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8 - The Psychology of Political Conversion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Yael S. Aronoff
Yael S. Aronoff
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Summary

[Yitzhak Rabin] was shaking the hand of a man he said he would never dignify with direct contact . . . I imagine he was thinking, “The whole world has heard me say never, and now I am.”

– Leah Rabin, describing Yitzhak Rabin’s handshake with Yasser Arafat at the signing of the Oslo Peace Accord, Sept. 13, 1993.

Dramatic changes in the world are often initiated or obstructed by political leaders. The past half century has witnessed Richard Nixon’s transformation from a hard-line anti-communist to the first U.S. president to visit China, Jimmy Carter’s conversion from a lamb to a lion in regard to the Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan’s switch from characterizing the Soviet Union as “the evil empire” to embracing Mikhail Gorbachev, and Gorbachev’s own dramatic initiatives transforming Soviet foreign policy and ending the Cold War. An individual leader’s personality and preoccupations have become even more central, as witnessed by the importance attributed to assessing leaders in the WikiLeaks scandal. George W. Bush ousted Saddam Hussein, and would not deal with Yasser Arafat; Barack Obama eliminated Osama Bin Laden and hopes to conclude a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority; and NATO bombings helped the rebels overthrow Muammar al-Qaddafi’s forces and kill Qaddafi in order to take power in Libya. During uprisings in the Middle East in December 2010–2014, President Obama carefully weighed which leaders merited continued support and could adapt to popular demands, and which needed to leave office. The ultimate question facing a president, or any political leader, is, given a desired foreign policy transformation, what types of leaders are more likely to change, and who actually needs to be replaced?

Type
Chapter
Information
The Political Psychology of Israeli Prime Ministers
When Hard-Liners Opt for Peace
 , pp. 173 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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