Leaders in the Middle East and North Africa
How Ideology Shapes Foreign Policy

Analyses the psychology of fourteen modern leaders across the political spectrum to reconsider politics in the MENA region.

Özgür Özdamar (Author), Sercan Canbolat (Author)

9781316514016, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 August 2023

226 pages
28 x 19 x 2 cm, 0.454 kg

'The authors of this pathbreaking volume show how key operational code beliefs regarding the exercise of power vary across MENA leaders with the same ideology and between groups with different ideologies to account for their distinct foreign policy decisions and approaches to important regional and global issues in world politics.' Stephen G. Walker, Arizona State University

The study of politics in the MENA region has traditionally been dominated by historical and case study approaches. In this innovative book, Özgür Özdamar and Sercan Canbolat instead adopt a social science-based methodology to reconsider the dynamics of power and leadership in Africa and the Middle East. By analysing the psychological profiles of fourteen leaders across eight countries and three non-state organizations, they develop a nuanced portrait of modern leadership. Using this approach, the authors are able to draw connections between apparently disparate political ideologies, from Sunni Islamism to Shia revolutionism, from secular nationalism and armed non-state groups. Demonstrating the previously unacknowledged commonalities and divergences in these leaders' approaches, Özdamar and Canbolat illuminate their tactics and strategies and offer novel insights into how best to negotiate with them.

1. Political ideology and foreign policy decision-making in the Middle East and North Africa: an operational code approach
2. Political Islam and Sunni ideology: Muslim Brotherhood leadership
3. Political Islam and Shia ideology: Iranian and Iraqi leadership
4. Secularist leaders in the Levant: Syrian, Israeli and Lebanese leadership
5. Armed non-state actors' foreign policy: PKK, PYD, Hezbollah, and ISIS leaders in the Middle East and North Africa
6. Leaders, foreign policy decision-making, and international relations
7. Policy implications and future research
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]