven leaders
receive their self-validation through faithful adherence to a cherished set of beliefs,
a crucial task, or an all-important “mission,” while contextually sensitive leaders’
sense of self-validation is more dependent on earning and maintaining the
approval of key political actors (Hermann, 1993; Hermann & Kegley, 1995;
Keller, 2005b, p. 840; Renshon, 2003, pp. 287–288). Renshon notes that some
leaders are the “captives” of their constituencies and “hoped-for supporters” and
have a need to avoid conflict and acquiesce to these key groups, while other leaders
are capable of “standing apart” and taking actions they know will disappoint even
their closest friends and supporters. He explains this variation in terms of leaders’
self-validation: “What areas, what skills, what characteristics does [the leader]
think are central to his sense of self and political leadership? The specific elements
that form the building blocks of his sense of who he is and what he isn’t are crucial
to understanding when, to whom, and for what a president—or any leader—looks,
to others” (Renshon, 2003, p. 287).
An Integrative Theoretical Framework
The three strains of research highlighted above suggest the following

implications.
General Sources of Rigidity
Leaders’ “rigidification” is a joint product of dispositional factors (specifi-

cally, the sources of one’s self-validation) and situational conditions that arouse
those self-validating considerations in a specific policy context.
Differential Expressions of Rigidity
Rigidity expresses itself differently in leaders with different sources of self-

validation. Leaders who are internally validated (those whose primary source of
self-validation is faithful adherence to an ideology or a mission) will adhere rigidly
to those policy options they perceive are necessary, in a given policy context, to
uphold those principles/accomplish that mission and will exhibit insensitivity to
(a) political opposition to those policies and (b) information suggesting those
policies are failing. Wilson’s League of Nations debacle is a prime example of
these processes at work. Leaders who are externally validated (those whose
primary source of self-validation is approval from key others in the environment)
will adhere rigidly to those policy options they perceive are necessary, in a given
policy context, to maintain that approval and will exhibit insensitivity to (a)
information suggesting those policies are failing and (b) arguments suggesting
these policies betray key principles or policy goals. An example of this dynamic
comes from America’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999. President Clinton, who is
generally regarded as an externally validated leader (e.g., Renshon, 1996, p. 100),
ruled out the use of ground forces and relied on air power in the effort to stop
Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. According to many accounts,
Clinton rigidly persisted in this strategy—despite mounting evidence and vocal
expert opinions that air power alone might not be effective—because he feared the
political consequences of introducing ground forces. While “externally driven
470 Keller
rigidity” may look very different from “internally driven rigidity” on the surface
(with key differences in who or what the leader is attending to and ignoring), this
framework suggests that both phenomena (a) are driven by the same underlying
processes of arousal of self-validating considerations, (b) are maintained by
similar cognitive and motivational dynamics, and (c) require similar “antidotes”
for the relaxation of rigidity (see below).
Scope of Rigidity
Note that a leader need not adhere to a single policy option: Rather, leaders
identify—and resist moving beyond—that set of options they perceive as
adequately fulfilling self-validating criteria. Hence, leaders may abandon one
option and embrace another—even in response to political pressure and infor-
mation from the environment—as long as the new option fits within this range of
acceptable options. In short, a leader’s self-validating criteria define the range of
acceptable policy options. Degree of rigidity (and how damaging that rigidity can
be for one’s political standing and the national interest) is thus shaped by how
narrowly this set is defined in a given policy context. For Wilson in 1919–20,
only a single outcome—passage of the League of Nations Treaty with no reser-
vations attached—was judged to be acceptable. Objective situational constraints
(the composition of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the views of
Senators regarding the need for reservations) made this approach disastrous.
Despite the negative connotations of rigidity, it is worth emphasizing that rigidity
need not be associated with policy failure and is not necessarily inferior, in a
normative sense, to pragmatism. When rigid adherence to a policy despite politi-
cal opposition and setbacks leads to ultimate success, leaders are praised for their
courage under fire and their devotion to principle. When an unwillingness to
change course leads to policy failure leaders are condemned. Hence, rigidity is
defined here not in terms of policy failure but in terms of an unwillingness to
change course despite political opposition, setbacks/rising costs, or arguments
suggesting one’s policies compromise cherished principles. Leaders exhibiting
rigidity according to this definition may or may not experience ultimate policy
failure; as with Wilson, objective conditions will play a central role in determin-
ing the consequences of rigidity.
The Role of Motivated Biases
The counterintuitive proposition that a leader whose self-validation is tied

up in accomplishing a certain goal (e.g., ratification of an unmodified League of
Nations Treaty) will remain resistant to information suggesting the current
approach is unlikely to achieve this goal is explained by the fact that the leader
perceives no other policy option exists that will achieve the goal. This was the case
for Wilson in 1919–20 as it was for Johnson in 1965–68. Facing “reality” means
facing significant psychic costs. This suggests that leaders whose self-validation is
at stake will be particularly prone to motivated biases in policy evaluation: Exter-
nally validated leaders will tend to underestimate the policy risks and minimize the
possible compromise of principle associated with those actions deemed necessary
to ensure political approval (Lebow, 1981), while internally validated leaders will
underestimate both the political and policy risks associated with the approach
deemed necessary to maintain fidelity with their principles or mission. As leaders
invest heavily in self-validating policies, rigidity becomes self-reinforcing: Expen-
diture of effort increases both the perceived value of a goal and the perceived
likelihood of success (Festinger, 1957; Milburn & Christie, 1990).
The Limits of Rigidity
Though the extreme cases are distinguished by leaders’ refusal ever to yield,
episodes of rigidity among policymakers more generally are sometimes followed
by course adjustments as pressures mount. This framework provides guidance on
the conditions under which rigidity will give way to compromise. Particularly
crucial is the boundary that separates acceptable from unacceptable options:
Rigidity is expressed in leaders’ refusal to cross this boundary since options
beyond the boundary threaten their sense of self-worth. Leaders can choose an
option beyond this original boundary only if the boundary is adjusted based on
new information or a new interpretation. Thus an option that was originally viewed
as politically unacceptable becomes feasible, or an action perceived as treasonous
to one’s mission becomes a setback to be overcome later. In some cases an entirely
new option may be identified within the original boundary. Here again, motivated
biases will play an important role. Policy change among internally validated
leaders will be facilitated by their belief that a once dishonorable compromise is
somehow consistent with their validating principles, and the greater the political
and policy costs of maintaining rigidity the more psychological pressure the leader
will be under to reorder one’s beliefs in a more comforting fashion (Festinger,
1957; Heider, 1958; Rokeach, 1960). Similarly, policy change among externally
validated leaders will be facilitated by their belief that a once politically unaccept-
able policy option is now politically feasible, and the greater the policy costs and
compromise of principle associated with maintaining rigidity the more psycho-
logical pressure the leader will be under to reorder one’s beliefs. Finally, the
relative “purity” of one’s sources of self-validation will affect the likelihood of
policy change once rigidification has occurred. The list of typologies cited above
suggests that leaders typically can be identified as leaning toward one end or the
other of the internal-external validation spectrum. However, the further one moves
from either pole, the more mixed one’s sources of self-validation become and the
greater the opportunity for these additional considerations to become aroused and
prompt policy change. Leaders whose sources of self-validation are largely inter-
nal but who also gain considerable psychic benefits from political approval will be
472 Keller
more sensitive to political opposition than those whose internal self-validation is

of a more pure form.
This hypotheses generated by this theoretical framework are formally stated
below.
H1: Rigidity occurs when leaders perceive that their sources of self-
validation are highly salient in a particular policy context and that a
specific policy approach (a single option or set of options) is necessary to
protect the aroused concerns.
H2a: When internally validated leaders perceive that these internal con-
siderations are highly salient in a policy context, they will select and
rigidly adhere to that policy option (or set of options) they perceive is
necessary to uphold the aroused principles/goals, and display resistance
to (a) political opposition to the policy and (b) information suggesting the
policy is failing.1
H2b: For internally validated leaders who perceive that these internal
considerations are highly salient in a policy context, choices among the
set of acceptable options will reflect (a) sensitivity to political pressures
and (b) openness to information from the environment.
H2c: When internally validated leaders perceive that these internal con-
siderations are not salient in a policy context (or of very low salience
relative to political considerations), the leader’s decision process will
exhibit (a) sensitivity to political pressures and (b) openness to informa-
tion from the environment.2
H3a: When externally validated leaders perceive that political approval

by key actors is highly salient in a policy context, they will select and
rigidly adhere to that policy option (or set of options) they perceive is
necessary to maintain this approval and display resistance to (a) infor-
mation suggesting the policy is failing and (b) arguments suggesting the
policy betrays key principles or policy goals.3
H3b: For externally validated leaders who perceive that political

approval is highly salient in a policy context, choices among the set of
1
The leader’s insensitivity to political opposition and unwelcome facts includes both anticipated and
actual opposition/setbacks and applies both to the period of initial policy choice and the subsequent
period of policy maintenance.
2
This applies both to the initial policy choice and reconsideration of current policies.
3
The leader’s insensitivity to unwelcome facts and unpleasant arguments involving principles or goals
includes both anticipated and actual facts/arguments and applies both to the period of initial policy
choice and the subsequent period of policy maintenance.
acceptable options will reflect (a) openness to information from the

environment and (b) the leader’s principles and policy goals.
H3c: When externally validated leaders perceive that political approval

by key actors is not salient in a policy context (or of very low salience
relative to key policy goals or principles), the leader’s decision process
will reflect (a) openness to information from the environment and (b) the
leader’s principles and policy goals.4
H4: Internally validated leaders will underestimate the political risks and
policy hazards associated with the policy approach deemed necessary to
maintain fidelity with their self-validating principles or mission.
H5: Externally validated leaders will underestimate the policy hazards

and minimize the compromise of principle associated with the policy
approach deemed necessary to ensure political approval.
H6: Leaders will choose a policy option that is outside the original range
of acceptable options (those options that maintain one’s self-validation)
only if the option is now perceived to meet these requirements due to new
information and/or interpretation.
H7: Leaders will change policies when they perceive that the current
policy has moved outside the range of acceptable options due to new
information and/or interpretation.
H8: Leaders whose sources of self-validation are more mixed will be

more likely to change policies than those whose sources of self-validation
are relatively pure.
H9: Leaders will be more likely (a) to redefine as acceptable and (b) to
choose policy options that were originally outside the range of accept-
ability the greater the costs (for political approval, policy effectiveness,
and fidelity to principle) associated with the current approach.
Figure 1 graphically illustrates how leaders’ sources of self-validation interact

with the perceived salience of internal and external considerations in a given
policymaking context to produce rigidity and flexibility.
Note that a specific leader’s position along the Y-axis—the dispositional
component—will remain relatively constant across policymaking contexts but the
perceived salience of key considerations (along the X-axis) will vary considerably.
4
This applies both to the initial policy choice and reconsideration of current policies.
474 Keller
EXTERNAL
Flexibility Rigidity
Sources of Self-Validation
Flexibility
Rigidity Flexibility
INTERNAL
INTERNAL Relative (Perceived) Salience of Key Considerations EXTERNAL
Figure 1. Hypothesized Conditions Shaping Leaders’ Rigidity and Flexibility.
The darker areas represent conditions in which more extreme rigidification will
occur, while the lighter areas predict flexibility. The diagonal line represents the
point at which the leader is least locked into a specific set of options based on his or
her self-validating criteria and is most open to information from the environment.
Also note that the closer a leader is to either end of the Y-axis, the higher the
“salience threshold” becomes at which nonvalidating considerations begin to shape
policy choice. This differential sensitivity to validating and nonvalidating consid-
erations is illustrated in Figure 2 for a range of hypothetical leadership profiles.
Figure 2 illustrates two crucial points. First, as shown by the convergence of
all four curves in the lower left and upper right corners of the figure, when only one
type of consideration—internal or external—is salient, all leaders allow those
considerations to shape policy choice (Hypotheses 2a, 2c, 3a, and 3c).5 Second,
leaders who differ in the sources of their self-validation take very different “paths”
between these two corners (represented by the curves in Figure 2). An example
will illustrate these curves’ implications for policymaking. Note that the X-axis in
Figure 2 depicts the degree to which a leader perceives external versus internal
considerations to be salient in a specific policymaking context, ranging from 0 (0%
internal) to 1.0 (100% internal). .5 indicates the point at which leaders perceive
5
Note, however, that for leaders who are primarily validated through the salient considerations, the
corners of Figure 2 represent areas of rigid persistence and insensitivity to unpleasant information
(see Figure 1). The corners do not have this meaning for those who are not primarily validated by the
salient considerations.
INTERNAL 1
Considerations Driving Policy
0.5
Strong Internal Validation

Moderate Internal Validation
Moderate External Validation
Strong External Validation
EXTERNAL 0
0 0.5 1
EXTERNAL Relative (Perceived) Salience of Key Considerations INTERNAL
Figure 2. Differential Sensitivity of Various Leadership Profiles to Key Considerations.
political approval and key principles/policy goals to be equally at stake. Similarly,

the Y-axis expresses the degree to which leaders’ actual policy choices are driven
by internal versus external considerations. .5 on this axis means that internal and
external factors are equally important in shaping policy. A “rational” or unbiased
policymaking approach would be represented by a diagonal line running from the
lower left to the upper right corners of the figure: As the perceived consequences
for key principles and policy goals in a given decision context become increasingly
more important than the perceived political stakes, the leader increasingly allows
these considerations to drive policy choices. But the four curves shown in Figure 2
diverge from the diagonal. A leader whose sources of self-validation are primarily
internal (the solid curve in Figure 2) will be driven by internal considerations not
only when these considerations are perceived to be more “at stake” than political
considerations (the right half of Figure 2) but also during most cases when the
political risks are quite high relative to the consequences for key policy goals (the
left half of Figure 2). Ultimately, such a leader begins to accord political consid-
erations a favored position in his/her decision calculus (dropping into the lower
half of Figure 2) only in those situations where external considerations become
much more pressing than policy goals/principles. In contrast, a leader who is
strongly externally validated (the rightmost curve in Figure 2) spends most of
his/her time in the lower half of the figure, requiring a strong perceived threat to
basic values or policy goals (or simply a lack of perceived political risk) to prompt
a decision-making process that is not dominated by political considerations. In
476 Keller
short, the more strongly one is validated by internal considerations, the more
salient external concerns must become before one allows these to shape policy, and
vice versa. Motivated biases (H4 and H5) that involve discounting the political or
policy risks in a decision context will limit how far a leader can move along his or
her curve toward basing decisions on nonvalidating considerations, while reinter-
pretation (H6 and H7) can free up movement (e.g., by minimizing the importance
of validating considerations).
A Plausibility Test
As a preliminary test of this framework’s validity, the plausibility of the above

hypotheses was examined in a series of case studies from the Reagan Presidency
(Eckstein, 1975; Kaarbo & Beasley, 1999). For reasons specified below, Reagan
was identified as an internally validated leader; this means H3a, H3b, H3c, and H5
cannot be tested, and H1 becomes synonymous with H2 (hence H1 is excluded).
Hypothesis 8 is also not tested because it involves comparisons between different
leaders. The logic behind this research strategy is that focusing on a single leader
holds dispositional factors relatively constant and allows the analyst to identify
conditions under which the same individual exhibited very different behavioral
patterns. In order to identify cases in which the dependent variable (degree of
rigidity) took on different values (intransigence or flexibility) a variety of sources
were consulted. These included Reagan biographies (including his autobiogra-
phy), scholarly analyses of the Reagan presidency, and reflections/memoirs of key
Reagan administration officials. The cases that emerged from this search are
shown in Table 1. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all instances of
rigidity and pragmatism during Reagan’s presidency, but it contains the major
episodes that stood out during this search. “Rigid cases” were those in which
Reagan made a policy decision or persisted in a policy direction despite encoun-
tering serious political opposition (anticipated or actual), changing circumstances,
or rising costs. “Pragmatic” cases were those in which Reagan chose policies that
Table 1. Key “Rigid” and “Pragmatic” Cases in Reagan’s Presidency
“RIGID” CASES “PRAGMATIC” CASES

Adherence to Economic Plan During Compromise on Size of Tax Cuts (1981)
Recession (1981–82)
Defense Buildup (1981–86) TEFRA Tax Increase (1982)
Deploying INF Weapons in Europe (1983) Dropping Defense of Bob Jones University (1982)
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) (1983–88) Social Security Reform (1983)
Keeping Troops in Lebanon (1983–84) Withdrawing Troops from Lebanon (1984)
Grenada Invasion (1983) Cooperation with USSR (1985–88)
Bitburg Visit (1985)
“Arms for Hostages” Dealings (1985–86)
Support for Nicaraguan Contras (1981–88)
appeared to contradict his stated principles in order to accommodate circum-

stances, or reversed course in the face of political opposition or rising costs. The
cases in which Reagan appeared to be acting contrary to his principles were
selected for study not only because these were instances of pragmatic compromise
but also because the possibility that his core principles may have been aroused
makes these cases a tough hurdle for the model (which predicts rigidity in such
circumstances).
“Locating” Reagan: The Sources of His Self-Validation
Since this theoretical framework posits different behavior for differently vali-
dated leaders, testing the framework requires the analyst to identify a leader’s
primary sources of self-validation. To avoid a tautology, the leader’s behavior in
the case studies should not be used to make this determination; rather, a leader’s
sources of self-validation should be discerned (and are typically apparent) from his
or her earlier political career and other biographical details. In Reagan’s case,
abundant evidence from his pre-presidential years suggests that his sources of
self-validation were primarily internal. In particular, there is substantial evidence
that Reagan viewed himself as a heroic figure who stood for principle rather than
seeking political approval and received his self-validation by advancing cherished
principles through specific policies. These three interconnected aspects of
Reagan’s self-validation—translation of principle into reality, the hero image, and
fidelity to principle despite political costs—will be briefly discussed.
The scholarly consensus is that Reagan came to the presidency with a set
of core ideological beliefs to which he was intensely committed (e.g., Dallek,
1996; Greenstein, 2000; Heclo, 2003; McAllister, 2003; Neustadt, 1990;
Patterson, 2003). This philosophy centered around anti-Communism, American
exceptionalism, “peace through [military] strength,” self-reliance, the promise of
capitalism, and a distaste for the regulations, taxes, and welfare programs associ-
ated with “big government.” He also had a profound distaste for the nuclear
doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and, despite his strident anti-
Communism, feared that a perpetual arms race would lead to nuclear Armaged-
don. Despite the image suggested by his frequent gaffes and extremely passive
managerial approach, the recent publication of Reagan’s handwritten 1975–79
radio addresses and other documents (Skinner, Anderson, & Anderson, 2001)
reveals a deep thinker with a well-developed philosophy and greatly undercuts the
notion that he was simply a product of his political handlers.6 He came to Sacra-
mento, then to Washington, driven by a desire to transform government and society
according to the compelling vision he held in his mind. In this sense, the presi-
6
Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, whose work is often scathingly critical of Reagan, concedes “[This
compilation of handwritten documents] makes mincemeat of the idea that Reagan was a dunce. Many
of these speeches are those of a visionary who saw around the bend in the road of history” (quoted
in Skinner et al., back cover).
478 Keller
dency for Reagan was “a means to an end. The end was the translation of his
dogmas into lower tax rates, a stronger military force, and reduced government
spending” (Cannon, 2000, p. 71). In his memoirs, he describes his first actions as
governor as “the beginning of the realization of a dream. After years of preaching
about what government should be, I had a chance to practice what I preached”
(Reagan, 1990, p. 156).
Importantly, Reagan appears to have had a deep need to see himself as the
“good guy”—a hero who would ride into town and save the day, protecting the
innocent and virtuous from that which is evil or corrupt. Throughout his life he
remained very proud of his job as a lifeguard at Lowell Park, where in six
summers, from 1927 through 1932 he rescued 77 people from drowning in Illi-
nois’ Rock River. While Reagan made 53 movies in Hollywood, he only played a
villain once, and he repeatedly expressed regret that he had made that picture. As
a political candidate, Reagan pictured himself as a citizen-politician who reluc-
tantly left his life outside of Sacramento (and later Washington) to enter the dirty
fray of politics in order to serve and protect the people. “The citizen-politician
became a citizen-governor who was proud that he still referred to the government
as ‘them.’ Citizen-governors exist to defend the people, as Cincinnatus had
defended Rome before returning to his plow. Reagan sought to defend Califor-
nians from ‘welfare cheats,’ foul-mouthed student demonstrators, and ivory-tower
leaders of the state’s entrenched higher-education establishment” (Cannon, 2000,
p. 30). He later saw himself as coming to the rescue of America in 1980, after the
economic turmoil, Communist advances, demoralization, and doubt of the previ-
ous decade. When Reagan was mulling a run for the presidency in 1976, he went
over the pros and cons with longtime aide Mike Deaver:
Toward the end of that memorable flight he explained, “Mike, I remember

in the movie Santa Fe Trail, I played George Custer as a young lieuten-
ant. The dying captain said to me, ‘You have got to take over.’ And my
line was ‘I can’t, I can’t.’ And the captain said ‘You must, it’s your duty.’
That’s the way I feel about this, it’s my duty,” he said. “I have to run. I’m
going to run.” (Deaver, 2001, p. 83)
National Security Adviser “Bud” McFarlane concluded that “[Reagan’s] judgments

were often formed by simply what he thought [was] the right thing to do, with no
more institutional, legal, or other framework than that. What do I, the heroic figure,
believe Americans would want me to do? And he would do it” (Cannon, 2000, p.
338; see also Glad, 1983, p. 63). Besides protecting the innocent, the heroic figure
always kept his word: “All of Reagan’s political aides knew that an argument that he
would be going back on his word was nearly always persuasive to the president.
. . . Reagan can be faulted for various lapses of memory or judgment, but he took
promises so seriously that his aides tried to prevent him from making too many of
them” (Cannon, 2000, pp. 209, 754; Regan, 1988, p. 272).
Finally, Reagan repeatedly extolled the virtues of doing the right thing despite
the polls and bristled when advisers framed decisions in political terms. Deaver
recalls:
Nancy taught me ways to win over [Governor Reagan], ways that other
aides were unaware of. If I was to ever prevail upon Reagan, she would
advise, I could never use blatant politics as a tool to pull the governor in
my direction. If I said that going to a certain event or supporting a certain
bill would mean “political death” for him, he would dismiss my argument
out of hand. But if I said that his support of this bill or his attendance at
this event would hurt people, Reagan would demand to know more and
usually take my side if I could prove my case. (2001, pp. 26–27)
During his first cabinet meeting in Sacramento (and again later in Washington),
Reagan warned his cabinet that when a decision came before him, “there was one
thing I didn’t want to hear: the ‘political ramifications’ of my choices. ‘The minute
you begin saying, ‘This is good or bad politically,’ I said, ‘you start compromising
principle’ ” (Reagan, 1990, p. 162).
These streams of evidence together suggest that Reagan’s sources of self-
validation were primarily internal: His positive self-image was based on the notion
that he was a heroic defender of the American people against oppressive govern-
ment at home and tyranny abroad, a virtuous leader who kept his word, upheld the
honor of America and the presidency, and remained faithful to cherished principles
even when doing so wasn’t popular. There is even some evidence that the failed
assassination attempt in 1981 convinced him he had been spared by God to carry
out his domestic and (particularly) foreign policy goals (e.g., Deaver, 2001, p. 152;
Reagan, 1990, pp. 262–263)—an interpretation that would have linked his self-
worth to his policy objectives even more strongly. Reagan certainly valued his
connection with the American people, enjoyed the affection of his audience, and
could become frustrated when he felt others doubted his integrity (e.g., after
Iran-Contra) but the evidence suggests he was more concerned about how he saw
himself than how others viewed him. One strong indication of this is that by all
accounts Reagan was more interested in policy results than in accolades, a trait
Cannon (2000) suggests was “fortunate for his presidency, even if often damaging
to his personal reputation” (p. 154).
Findings: Rigid Cases
The case study results are shown in Table 2. Note that H6, H7, and
H9—which deal with the dynamics of policy change—could not be examined in
the “rigid” cases. Two of these rigid episodes (“adherence to economic plan during
recession” and “keeping troops in Lebanon”) ultimately involved policy change,
but the dynamics of these changes are explored in the corresponding pragmatic
480 Keller
Table 2. Results of Case Studies
RIGID CASES HYPOTHESES

2a 2b 2c 4 6 7 9
Economic Plan/Recession (1981–82) C C N/A S N/A N/A N/A
Defense Buildup (1981–86) C C N/A S N/A N/A N/A
INF Deployment (1983) C N/A N/A A N/A N/A N/A
SDI (1983–88) C S N/A C N/A N/A N/A
Troops in Lebanon (1983–84) C N/A N/A C N/A N/A N/A
Grenada (1983) C N/A N/A A N/A N/A N/A
Bitburg Visit (1985) C C N/A S N/A N/A N/A
Arms for Hostages (1985–86) C C N/A C N/A N/A N/A
Contra Support (1981–88) C N/A N/A C N/A N/A N/A
PRAGMATIC CASES
Tax Compromises (1981) C C N/A S N/A N/A N/A
TEFRA Tax Increase (1982) S C N/A S C N/A C
Bob Jones University (1982) S N/A N/A C C C S
Social Security Reform (1983) S S N/A N/A S N/A S
Lebanon Withdrawal (1984) C N/A N/A N/A C S C
Cooperation with USSR (1985–88) C S C S C C N/A
KEY: C = Clear, overwhelming evidence in support of hypothesis; S = Some evidence supporting
hypothesis; A = Evidence is against hypothesis; N/A = Not Applicable to this case or insufficient
evidence to test hypothesis.
cases in the lower half of Table 2 (“TEFRA tax increase” and “Lebanon with-
drawal”). Also, H2c could not be examined in the rigid cases because—as dis-
cussed below—in none of these cases did Reagan perceive that key internal
considerations were not salient. This leaves H2a, H2b, and H4 for the rigid cases.
Hypothesis 2a anticipates that “when internally validated leaders perceive that
these internal considerations are highly salient in a policy context, they will select
and rigidly adhere to that policy option (or set of options) they perceive is
necessary to uphold the aroused principles/goals, and display resistance to (a)
political opposition to those policies and (b) information suggesting these policies
are failing.” Based on the theoretical framework, this is the only causal mechanism
by which internally validated leaders will become rigid. Hence, we should expect
that all cases of rigidity among such leaders will be accompanied by high per-
ceived salience of internal, self-validating considerations. As detailed below, this
is precisely what we find in the nine rigid cases from the Reagan presidency. Each
time Reagan displayed rigidity, it was because he perceived it necessary to adhere
to a policy that was inextricably linked to his self-identity. In none of these cases
did Reagan stubbornly adhere to a failing policy because it was politically popular
(the expected causal mechanism underlying rigidity for externally validated
leaders). Of course, to fully test H2a one would need to identify all cases in which
Reagan perceived key internal considerations were highly salient throughout his
presidency (a daunting empirical task) and see whether there were times when
such perceptions did not lead to rigidity. As noted above, in order to partially
overcome this problem, I have selected several “pragmatic” cases in which it
appeared—at least on the surface—that Reagan acted contrary to his core prin-
ciples or policy goals. This allows us to examine cases in which Reagan may have
perceived that key internal considerations were salient and yet he did not behave
rigidly—providing a more complete assessment of the plausibility of H2a.
Once Reagan had defined the issues in ways that implicated his self-worth,
he was willing to change course only within a narrowly circumscribed range of
options (consistent with H2b) and exhibited striking insensitivity to political
opposition and unpleasant data. At times, he clearly underestimated the political
and policy costs of “staying the course” (e.g., SDI, Lebanon, trading arms for
hostages), apparently succumbing to motivated biases as H4 expects. However, in
two cases (INF deployment and Grenada) he clearly understood the costs of going
forward and did so anyway. In order to illustrate these patterns, evidence from four
cases will be briefly presented: Bitburg visit, SDI, Lebanon, and “arms for
hostages.”
Bitburg Visit. Reagan stubbornly refused to change a scheduled visit to West
Germany’s Bitburg cemetery in 1985 once it was discovered that some Nazi SS
troops were buried there. The American Jewish community, the media, Congress,
top advisers, and even Nancy Reagan were outraged and demanded that Reagan
change his plans. “Reagan would not hear of it, saying that he had made a promise
to [Chancellor Helmut] Kohl. His stubbornness usually came to the fore when he
was asked to back away from a personal commitment for political reasons”
(Cannon, 2000, p. 510). In addition to the “keeping one’s word” consideration,
Reagan also believed it was important to keep the commitment for American
credibility and the unity of the anti-Communist alliance (particularly after Kohl
told him his government would fall if Reagan didn’t attend and Nixon and Kiss-
inger argued that any U.S. vacillation would only encourage Soviet adventurism;
Cannon, 2000, p. 514; Deaver, 2001, p. 104; Reagan, 1990, p. 378; Shultz, 1993,
p. 550; Regan, 1988, p. 263). Reagan contrasted his own behavior to that of his
predecessor, telling Don Regan “about the vacillations of Jimmy Carter, and the
way in which indecision had crippled the Carter Presidency and led to its humili-
ation abroad and its defeat in the United States” (Regan, 1988, p. 263). Reagan’s
diary entries from April 1985 show that he had defined the issue in terms of
valiantly doing the right thing despite political opposition: “There is no way I’ll
back down and run for cover. . . . I still think we were right” (April 4, p. 377); “I
told our people . . . there was no way I could back away in the face of the criticism
which grows more shrill as the press continues to clamor” (April 19, p. 378); “Sen.
Metzenbaum along with others . . . got a non-binding resolution passed asking
Germany to let me out of the Bitburg cemetery visit. Unfortunately, some of our
Republicans went along. Well, I don’t want out. I think I am doing what is morally
right” (April 26, p. 379).
482 Keller
Consistent with H2b, Reagan did make some adjustments to the Germany
visit in response to political pressure. First, he added a visit to the concentration
camp at Bergen-Belsen—a move he apparently thought would assuage the
Jewish community despite much evidence to the contrary (consistent with H4).
Second, General Matthew Ridgway, the only surviving U.S. four-star general
from the European theater, called Reagan and offered to take the political heat
off his commander-in-chief by laying the wreath at Bitburg instead of Reagan.
Deaver thought a perfect political solution had fallen into their laps, but Reagan
picked up the phone and said “General, this is Ron Reagan. Mike just told me
what you want to do and I can’t let you. But I have a better idea. We’ll lay that
wreath together” (Deaver, 2001, p. 107). Importantly, as H2b anticipates, these
relatively small adjustments to his controversial trip did not transgress the
crucial boundary of acceptability by altering Reagan’s central choice to visit
Bitburg as he had promised and show solidarity with his ally by laying a wreath
at the site.
Finally, there is some evidence that Reagan wavered briefly during this
episode, when Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel came to the White House to receive
an award and told Reagan, “May I, Mr. President, if it’s possible at all, implore you
to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another site. That place,
Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS.” Based
on his research, Cannon argues that Reagan “was both shaken and moved by
Wiesel’s words, and his vaunted stubbornness was beginning to crack. Reagan was
made uncomfortable by any suggestion that he was insensitive to the Holocaust”
(Cannon, 2000, p. 513). Reagan had been profoundly affected by seeing unedited
footage of the liberation of concentration camps while helping to create newsreels
during World War II, and he regularly talked of how we must never forget these
horrors. Importantly, Reagan’s indecision—if indeed it was that—appears to have
been produced not by political pressure but by his concern that he might be on the
wrong side, morally, of this sensitive issue: a conclusion with profound implica-
tions for his self-validation. Having said this, other sources insist Reagan never
wavered; Deaver concludes: “Incredibly, Reagan’s resolve stiffened after the
Wiesel incident. ‘The final word has been spoken as far as I’m concerned,’ he said
afterward” (2001, pp. 105–106). Regardless of the extent of his wavering, Reagan
did not reframe the situation based on a new narrative (the “friend of the victims”
story) but rather maintained his original narrative (the “showing support for an
ally” story) and added some more comforting elements to the narrative (e.g.,
“showing respect for the victims” and “doing the honorable thing”) by visiting the
concentration camp and allowing General Ridgway to lay the wreath alongside
him. The fact that these actions were not only helpful politically but also may have
helped to insulate his self-concept from the doubts raised by Elie Wiesel suggests
that for internally validated leaders, movement among acceptable options (H2b)
may be accompanied by subtle shifts in interpretation that help to protect the
leader’s self-esteem.
As noted earlier, when a leader perceives that no other policy option exists that
will achieve a goal that has become intertwined with their self-validation, the
leader will (seemingly inexplicably) persist in that policy approach despite clear
evidence of failure. Since facing reality means facing significant psychic costs (the
recognition that the goal is unattainable), motivated biases play an important role
in such situations. Hence, H4 specifies that internally validated leaders will under-
estimate the political risks and policy hazards associated with the policy approach
deemed necessary to maintain fidelity with their self-validating principles or
mission. Hypothesis 2a states the outcome (insensitivity to both political opposi-
tion and evidence of policy failure), but H4 provides the mechanism (powerful
motivated biases).7 While there was some evidence of this in the Bitburg case, the
cases of SDI, Lebanon, and “arms for hostages” each provide compelling
examples of these motivated biases at work.
SDI. Reagan was the undisputed author of the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI), a missile defense system nicknamed “Star Wars.” He announced the
program in a March 23, 1983, address to the nation, without even informing his
Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, or key allies. One of Reagan’s most
strongly held beliefs was that the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, Mutual Assured
Destruction (MAD), was immoral and dangerous; he longed for a way to protect
the American people from the threat of nuclear holocaust (Reagan, 1990, p. 547;
Cannon, 2000, pp. 251, 276; see also Powell, Kampelman, and Carlucci, each
cited in Strober & Strober, 2003, pp. 232–234). Beginning in 1981 he began to
contemplate SDI, particularly after the failed assassination attempt: “Perhaps
having come so close to death made me feel I should do whatever I could in the
years God had given me to reduce the threat of nuclear war; perhaps there was
a reason I had been spared” (Reagan, 1990, p. 269; see also Deaver, 2001,
pp. 146–152). The key moment when Reagan decided to pursue SDI came in a
meeting with the Joint Chiefs on February 11, 1983. The chiefs agreed that such
a system was feasible, and Defense Secretary Weinberger recalls:
Admiral Watkins, Chief of Naval Operations . . . summed it up in a

memorable phrase; I knew from the President’s immediate reaction that
it would stay in his mind as the ultimate and complete justification for
proceeding with the system. . . . Watkins asked rhetorically, “Would it not
be better if we could develop a system that would protect, rather than
avenge, our people?” “Exactly,” said the President. (Weinberger, p. 304)
7
The very fact that internally validated leaders care more about specific policy goals/principles than
political approval means that they will be differentially sensitive to internal and external consider-
ations in a “rational,” nonmotivated sense (see Figure 2). However, when evidence of policy failure
or political peril becomes sufficiently strong, motivated biases are particularly likely to kick in to
support continued adherence to the self-validating policy.
484 Keller
This heroic effort powerfully aroused his core sources of self-validation. McFar-
lane observed: “He was so swept away by his ability to stand up and announce a
program that would defend Americans from nuclear war [that] he couldn’t wait”
(quoted in Cannon, 2000, p. 286).
Consistent with H2b, Reagan’s willingness to contemplate a range of options
regarding SDI showed flexibility within narrowly defined limits: “He knew only
that he wanted a non-nuclear system. Whether the system was space-based or
ground-based or whether it used lasers or other technology was a matter for the
scientists to decide. What Reagan wanted, he said, was a ‘defensive screen that
could intercept those missiles when they came out of the silos’ ” (Cannon, 2000,
pp. 277–278). As anticipated by H4, Reagan clearly underestimated the technical
challenges, monetary cost, and diplomatic/strategic risks of SDI. Reagan ignored
the skepticism of the scientific community and the findings of the Scowcroft
Commission, which declared that “applications of current [ballistic missile
defense] technology offer no real promise of being able to defend the United States
against nuclear attack in this century” (Cannon, 2000, p. 288; see also Perle,
Matlock, and McFarlane, each cited in Strober & Strober, pp. 243–249). He also
discounted the arguments of allies and strategists who argued that developing such
a system could worsen the arms race and even tempt a Soviet first-strike. In terms
of policy costs, at the 1986 Reykjavik summit Reagan famously came within a
hair’s breadth of reaching an agreement with Gorbachev to eliminate both sides’
strategic nuclear weapons (the “zero option”)—the sticking point was Reagan’s
refusal to confine SDI to the laboratory (Regan, 1988, pp. 348–352).
Lebanon. When 241 marines were killed in a terrorist bombing in Beirut on
October 23, 1983, Reagan came under intense pressure to withdraw the troops.
Although Weinberger and the Joint Chiefs had never liked the deployment, they
became increasingly vocal in their opposition after the bombing, arguing “the
futility of further sacrifices in Lebanon” and making their case to Congress and
the media (Cannon, 2000, p. 389; Weinberger, p. 164; Vessey, quoted in Strober &
Strober, pp. 213–214). Members of Congress (including prominent Republicans)
loudly called for withdrawal, and major newspapers’ editorial pages echoed these
sentiments. Due to disturbing polling data, the White House staff also “became an
active ally of the Pentagon in the campaign to withdraw the Marines” (Cannon,
2000, p. 390). Despite this intense opposition and new information suggesting the
mission could not succeed, Reagan stood firm for three and one-half months
before finally reversing course and withdrawing U.S. forces in February 1984.
Reagan’s rigidity in this case appears to have been a consequence of his
beliefs that the Lebanon deployment (a) prevented Communist advances in the
vital Middle East, (b) protected innocent civilians, and (c) was central to U.S.
credibility, particularly after the bombing: America could not back down in the
face of terrorist threats (Reagan, 1990, p. 462; Shultz, 1993, p. 232). America’s
role as protector of the Free World was particularly salient for Reagan: In a radio
speech on October 8, he “linked the Lebanon conflict to the global struggle against
communism and asked rhetorically, ‘Can the United States or the free world stand
by and see the Middle East incorporated into the Soviet bloc?’ ” (Cannon, 2000,
p. 383). The State Department and NSC played upon Reagan’s distaste for backing
down under pressure “by telling him that it would always appear that we had ‘cut
and run,’ that we had been ‘driven out,’ and similar phrases designed to encourage
the belief that only if we stayed in Lebanon could we demonstrate our manhood or
secure any of the objectives we wanted” (Weinberger, 1990, p. 160). In a pattern
reminiscent of other ill-fated commitments in U.S. history, the “sunk costs” of the
Lebanon mission only stiffened Reagan’s resolve not to have suffered these losses
in vain: “If we walked away . . . we’d be saying that the sacrifice of those marines
had been for nothing” (Reagan, 1990, p. 462). As with Bitburg and SDI, it appears
that several key self-validating considerations were aroused in this context and
linked directly to the Lebanon deployment (preventing Communist expansion,
acting as the heroic protector, and courageously doing the right thing despite
political pressure and attacks by “outlaws”). Since Reagan perceived that any
option other than maintaining the troop presence betrayed who he was (or wanted
to be) as a political leader, these options became unthinkable.
This case provides striking support for H4. Because withdrawal was unthink-
able, Reagan had to convince himself that the current policy was succeeding.
Hence, he initially interpreted the Beirut bombing as evidence that the policy
was working as planned: “In an extraordinary triumph of optimism over reality,
Reagan convinced himself that the attack on the Marines symbolized the success
of U.S. policy in Lebanon. ‘The multinational force was attacked precisely
because it is doing the job it was sent to do in Beirut,’ Reagan said in his October
27 speech. ‘It is accomplishing its mission’ ” (Cannon, 2000, p. 394).
Arms for Hostages. From July 1985 through the end of 1986 Reagan became
deeply embroiled in a scheme to free U.S. hostages in Lebanon by selling arms to
Iran. Two motives were crucial in driving his persistence in this policy despite
growing risks, opposition from close advisers, and mounting evidence of failure:
(a) the belief that by dealing with “moderates” in Iran the U.S. could pull Iran out
of the Soviet orbit after the Ayatollah’s death, and (b) Reagan’s “obsession” with
freeing the hostages that had been taken on his watch. “The arguments of [CIA
Director William] Casey and McFarlane that easing the U.S. weapons ban against
Iran might avert a Soviet-supported takeover after Khomeini’s death were
designed to appeal to Reagan’s anticommunism, and they did” (Cannon, 2000,
p. 540). But evidence suggests that the second motivation was more important:
“. . . I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders to get the hostages home. We were
coming up to another Christmas season with American citizens held captive far
from home, separated from parents, wives, and children, deprived of basic free-
doms, and subjected to almost unspeakable living conditions. It was the presi-
dent’s duty to get them home. I didn’t want to rest or stop exploring any possible
avenue until they were home safe with their families” (Reagan, 1990, p. 513; see
also Carlucci, Poindexter, Walsh, Powell, & Shultz, quoted in Strober & Strober,
486 Keller
pp. 390–392, 449). McFarlane and Regan, despite their differing accounts of the
Iran-Contra affair, agree “that Reagan’s principal motivation was to free the
hostages. ‘It is just undeniable that Reagan’s obsession with freeing the hostages
overrode anything else,’ said McFarlane” (Cannon, 2000, p. 541). As in the classic
cases of rigidity examined by Barber, Reagan became deeply, personally, emo-
tionally invested in freeing the hostages—a goal that aroused his self-validating
notions of the heroic rescuer of innocents in distress (Regan, 1988, pp. 23–24).8
Once he perceived that the Iran initiative offered the only hope for achieving
this self-validating goal (Reagan, 1990, p. 513), Reagan remained convinced, for
a year and a half, that the scheme would work despite substantial evidence to the
contrary (as H4 anticipates). This self-deception began from the moment he heard
about the initiative: Reagan claims his initial reaction was “we don’t deal with
people who support terrorism,” but when McFarlane said the Israelis vouched for
these “moderate Iranians” as opponents of terrorism who were separate from the
Ayatollah, he immediately jumped on board. “The truth is, once we had informa-
tion from Israel that we could trust the people in Iran, I didn’t have to think thirty
seconds about saying yes to their proposal” (Reagan, 1990, p. 506; Weinberger,
quoted in Strober & Strober, p. 403). McFarlane returned from a meeting with
these Iranian contacts in London with deep misgivings about continuing the
initiative, telling Reagan the key middle man, Ghorbanifar, was untrustworthy. But
Reagan was not deterred: “I felt that there were not many other options—possibly
there were no others—open to us for getting the hostages home. . . . Despite
difficulties, I believed that this group offered the best hope . . .” (Reagan, 1990,
p. 513, emphasis added). Because Reagan’s self-image did not allow him to admit
he was dealing with terrorists, he always denied that he had traded “arms for
hostages” (Regan, 1988, p. 31; Meese, 1992, pp. 258–261; Wallison, 2003, pp.
215, 260; Abshire, quoted in Strober & Strober, p. 449). A diary entry from
December 7, 1985, illustrates Reagan’s creative interpretation, which allowed him
to overcome legal and moral obstacles:
George Shultz, Cap and Don are opposed. Congress has imposed a law on
us that we can’t sell Iran weapons or sell any other country weapons for
resale to Iran. George also thinks this violates our policy of not paying off
terrorists. I claim the weapons are for those who want to change the
government of Iran and no ransom is being paid for the hostages. No
direct sale would be made by us to Iran but we would be replacing the
weapons sold by Israel. (Reagan, 1990, p. 510)
8
His sense of duty as the hostages’ protector was perhaps made particularly salient by a meeting he
had with family members of hostages on June 28, 1985—three weeks before he launched the Iran
initiative. Two brothers of one hostage essentially accused him of not doing all he could to free
them. Reagan came away from this episode visibly shaken (Cannon, 2000, p. 540; Meese, 1992,
p. 252).
When the Iranian contacts continually broke promises about when hostages
would be freed and made ever more outrageous demands, Reagan still did not lose
faith. “Despite this problem and various delays, disappointments, and frustrations,
the Iranian initiative seemed to be working—and we were not trading arms for
hostages. None of the arms we’d shipped to Iran had gone to the terrorists who had
kidnapped our citizens” (Reagan, 1990, p. 523). Reagan’s confidence was buoyed
by the fact that slowly, over the course of a year, three hostages were released.
But when three more hostages were taken, this still did not dissuade Reagan, who
believed that a different terrorist faction was responsible. His optimism was
unshakeable: “In the weeks after the release of Father Jenco, we had more
disappointments—three more Americans were kidnapped in Beirut. . . . On the
plus side, the NSC succeeded in opening up what seemed to be a promising second
channel of communication with high-level people in the Iranian government,
involving a [person who] seemed to share our concerns about the potential Soviet
threat to Iran . . .” (Reagan, 1990, p. 526). Cannon expresses dismay at Reagan’s
apparent blindness to the folly of this policy:
Even a “master illusionist,” as Time had accurately described Reagan,

might reasonably have been expected to discard illusion for reality after
the kidnapping of Reed and the follow-up kidnapping of Joseph Cicippio
three days later. It should now have been apparent to Reagan, as it
had been to Shultz and Weinberger when the initiative began, that
paying bribes to hostage-takers encourages additional hostage-taking.
. . . Reagan was by now so stubbornly committed to the trade of arms for
hostages that he was not dissuaded from his course even when the two
new hostages were taken. . . . [Reagan’s] failure to reexamine his course
after it had become clear that the initiative was resulting in the capture of
additional hostages remains one of the enduring mysteries of the affair.
(Cannon, 2000, pp. 587–588, emphasis added)
This theoretical framework provides an explanation for this mystery.

Throughout this episode Reagan showed uncharacteristically bad political
judgment, seriously underestimating the policy’s political risks (consistent with
H4). Early on, Shultz and Weinberger warned Reagan that if the scheme ever
became public (which Shultz insisted it would), it would be made to look like
“arms for hostages.” His reply neglected the political importance of appearances:
“My response to them was that we were not trading arms for hostages, nor were we
negotiating with terrorists” (Reagan, 1990, p. 512). Once the initiative became
public, he continued the secret dealings and amazingly believed he could quiet the
media uproar with a simple, evasive response (Wallison, 2003, p. 187). He wrote
in his diary on November 7, 1986: “We’ve tried ‘no comment.’ I’ve proposed and
our message will be: ‘We can’t and won’t answer any questions on this subject
because to do so will endanger the lives of those we are trying to help’ ” (Reagan,
488 Keller
1990, p. 527). When this didn’t work, Reagan made the initiative public in an
address to the nation and insisted that he did not trade “weapons or anything else
for hostages.” But he had miscalculated again: “If I thought candor and forthright-
ness would calm the storm, I was wrong” (Reagan, 1990, p. 528). Although
Reagan says he felt hurt by the fact that the American people did not believe him,
a revealing section of his memoirs suggests that he held his head high because his
sources of self-validation were not primarily external:
There’s a difference between having done something wrong and feeling

bad about it, on the one hand, and, on the other, having an inner feeling
that says you haven’t done anything wrong—and that’s how I felt. . . . In
time, my ranking in the public opinion polls rose. But that never made me
feel as happy as some people might think it would: It was as if Americans
were forgiving me for something I hadn’t done (Reagan, 1990, pp. 532,
541).
Findings: Pragmatic Cases
The theoretical framework suggests three conditions under which internally

validated leaders will behave flexibly. These may be termed pragmatism within
limits, disinterested pragmatism, and creative reinterpretation pragmatism. Prag-
matism within limits arises when internally validated leaders perceive key internal
considerations are highly salient, and they move flexibly among those options that
are perceived as acceptably maintaining the aroused principles/goals in response
to political constraints and new information (H2b). Disinterested pragmatism
occurs when they perceive these internal considerations are not salient in a policy
context, or of very low salience relative to political considerations, and their
decision process is thus guided by political pressures and openness to information
(H2c). These two types of pragmatism reflect the same underlying dynamics:
Internally validated leaders will allow their policy choices to be guided by political
considerations and new information when these external pressures do not suggest
a policy option that contradicts salient internal principles or policy goals. The third
variant of pragmatism (creative reinterpretation) is quite different: It involves
an internally validated leader choosing an option that was originally viewed as
betraying one’s internal principles/goals. The framework predicts that such policy
shifts will occur (a) in response to very strong political pressure and/or evidence of
policy failure (H9), and (b) only when the leader has reinterpreted the new option
so that it now supports salient internal considerations (H6).
As noted above, Reagan did display the pragmatism within limits of H2b in
several of the “rigid” cases. As shown below, Reagan also exhibited the creative
reinterpretation pragmatism of H6 in several of the “pragmatic” instances.
However, the disinterested pragmatism of H2c was virtually absent in the case
studies—most likely due to the case selection strategy, which looked for cases in
which Reagan appeared to act contrary to his core beliefs/goals in order to provide
a difficult test for the model and to allow a more complete evaluation of H2a. The
major finding from the pragmatic cases is that Reagan’s flexibility on issues
connected to his self-validation was often prompted by strong external pressures
(consistent with H9) but greatly facilitated by creative reinterpretation (consistent
with H6). In order to illustrate these findings, evidence from three cases will be
briefly presented: TEFRA tax increase, Lebanon withdrawal, and cooperation with
the Soviet Union.
TEFRA Tax Increase. Upon assuming the presidency, Reagan’s top priority was
revitalization of the economy through a program that included tax and spending cuts
and deregulation. This program, implemented in early 1981, was a direct outgrowth
of Reagan’s ideological commitment to free markets, American exceptionalism,
and limited government: “I believed the economic recovery program would work
because I had faith—faith in those tax cuts and faith in the American people . . . if
these forces could be liberated from the restraints imposed on them by government,
they’d pull the country out of its tailspin” (Reagan, 1990, p. 311). For a year and a
half, as the recession grew worse, Reagan stood firm against pressure from Congress
(including Republicans), the media, and key members of his staff to raise taxes and
increase spending (Stockman, 1986). When he began to waver in early 1982, a key
meeting stiffened his resolve: Reagan’s diary entry from January 21 reads: “Met
with U.S. Chamber of Commerce group. They made an impassioned plea that I not
raise any taxes. They were touching a nerve when they said I would look as if I were
retreating from my own program. That’s exactly how I feel. After meeting, told Ed
[Meese], Jim [Baker] and Mike [Deaver] we had to go back to the drawing board. I
just can’t hold still for the tax increases” (Reagan, 1990, p. 315). The next day, he
writes, “I told our guys I couldn’t go for tax increases. If I have to be criticized, I’d
rather be criticized for a deficit rather than for backing away from our economic
program” (Reagan, 1990, p. 315). Notice that what “touched a nerve” and stiffened
his resolve was the implication that Reagan was being unfaithful to his core
principles. Four days later, in his State of the Union Speech, Reagan reiterated his
commitment to his economic program and, significantly, gave his word to the
taxpayers: “Raising taxes won’t balance the budget. It will encourage more gov-
ernment spending and less private investment. . . . So I will not ask you to try to
balance the budget on the back of American taxpayers. . . . I will seek no tax
increases this year and I have no intention of retreating from our basic program of
tax relief. . . . I will stand by my word.”
Shortly thereafter he agreed to bipartisan talks (including representatives from
Congress and the administration) on a deficit reduction plan. The administration
representatives were the “pragmatists” (e.g., Stockman, Baker, and Darman) who
favored tax increases in return for Democratic agreement on spending cuts. Rec-
ognizing that Reagan was staunchly opposed to tax increases, the negotiators
“included the one ploy they felt might overcome his resistance: a large reduction
in federal spending in return for a modest rise in business (but not individual)
490 Keller
taxes. The proposal . . . called for three dollars of budget reductions . . . for every
dollar of tax increases” (Meese, 1992, p. 145). Once they had reached agreement
on this package, the “Gang of 17” ramped up the pressure, presenting the pro-
gram to Reagan “virtually as a fait accompli—something to which ‘the process’
had committed us . . . the legislative package was rolling ahead with such
momentum—in the news media and among both parties in Congress—that it
would have been virtually impossible to stop or even modify it” (Meese, 1992,
p. 145). Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker also hinted that he would lower
interest rates once he saw movement on the deficit (Regan, 1988, p. 178). Faced
with extraordinary political pressure and believing that the tax increase was the
only way to achieve his goal of reducing federal spending (Reagan, 1990, p. 321),
Reagan agreed, convincing himself that the tax increase merely closed loopholes in
his original tax bill. Cannon insightfully highlights the importance of Reagan’s
creative reinterpretation in this case:
It was often said, by me and many others, that Reagan presented minor
victories and sometimes even defeats as major accomplishments. What
was less often said but was also true was that Reagan adopted this tactic
not to fool the people but to convince himself that whatever compromise
he was considering was ideologically permissible. He was enough of a
true believer to demand consistency in himself, a trait that encouraged
aides to invent arguments designed to persuade him that proposals in
conflict with his advocacies actually advanced them. Thus, the Tax Equity
and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, a tax increase by any other name,
became “tax reform” in order to satisfy Reagan’s self-imposed require-
ment of consistency. (Cannon, 2000, p. 153)
This supports H6, which states: “Leaders will choose a policy option that is outside
the original range of acceptable options (those options that maintain one’s self-
validation) only if the option is now perceived to meet these requirements due to
new information and/or interpretation.” As expected by H9, this reinterpretation
and policy change came amidst heavy political pressure and perceived costs for
another key policy goal (spending reductions).9
Lebanon Withdrawal. Reagan initially viewed withdrawal from Lebanon as
unthinkable, the deployment having become deeply intertwined with his self-
validating notions of anti-Communism, heroic protection of innocents, and refusal
9
These findings do not technically contradict H2a because “creative reinterpretation pragmatism”
allows the leader to remain within the boundary of acceptability: a policy change that would originally
have meant choosing an option outside this boundary becomes movement among the set of acceptable
options (H2b). A key caveat is that adjustment of the original boundary involves mechanisms not
envisioned in H2a—which explains rigidity—so 2a and 2b provide an incomplete explanation for the
“interested pragmatism” of internally validated leaders: H6 and H9 provide a more complete expla-
nation. This should be kept in mind when interpreting the reported support for 2a and 2b in the lower
half of Table 2.
to back down under pressure. But in February 1984, three and a half months
after the Beirut bombing, he reversed course and embraced this option. A careful
examination of this case suggests that Reagan’s conviction that the deployment
was achieving its goals—a virtually nonfalsifiable belief, aided greatly by moti-
vated biases—finally collapsed under a mountain of disconfirming evidence. What
is striking is the amount of disconfirming evidence that was required to shatter this
conviction. Initially interpreting the Beirut bombing as evidence of success (see
above), Reagan only ordered the withdrawal after the Lebanese government and
army had collapsed (February 5). Reagan appears to have clung so tenaciously to
the deployment because he believed it was the only viable option that prevented
Soviet expansionism, protected civilians, and promoted U.S. credibility in the
region (all key self-validating goals). His abandonment of this option coincides
with his realization that the troop deployment could not accomplish these cher-
ished objectives, and had in fact begun to undermine some goals, such as U.S.
prestige/credibility. If rigidity is a product of leaders’ highly personal, emotional
interweaving of their self-worth with a specific policy, reversal can come when this
policy is decoupled from their self-worth. Reagan’s slow recognition that the
small, vulnerable American presence in Lebanon could not stop Soviet meddling,
protect civilians, or project U.S. credibility served this vital decoupling function.
This decoupling process emerges vividly in his memoirs: “As 1984 began, it was
becoming clearer that the Lebanese army was either unwilling or unable to end the
civil war into which we had been dragged reluctantly. It was clear that the war was
likely to go on for an extended period of time. . . . We had to pull out. By then,
there was no question about it: our policy wasn’t working” (Reagan, 1990, p. 465;
Weinberger, 1990, p. 167). The link between Reagan’s core policy goals and the
Lebanon deployment began to dissolve: “. . . The irrationality of Middle Eastern
politics forced us to rethink our policy there. . . . Perhaps we didn’t appreciate
fully enough the depth of the hatred and the complexity of the problems that make
the Middle East such a jungle” (Reagan, 1990, pp. 462, 466). While the current
policy wasn’t working, other options, such as escalation, were costly and could not
guarantee success: “No one wanted to commit our troops to a full-scale war in the
Middle East. But we couldn’t remain in Lebanon and be in the war on a halfway
basis, leaving our men vulnerable to terrorists with one hand tied behind their
backs” (Reagan, 1990, p. 465).
Consistent with H9, this crucial decoupling occurred under intense political
pressure and overwhelming evidence of policy failure.10 And this decoupling
facilitated the “creative reinterpretation pragmatism” described by H6: Reagan
perceived withdrawal no longer as a betrayal of his core principles and goals, but
instead as the necessary abandonment of a failing policy that no longer implicated
10
While pressure from Congress and the public may have played a role in Reagan’s reversal, the
untenable military situation on the ground appears to have been the decisive factor (e.g., Cannon,
2000, pp. 397–401).
492 Keller
these self-validating considerations. An important caveat is that withdrawal would

leave unfulfilled his deep need to justify the deaths of the marines (to himself if not
to America); he finally accepted that leaving the troops in Lebanon simply could
not achieve outcomes that would justify these sacrifices—a realization that had to
have been crushing for Reagan’s sense of self-worth as commander-in-chief and
heroic protector. Indeed, this is one of those rare cases in which a leader is forced
by events to abandon a policy that even creative reinterpretation cannot entirely
disentangle from his self-worth. In his memoirs Reagan is uncharacteristically
despondent when discussing the loss of the marines: “The bombing of the marine
barracks in Beirut had produced the lowest of the low [points of my eight years in
the presidency]. . . . The sending of the marines to Beirut was the source of my
greatest regret and my greatest sorrow as president” (Reagan, 1990, pp. 458, 466).
In this way, policy change was encouraged by his desire to avoid further psychic
costs: “We couldn’t stay there and run the risk of another suicide attack on the
marines” (Reagan, 1990, p. 465). This provides some support for H7.
Cooperation with the Soviet Union. The most dramatic transformation of the
Reagan presidency involves Reagan’s changing attitudes and policies toward the
Soviet Union. He came to the presidency convinced that recent U.S. leaders had
turned a blind eye to the true nature of the Soviet system and allowed the Soviets
to “get way with murder” in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and elsewhere. He dismissed
détente as a one-way street the Soviets “had interpreted as a freedom to pursue
whatever policies of subversion, aggression, and expansionism they wanted any-
where in the world” (Reagan, 1990, p. 265). He famously called the Soviet Union
an “evil empire,” and matched this harsh rhetoric with tough action: He deployed
intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe, rejected calls for a nuclear freeze,
shunned summit meetings with Soviet leaders, initiated a massive American mili-
tary buildup, and began aiding anti-Communist forces throughout the third world.
But Reagan’s policy approach changed dramatically after Mikhail Gorbachev
assumed the Soviet premiership in 1985. He conducted four major summits with
Gorbachev, negotiated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and
began work on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I). Reagan developed
a personal bond with Gorbachev and praised the Soviet leader’s reforms as
introducing vital freedoms into the Soviet system. He came to believe that the
Soviets were motivated, at least in part, by fear of the United States, and he
admitted that both he and Gorbachev had started out with misconceptions about
the other’s country. When he visited Moscow in 1988, Reagan announced that he
no longer considered the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”
While on the surface Reagan’s willingness to engage in arms control with the
USSR appears to be a betrayal of his self-validating principles (particularly anti-
Communism), the evidence suggests that to a surprising degree these actions were
actually driven by his core principles. Recall that Reagan abhorred the notion of
MAD and believed that he had survived the assassination in order to reduce the
threat of nuclear war (Reagan, 1990, pp. 258, 269). This conviction coexisted with
his fierce anti-Communism and drove him to pursue, simultaneously, arms control
with the evil empire and the destruction of the Communist system (Farnham, 2003,
pp. 168–169; Wallison, 2003, p. 70). Reagan repeatedly insisted, in diary entries,
public statements, and personal letters to Soviet leaders, that even though the United
States and the Soviet Union had irreconcilable political and economic differences,
they had one important interest in common: avoiding nuclear war and creating a
peaceful future for humanity. Thus in early 1981 he accompanied a formal letter to
Brezhnev that launched a scathing attack on the Soviet system with a warm personal
letter: “I didn’t have much faith in Communists or put much stock in their word.
Still, it was dangerous to continue the East-West nuclear standoff forever, and I
decided that if the Russians wouldn’t take the first step, I should” (Reagan, 1990,
p. 269). Reagan—believing the Soviets had no incentive to contemplate arms
control given their numerical and tactical superiority in key military categories in
the early 1980s—sought to force the Soviets into arms reductions by initiating a
massive arms buildup, then negotiating from a position of strength (Regan, 1988,
p. 294; Reagan, 1990, p. 294; Spencer, quoted in Strober & Strober, p. 326). He
perceived this strategy was necessary to achieve his self-validating dreams of
halting Communist expansionism and preventing nuclear war, and consistent with
H2a Reagan persisted in this course despite serious political opposition (from the
left in the case of the arms buildup, from the right in the area of arms control). Hence,
what initially appears to be pragmatism in the realm of arms control is more
accurately described as rather rigid adherence to a long-term strategy.
But Reagan’s evolving policies toward the Soviet Union cannot be entirely
accounted for by adherence to principle: the rigidity of his earlier rhetoric and
policies towards the Soviets gave way, by the end of his second term, to dramati-
cally enhanced cooperation and trust in areas other than arms control. These
changes appear to have been driven by Reagan’s perception that the Soviet Union
was changing in fundamental ways under Gorbachev, so that it no longer fit the
category of totalitarian, expansionist adversary that his self-identity required him
to resist. Reagan’s personal relationship with Gorbachev greatly assisted this
process of reappraisal:
I liked Gorbachev even though he was a dedicated Communist and I was

a confirmed capitalist. But he was different from the Communists who
had preceded him to the top of the Kremlin hierarchy. Before him, every
one had vowed to pursue the Marxist commitment to a one-world, Com-
munist state; he was the first not to push Soviet expansionism, the first to
agree to destroy nuclear weapons, the first to suggest a free market and to
support open elections and freedom of expression. (Reagan, 1990, p. 707;
see also Farnham, 2003)
Here we have evidence of the “disinterested pragmatism” of H2c: Once Reagan

perceived that his self-validating principles of resisting Communism and totali-
494 Keller
tarianism were no longer as relevant to the Soviet-American relationship, he was

much more willing to pursue policies that deviated from the anti-Communist
“script” in response to new information and altered political realities.
This raises an intriguing question about the sources of attitude change and
openness to information. Why was the diehard anti-Communist Ronald Reagan so
open to information suggesting the Soviet Union was changing that he was capable
of identifying changes the intelligence community and many fellow conservatives
did not accept as real, when (as we have seen) he was remarkably resistant to new
information in Lebanon, Iran-Contra, and other cases? The answer appears to be
that unlike Reagan’s “rigid” cases, where he was powerfully motivated to ignore
or misinterpret information revealing the failure of policies that had become
intertwined with his self-worth, Reagan had no self-validating stake in believing
the Soviets would always remain Communist. On the contrary, his ideology—
which was rejected by many intellectuals and intelligence analysts at the time—
told him that Communism could not succeed and was inevitably destined for the
“ash heap of history.” His ideology therefore primed him to look for evidence of
the system’s failure and the first blossoms of freedom—evidence that he seized
upon and embraced (perhaps at times exaggerating its significance) long before
many of his contemporaries (Farnham, pp. 167–168; Abshire, quoted in Strober &
Strober, p. 329).
This case also provides an interesting example of an internally validated
leader who perceives that more than one self-validating goal is at stake. Reagan
simultaneously pursued arms control with the Soviets and sought to undermine the
Communist system because his cherished roles of anti-Communist leader and
heroic protector of the innocent (against nuclear war) were both strongly aroused
by his perception of the U.S.-Soviet relationship. This suggests that for internally
validated leaders responding to multiple core goals (or for externally validated
leaders responding to multiple constituencies), policy behavior may exhibit some-
what contradictory and perhaps overreaching qualities comparable to the “logroll-
ing” that occurs when multiple actors in a domestic political context each demand
that their nonnegotiable interests are expressed in policy choices (e.g., Snyder
1991).
Conclusions
The theoretical framework developed here yields a range of (at times coun-
terintuitive) predictions and helps to address several important puzzles of political
decision making. Research on policy reevaluation and sequential decision making
(e.g., Billings & Hermann, 1998) will benefit from this model’s “typology of
pragmatism” (pragmatism within limits, disinterested pragmatism, and creative
reinterpretation pragmatism) and its specification of the conditions under which
each type of flexibility will express itself. Models that assume leaders value either
political approval or policy quality above all else can be better specified by taking
into account variation in leaders’ sources of self-validation and the situational

triggers of these factors. For instance, the poliheuristic theory of decision making
(Mintz, 2003; Mintz, Geva, Redd, & Carnes, 1997) assumes that decision making
proceeds according to a two-stage, noncompensatory process: First leaders screen
options based on political acceptability (those deemed politically unacceptable
are discarded), then they evaluate the remaining options using a more “rational”
cost-benefit analysis. However, this theory provides no guidance on where the
crucial “threshold of political acceptability” lies at which options get rejected, or
how this threshold may vary across leaders and policy contexts. Furthermore, as
demonstrated above, research on political leadership suggests that, assuming a
two-stage noncompensatory model is accurate, the political dimension is not
always the all-important screening dimension employed during the first stage of
the process. The theoretical framework articulated here nicely supplements the
poliheuristic theory by providing guidance on both (a) which screening criteria
leaders will employ during the noncompensatory stage of decision making, and (b)
the threshold of acceptability along the screening dimension at which options are
rejected as unacceptable.
This framework also helps to explain how leaders make crucial tradeoffs among
competing values in decision making. George (2003, p. 261) highlights “the
trade-off between seeking to maximize the analytical quality of the policy to be
chosen (i.e., which option is most likely to achieve given policy objectives at
acceptable levels of cost and risk) and needing to obtain sufficient support for
the policy option that is finally chosen.” Leaders who receive different degrees of
validation from key policy goals versus political approval will make these choices
in very different ways (see Figure 2). In discussing the need for further research on
such tradeoffs, George concludes: “It will be necessary to treat the level of support
thought to be necessary or desirable by a policymaker as a variable, one that will
be sensitive to the type of policy being addressed and to the situational context.
. . . [Another] factor that future research on questions of judgment may want
to take into account is personality variables that probably affect how different
individuals diagnose and deal with trade-off problems” (George, 2003, pp. 266–
267, emphasis in original). This framework explicitly incorporates both of these
suggestions.
This framework also suggests that framing decisions—how leaders define
the problems they face—play a central role as a precursor to rigidity or flexibility.
Since the proximate trigger of rigidification is not leaders’ sources of self-
validation but the arousal of these considerations in a given policy context, how
leaders define the situations they confront becomes crucial. Research on problem
representation (e.g., Sylvan & Thorson, 1992; Sylvan & Voss, 1998) has shown
that decision makers’ world views, or ontologies, shape how they represent
problems and that these representations in turn determine policy options. The
theoretical framework articulated here suggests that future work on problem
representation would profit from highlighting leaders’ sources of self-validation as
496 Keller
crucial elements of their ontological networks with particular relevance for the
generation of acceptable and unacceptable policy options.
Finally, while this framework points to the arousal of leaders’ sources of
self-validation as the primary trigger of rigidification, the model may be further
enhanced by specifying how other personality characteristics attenuate or rein-
force rigidity. Characteristics such as ego defensiveness (Glad, 1983), ethnocen-
trism (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950), and cognitive
complexity (Hermann, 1984; Tetlock, 1985) will likely shape leaders’ sensitivity
to disconfirming information after rigidification has occurred. Cognitive complex-
ity may be particularly important in shaping both the scope and duration of
rigidity, since leaders lower in complexity both (a) tend to see fewer alternatives
among which they might reasonably move and (b) tend to be more closed to
disconfirming information.
The preliminary evaluation of hypotheses drawn from this framework provided
suggestive evidence for the validity of the model’s basic premises. The model
anticipated the conditions that led to rigidity and flexibility across 15 cases from
Reagan’s presidency, and appears to have correctly specified the underlying mecha-
nisms (e.g., specific types of motivated biases) that produced these patterns.
Additional studies of this type—particularly those including externally validated
leaders—will be important in further refining and testing the theoretical framework.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Margaret Hermann, Fred Greenstein, Stanley Renshon,

Betty Glad, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this
manuscript. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Jonathan W. Keller, Department of Political Science, James Madison University,
Miller 2177, MSC 7705, 800 South Main Street, Harrisonburg, VA 22807. E-mail:
kelle2jw@jmu.edu
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Explaining Rigidity and Pragmatism in Political Leaders: A General Theory and A Plausibility Test From The Reagan Presidency

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Explaining Rigidity and Pragmatism in Political Leaders: A General Theory and A Plausibility Test From The Reagan Presidency

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Political Psychology, Vol. 30, No.

Explaining Rigidity and Pragmatism in Political

Scholars of political leadership have devoted great effort to explaining

Explaining Rigidity and Pragmatism: A Theoretical Framework

Building Block #1: The Importance of Person-Situation Interaction

Assuming that a tendency to political tragedy is present in the active-

Similarly, Keller concludes his study of the crisis behavior of pragmatic

. . . it is important not to reify the leadership categories employed here:

This emphasis on contingency and the insufficiency of personality alone is

Building Block #2: Insights from Classic Studies on the

One downside of the classic studies on rigidification (e.g., Barber, 1992;

Building Block #3: The Sources and Implications of Leaders’ Self-Validation

While the fragility of Wilson’s self-esteem—and hence the intensity of his

An Integrative Theoretical Framework

The three strains of research highlighted above suggest the following

General Sources of Rigidity

Leaders’ “rigidification” is a joint product of dispositional factors (specifi-

Differential Expressions of Rigidity

Rigidity expresses itself differently in leaders with different sources of self-

The Role of Motivated Biases

The counterintuitive proposition that a leader whose self-validation is tied

The Limits of Rigidity

more sensitive to political opposition than those whose internal self-validation is

H3a: When externally validated leaders perceive that political approval

H3b: For externally validated leaders who perceive that political

acceptable options will reflect (a) openness to information from the

H3c: When externally validated leaders perceive that political approval

H5: Externally validated leaders will underestimate the policy hazards

H8: Leaders whose sources of self-validation are more mixed will be

Figure 1 graphically illustrates how leaders’ sources of self-validation interact

INTERNAL Relative (Perceived) Salience of Key Considerations EXTERNAL

Figure 1. Hypothesized Conditions Shaping Leaders’ Rigidity and Flexibility.

Strong Internal Validation

Figure 2. Differential Sensitivity of Various Leadership Profiles to Key Considerations.

political approval and key principles/policy goals to be equally at stake. Similarly,

As a preliminary test of this framework’s validity, the plausibility of the above

Table 1. Key “Rigid” and “Pragmatic” Cases in Reagan’s Presidency

“RIGID” CASES “PRAGMATIC” CASES

appeared to contradict his stated principles in order to accommodate circum-

“Locating” Reagan: The Sources of His Self-Validation

Toward the end of that memorable flight he explained, “Mike, I remember

National Security Adviser “Bud” McFarlane concluded that “[Reagan’s] judgments

Findings: Rigid Cases

Table 2. Results of Case Studies

RIGID CASES HYPOTHESES

Admiral Watkins, Chief of Naval Operations . . . summed it up in a

Even a “master illusionist,” as Time had accurately described Reagan,

This theoretical framework provides an explanation for this mystery.

There’s a difference between having done something wrong and feeling

Findings: Pragmatic Cases

The theoretical framework suggests three conditions under which internally

these self-validating considerations. An important caveat is that withdrawal would

I liked Gorbachev even though he was a dedicated Communist and I was

Here we have evidence of the “disinterested pragmatism” of H2c: Once Reagan

tarianism were no longer as relevant to the Soviet-American relationship, he was

into account variation in leaders’ sources of self-validation and the situational

I would like to thank Margaret Hermann, Fred Greenstein, Stanley Renshon,

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