Tansu Çiller's Leadership Traits and Foreign Policy

In the post-Cold War era, from 1993 to 1996, Tansu Çiller led Turkey through volatile political and economic crises. Moreover, she had a strong interest in foreign affairs and her leadership attracted attention from abroad as she was a female prime minister of a predominantly Muslim nation. Much like the general lack of interest in psychological factors in Turkish foreign policy, there is little research on personality and its impact on Turkeyıs foreign affairs. In this paper, Çiller’s leadership is systematically studied by utilising one of the most prominent methods of leadership assessment: leadership traits analysis. This paper first profiles Tansu Çiller as prime minister and then compares her to other Turkish leaders in the post-Cold War era. Its findings suggest that Çiller’s high in-group bias and high distrust mark her leadership and foreign policy behaviour. The paper highlights the significance of personalities in foreign policy making and calls for systematic accounts of this effect on Turkeyıs foreign policy.

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  • Cited in Daniel Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, “Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesman Back In”, International Security, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Spring 2001), pp. 107-146.
  • Richard C. Snyder, H.W. Bruck and Burton Sapin published their Foreign Policy Decision- Making originally in 1962; an earlier, 1954 version was also printed as “Foreign Policy Analysis Project Series No. 3” at Princeton University. Unless otherwise noted, any citations here refer to an updated edition published in 2002 (Foreign Policy Decision-Making, revisited) with additional chapters by Valerie M. Hudson, Derek H. Chollet and James M. Goldgeier.
  • Margaret G. Hermann, “Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of Political Leaders”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1 (March 1980), p. 12.
  • Hudson, “Foreign Policy Analysis”.
  • Here, “Foreign Policy Analysis” refers to the academic study of foreign policy as a subfield of International Relations. For a review, see Jack S. Levy, “Political Psychology and Foreign Policy”, in David O. Sears, Leonie Huddy and Robert Jervis (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 253-284.
  • William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy 1774-2000, Portland, Oregon, Frank Cass Publishers, 2002, p. 197.
  • According to a profile of Çiller in Maclean’s magazine (“The other new woman PM”, 12 July 1993), Çiller frequently mentioned Margaret Thatcher as a political model.
  • Andrea K. Grove, Political Leadership in Foreign Policy: Manipulating Support across Borders, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 1.
  • David G. Winter, “Personality and Political Behavior”, in Sears, Huddy and Jervis (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, pp. 110-145.
  • David G. Winter, “Personality and Foreign Policy: A Historical Overview of Research”, in Eric Singer and Valerie M. Hudson (eds.), Political Psychology and Foreign Policy, Westview Press, 1992, pp. 79-101.
  • Mark Schafer and Stephen G. Walker, “Operational Code Analysis at a Distance: The Verbs in Context System of Content Analysis”, in Mark Schafer and Stephen G. Walker (eds.), Beliefs and Leadership in World Politics: Methods and Applications of Operational Code Analysis, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 25-51.
  • Ofer Feldman and Linda O. Valenty (eds.), Profiling Political Leaders: Cross-Cultural Studies of Personality and Behavior, Westport, CT, Praeger, 2001; Akan Malici and Allison L. Buckner, “Empathizing with Rogue Leaders: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Bashar al-Asad”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 45, No. 6 (November 2008), pp. 783-800.
  • Stephen B. Dyson, The Blair Identity: Leadership and Foreign Policy, Manchester, New York, Manchester University Press, 2009; Stephen B. Dyson, “‘Stuff Happens’: Donald Rumsfeld and the Iraq War”, Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 5 No. 4 (October 2009), pp. 327-347; Stephen B. Dyson and L. Lorena Billordo, “Using Words as Data in the Study of the French Political Elite”, French Politics, Vol. 2, No. 1 (March 2004), pp. 111-123.
  • Margaret G. Hermann, “Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis”, in Jerrold M. Post (ed.), The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders: With Profiles of Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2003, pp. 178-212. 18 Ibid., p. 181.
  • Stephen Dyson, “Personality and Foreign Policy: Tony Blair's Iraq Decisions”, Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 2, No. 3 (July 2006), pp. 289-306. Here Dyson reports scores for all the seven personality traits in the LTA, however in his discussion he focuses exclusively on these three traits. 20 Ibid., p. 303.
  • Dyson, “Stuff Happens”.
  • Vaughn P. Shannon and Jonathan W. Keller, “Leadership Style and International Norm Violation: The Case of the Iraq War”, Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 3, No.1 (January 2007), pp. 79-104.
  • and Turkey, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, 2011
  • Barış Kesgin, “How Do “Secular” and “Religious” Leaders Shape Foreign Policy Behavior
  • Towards the United States?”, paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International
  • Studies Association-Midwest, 2009; Özgur Özdamar, “Dış Politika Karar Alımı Sürecinde Lider Merkezli Yaklaşım: Akılcı Tercih Kuramı ve Türkiye’nin Irak Savası’na Katılmama Kararı”, in Efegil and Kalaycı (eds.), Dış Politika Teorileri Bağlamında Türk Dış Politikasının Analizi, Ankara, Nobel Yayınevi, 2012.
  • See, Cengiz Erişen and Barış Kesgin, “Dış Politika ve Psikolojik Unsurlar: Türk-Yunan İlişkilerinin Analizi”, in Efegil and Kalaycı (eds.), Dış Politika Teorileri Bağlamında Türk Dış Politikasının Analizi, Ankara, Nobel Yayınevi, 2012.
  • Philip Robins, Suits and Uniforms: Turkish Foreign Policy since the Cold War, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2003, pp. 52-92.
  • Here, primarily, the role of the military in making Turkey’s foreign policy is implied.
  • Juliet Kaarbo, “Power and Influence in Foreign Policy Decision Making: The Role of Junior Coalition Partners in German and Israeli Foreign Policy”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4 (December 1996), pp. 501-530; Binnur Özkeçeci- Taner, The Role of Ideas in Coalition Government Foreign Policymaking: The Case of Turkey between 1991 and 2002, Republic of Letters Publishing, 2009.
  • The two exceptions are Yeşim Arat, “A Woman Prime Minister in Turkey: Did It Matter?”, Women and Politics, Vol. 19, No. 4 (1998); and Ümit Cizre, “Tansu Çiller: Lusting for Power and Undermining Democracy”, in Heper and Sayarı (eds.), Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey, Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2002. Arat focuses on gender and politics; Cizre approaches to Çiller’s leadership in general and given the theme of the Heper and Sayarı volume on leadership and democracy.
  • This is well beyond the 5,000 words suggested by Hermann for an accurate leadership traits profile of a leader.
  • Michael Laver, Kenneth Benoit, and John Garry, “Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 2 (May 2003), pp. 311–331; Dyson and Billordo, “Using Words as Data”.
  • Cizre, “Tansu Çiller”, p. 207.
  • One must note that these perceptions of women in leadership positions may very well reflect gender stereotyping; see, Arat, “A Woman Prime Minister in Turkey”.
  • MacLean’s, “The Other New Woman PM”.
  • Cizre, “Tansu Çiller”, p. 207.
  • Current Biography Yearbook, “Tansu Çiller”, Vol. 55 (1994), pp. 104-108; Çiller’s former colleagues at Bosphorus University mentioned her “uncompromising attitude”, see Molly McAnailly Burke, “Turkey's First Lady”, Lear's, Vol. 6 (October 1993), pp. 34-36.
  • Quoted in MacLean’s, “The Other New Woman PM”.
  • Burke, “Turkey’s First Lady”.
  • Cizre, “Tansu Çiller”, p. 206.
  • Hermann, “Assessing Leadership Style”, p. 196.
  • For instance, according to Çiller’s profile published in Maclean’s: “Çiller displays a self- confidence that some say borders arrogance: on the wall of her living room hangs a magazine cover portraying her in armor as a Turkish version of Joan of Arc”. Another account of Tansu Çiller published in The New Republic (7 July 1997) also illustrates this: Çiller “would not be averse to being called “Anatürk”.
  • Çiller’s Distrust of Others score is not significantly higher than the average score; yet, if Erbakan (with a score more than two standard deviations higher than the mean) is an outlier in this trait, then Çiller’s distrust of others becomes more significant.
  • Tansu Çiller, Press Briefing, Moscow, Russia, 9 September 1993.
  • Interview with PBS (Public Broadcasting Company, USA), 18 April 1995.
  • Arat, “A Woman Prime Minister in Turkey”, p. 12. Arat also observes that Çiller ‘justified’ her militarism, or more specifically her hawkish policies on the Kurdish problem, with reference to being a mother, Arat, “A Woman Prime Minister in Turkey”, p.16. 57 Ibid., p. 11.
  • BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “Premier Says Flags and Soldiers ‘Must Go’ from Disputed Islet”, 30 January 1996.
  • Interview with Mehmet Ali Birand, Show TV, 13 February 1996.
  • Interview with PBS, 18 April 1995.
  • Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, p. 314. Also, on Çiller’s “dirty fight against the PKK”, see Cizre, “Tansu Çiller”, p. 205.
  • “Prime Minister Warns Armenia of War if “One Inch” of Nakhichevan Harmed”, Agence France-Presse, 4 September 1993.
  • Arat, “A Woman Prime Minister in Turkey”, p. 11.
  • Hermann, “Assessing Leadership Traits”.
  • Ibid., Hermann reports that 87 heads of state from around the world have an average Task Focus score of .590 with a low of .460 and a .710 for the highest score.
  • Margaret G. Hermann, Thomas Preston, Baghat Korany, and Timothy M. Shaw, “Who Leads Matters: The Effects of Powerful Individuals”, The International Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer 2001), pp. 83-131.
  • According to Hasan Kösebalaban, this is the single-issue area Çiller had control over free of the military’s involvement. Hasan Kösebalaban, Turkish Foreign Policy: Islam, Nationalism, and Globalization, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 130-132.
PERCEPTIONS: Journal of International Affairs-Cover
  • ISSN: 1300-8641
  • Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 2 Sayı
  • Başlangıç: 1996
  • Yayıncı: T.C Dışişleri Bakanlığı