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Cognitive Style and Foreign Policy: Margaret Thatcher's Black-and-White ThinkingDepartment of Political Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA, stephen.dyson{at}uconn.edu Margaret Thatcher was a key late-20th-century political figure, with a major part of her influence felt in international affairs. Her colleagues and interlocutors agree that Thatcher was a distinctive and forceful individual. Yet, few studies have sought to systematically investigate her worldview and leadership style, and evaluate their impact upon her policy choices. Here, I apply Hermann's conceptual complexity content analysis scheme to the entirety of Thatcher's responses to foreign policy questions in the House of Commons, finding that she scores significantly lower in complexity than both the average world leader and the average post-1945 British prime minister. This aspect of cognitive style, which has been associated with stark, black-and-white worldviews, is shown to have strongly conditioned Thatcher's foreign policy decisions in the Falklands crisis, her relationship with Ronald Reagan, her evaluation of the Soviet Union and of Mikhail Gorbachev, and her attitude toward German reunification. I conclude, then, that Thatcher's personality is key to understanding her time in office, and that she presents a vivid example of how individuals matter in politics.
Key Words: Thatcher • Foreign policy • Personality • Reagan • Falklands
International Political Science Review, Vol. 30, No. 1,
33-48 (2009) |
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