How Do the Personalities of American Presidents Affect the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy?

Abstract

The president of the United States is one of the most important international individuals. As such, understanding the way he makes foreign policy decisions is crucial. This paper will examine the role that key president personalities have played into these decisions. It will provide a discussion of personality categorization systems, using three presidential case studies as examples. Through this it will be shown that not only does personality affect foreign policy decisions, but also that it does so in a significant manner.