Political Leadership and Foreign Policy in Post-Cold War Israel and Turkey

Frequent references to "hawkish" and "dovish" leaders in Israel, or Turkey's "secular" and "Islamist" leaders, lack a systematic analysis of the personalities of political leadership in Israel and Turkey. Notwithstanding, such portrayals attract not only domestic actors in these countries but also others across the globe. Scholars, pundits, the public, as well as the policymakers, easily adapt these dichotomous and simplistic perceptions of leadership in Israel and Turkey. Utilizing contemporary at-a-distance measures of personality assessment (specifically, leadership traits analysis and operational code analysis), this study draws profiles all of Israel's and Turkey's prime ministers since November 1991. As such, this dissertation expands the political leadership literatures to two strategically located countries in the Middle East. In its unique design with two methods of personality assessment, it illustrates the gains from such an approach. Then, this study also makes an effort to link leadership styles and belief systems with foreign policy behavior. The results cast doubt on simplistic appraisals of political leadership in terms of "hawkish" and "dovish" in Israel and "secular" and "Islamist" in Turkey. Furthermore, the findings here suggest the significance of distrust of others (a personality trait in Leadership Traits Analysis) in predicting conflictual foreign policy behavior. In much broader terms, this dissertation also contributes to understanding political leaders of the Middle East

Examining leaders' orientations to structural constraints: Turkey's 1991 and 2003 Iraq war decisions

Explanations of states' security decisions prioritise structural - systemic, institutional and cultural - constraints that characterise foreign security decisions as a function of external/international, domestic/institutional, or normative/cultural factors. By examining Turkey's 1990-1991 and 2003 Iraq war decisions systematically, we problematise this prioritisation of structure, and we investigate the dynamic relationship between structural constraints and leaders in their decision-making environments. In these cases, while the structural constraints remain constant or indeterminate, the decision outcomes and the decision-making process differ significantly. Our findings, based on structured-focused comparison, process tracing, and leadership trait analysis, suggest that the leaders' personalities and how they react to constraints account for this difference and that dependence on only one set of factors leads to an incomplete understanding of security policies and international politics. We contribute to the broader understanding of leaders' personalities by suggesting that self-confidence and cognitive complexity are the key traits distinguishing leaders' orientations towards structural constraints. © 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd