Prime Minister leadership style and the role of parliament in security policy

This article explores how differences in prime ministers’ leadership styles may affect parliamentary influence in security policy. Drawing on work on personality differences in political psychology, I argue leadership style is a critical but often overlooked factor in the growing area of research on parliaments and foreign affairs. My key argument is that prime ministers vary in how they respond to and manage parliamentary involvement in security policymaking. I propose Leadership Trait Analysis to capture prime ministers’ orientations towards parliamentary involvement. I examine the plausibility of my argument with intra-country comparisons of Turkish and UK prime ministers’ orientations towards parliament in specific cases of security policy. More generally, this article challenges more formal-institutional approaches to parliaments’ role in security policy. A focus on prime ministers has an analytic advantage of bringing together some of the various factors (such as intraparty divisions and public opinion) to explain parliamentary influence in security policy. </jats:p

How a prime minister's leadership style affects their parliament's role in security decisions

Parliaments sometimes get to influence security policy, but not always. Juliet Kaarbo draws on Leadership Trait Analysis to argue that prime ministerial leadership style is a critical factor in determining the role of parliaments in foreign affairs. She demonstrates the plausibility of this argument by comparing how Turkish and UK prime ministers' orientations towards parliament influenced key security policies

Personality and International Politics:Insights from Existing Research and Directions for the Future

This article focuses on personalities, or individual differences, of world political leaders. After arguing that international relations theory has experienced a turn toward decision makers, I briefly overview one of the dominant approaches to the study of leader personality in foreign policy: Leadership Trait Analysis. While this research includes a number of important studies that directly challenge traditional understandings of international relations and engage with international relations theory, I argue that the subfield of personality studies in foreign policy is ripe for new theoretical and methodological developments. In the final section of this article, I outline several specific areas for future research, including a connection between foreign policy-personality approaches and the growing body of work on political leadership.</jats:p

British foreign policy after Brexit:Losing Europe and finding a role

British foreign policy stands at a turning point following the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. Drawing on role theory, we trace the UK’s efforts to establish new foreign policy roles as it interacts with concerned international actors. We find that the pro-Brexit desire to ‘take back control’ has not yet translated into a cogent foreign policy direction. In its efforts to avoid adopting the role of isolate, the UK has projected a disoriented foreign policy containing elements of partially incompatible roles such as great power, global trading state, leader of the Commonwealth, regional partner to the EU, and faithful ally to the US. The international community has, through processes of socialization and alter-casting, largely rejected these efforts. These role conflicts between the UK and international actors, as well as conflicts among its different role aspirations, has pressed UK policies towards its unwanted isolationist role, potentially shaping its long-term foreign policy orientation post-Brexit.PostprintPeer reviewe