Do campaign speeches predict foreign policy? An operational code and leadership trait analysis of Donald Trump’s MENA policies
Tarih
2023Yazar
Özdamar, Özgür
Halistoprak, Burak Toygar
Young, Michael
Üst veri
Tüm öğe kaydını gösterÖzet
This article investigates whether campaign speeches during the US presidential elections can help predict
foreign policy behavior. We use speeches made by Donald J. Trump during his bid for president in 2016.
We compare the analysis from 2016 with his actual foreign policy decisions during his tenure, 2017-2020.
Operational code analysis and leadership traits analysis approaches are used to analyze candidate Trump’s
foreign policy beliefs and strategies associated with them. We use Profiler Plus software to conduct content
analysis which produces OCA and LTA results. We use three separate datasets to analyze Trump’s beliefs
and traits focusing on his general foreign policy speeches, the MENA region, and a third one only about
Islamic State and Syria. Our results show that Trump’s profile indicates a foreign policy orientation that
avoids involvement in affairs that are perceived as beyond immediate interests. The consistency between
his beliefs and traits during the 2016 campaign and his actual foreign policy behavior leads us to conclude
that individual level analysis, and specifically OCA and LTA approaches, are useful tools to analyze, explain
and predict foreign policy.