How to assess the members of the political elite? A proposal based on presedents of americas
Abstract
This article critically reviews the study of the political elite, including
the historical evolution of its meaning, role, composition, independence
and ways of analysing its members. It argues that to effectively study
elite members their individual differences should be examined. This
paper looks at individual differences among presidents, those at highest
levels of the political elite in presidential systems. It finds that as a group,
presidents of western hemisphere come from moderately affluent
socioeconomic backgrounds, at least one third are either lawyers or
come from the security forces, and that they tend to score low on
agreeableness and neuroticism, moderately high in extroversion and
openness to experience, and high in conscientiousness. This exercise
suggests a research agenda that may be extended to other members of
the elite.
Keywords:
Elites, political elite, presidents, individual differences, personalityReferences
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Arana Araya, Ignacio (2013). “Informal institutions and horizontal accountability: protocols in the Chilean budgetary process”. Latin American Politics and Society, vol. 55, n°4, pp. 74-90.
Arana Araya, Ignacio (2015a). “Budgetary negotiations: how the Chilean Congress overcomes its constitutional limitations”. Journal of Legislative Studies, vol. 21, n°2, pp. 213-231.
Arana Araya, Ignacio (2015b). The Quest for Uncontested Power: How Presidents’ Personality Traits Leads to Constitutional Change in the Western Hemisphere. Tesis (Doctorado en Ciencia Política), University of Pittsburgh.
Barker, Ernest (1962). Politics of Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Benoit, Kenneth y Laver, Michael (2006). Party Policy in Modern Democracies. London: Routledge.
Besley, Timothy y Reynal-Querol, Marta (2011). “Do democracies select more educated leaders?”. American Political Science Review, vol. 105, n°3, pp. 552-566.
Benet-Martínez, Verónica y John, Oliver P. (1998). “Los Cinco Grandes Across cultures and ethnic groups: Multitrait-multimethod analyses of the Big Five in Spanish and English”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 75, n°3, pp. 729-750.
Blondel, Jean y Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand (2007). “Political elites”, en Russell J. Dalton y Hans-Dieter Klingemann (compiladores), The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.
Blondel, Jean y Thiébault, Jean-Louis (1991). The profession of government minister in Western Europe. London: St. Martin’s Press, Inc.
Carreras, Miguel (2012). “The Rise of Political Outsiders in Latin America, 1980-2010: an Institutionalist Perspective”. Comparative Political Studies, vol. 45, n°12, pp. 1451-1482.
Coppedge, Michael; Gerring, John y Lindberg, Staffan I. (2012). “Variedades de democracia (V-Dem): un enfoque histórico multidimensional y desagregado”. Revista Española de Ciencia Política, n°30, pp. 97-109.
Costa, Jr., Paul T. y McCrae, Robert R. (1992). “Normal Personality Assessment in Clinical Practice: The NEO Personality Inventory”. Psychological Assessment, vol. 4, n°1, pp. 5-13.
Dahl, Robert (1961). Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Doyle, David y Elgie, Robert (2014). “Maximizing the Reliability of Cross-National Measures of Presidential Power”. British Journal of Political Science. doi: 10.1017/S0007123414000465.
Dye, Thomas R. (2002). Who’s Running America? The Bush Restoration. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Flett, Gordon L. (2007). Personality Theory and Research: An International Perspective. Ontario: John Wiley & Sons Canada, Limited.
Freud, Sigmund (1910/1989). Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Galton, Francis (1869). Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences. London: Macmillan.
Goldberg, Lewis R. 1(990). “An Alternative “Description of Personality”: The Big-Five Factor Structure”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 59, n°6, pp. 1216-1229.
González-Bustamante, Bastián (2013). “Factores de acceso y permanencia de la élite política gubernamental en Chile (1990-2010)”. Política, Revista de Ciencia Política, vol. 51, n°1, pp. 119-153.
Hagopian, Frances y Mainwaring, Scott P. (compiladores) (2005). The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America: Advances and Setbacks. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hamilton, Michael Braun (2009). Online survey response rates and times: Background and guidance for industry. Longmont: Ipathia.
Hoffmann-Lange, Ursula (2007). “Methods of Elite Research”, en Russell J. Dalton y Hans-Dieter Klingemann (compiladores), The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.
Joignant, Alfredo (2011a). “El Estudio de las Élites: Un Estado del Arte”, en Marcelo Mella (compilador), Extraños en la noche: Intelectuales y usos políticos del conocimiento durante la transición chilena. Santiago de Chile: RIL Editores.
Joignant, Alfredo (2011b). Las élites gubernamentales como factor explicativo de un modelo político y económico de desarrollo: el caso de Chile (1990-2009). Serie Avances de Investigación, nº 87. Recuperado el 11 de octubre de 2011, de http://www.fundacioncarolina.es
Judge, Timothy A.; Higgins, Chad A.; Thoresen, Carl J. y Barrick, Murray R. (1999). “The Big Five Personality Traits, General Mental Ability, and Career Success across the Life Span”. Personnel Psychology, vol. 52, n°3, pp. 621-652.
Knoke, David; Urban Pappi, Franz; Broadbent, Jeffrey y Tsujinaka, Yutaka (1996). Comparing policy networks: labor politics in the U.S., Germany, and Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lane, David y Ross, Cameron (1999). The Transition from Communism to Capitalism. Ruling Elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Lerner, Robert; Nagai, Althea K. y Rothman, Stanley (1996). American Elites. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Li, Yun-Ming; Lai, Cheng-Yang y Kao, Chien-Pang (2011). “Building a qualitative recruitment via SVM with MCDM approach”. Jounrla Applied Intelligence, vol. 35, n°1, pp. 75-88.
Maranell, Gary M. (1970). “The Evaluation of Presidents: An Extension of the Schlesinger polls”. The Journal of American History, vol. 57, n°1, pp. 104-113.
McCrae, Robert R. y Costa, Jr., Paul T. (1997). “Personality Trait Structure as a Human Universal”. American Psychologist, vol. 52, n°5, pp. 509-516.
McDonough, Peter (1939/1981). Power and Ideology in Brazil. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Meyer, Mary A. y Booker, Jane M. (1991). Eliciting and Analyzing Expert Judgment. A Practical Guide. London: Academic Press Limited.
Michels, Robert (1915). Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Hearst’s International Library Company.
Mills, Charles Wright (1956/2013). La élite de poder. México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Mosca, Gaetano (1896). Elementi di Scienza Politica. Roma: Fratelli Bocca.
Murray, Robert K. y Blessing, Tim H. (1983). “The Presidential Performance Study: A progress Report”. The Journal of American History, vol. 70, n°3, pp. 535-555.
Musson, David M., Sandal, Gro Mjeldheim y Helmreich, Robert L. (2004). “Personality Characteristics and Trait Clusters in Final Stage Astronaut Selection”. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, vol. 75, n°4, pp. 342-349.
Naím, Moisés (1994). “Latin America: The Second Stage of Reform”. Journal of Democracy, vol. 5, n°4, pp. 32-48.
Negretto, Gabriel (2013). Making Constitutions: Presidents, Parties, and Institutional Choice in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Norris, Pippa (2014). Why Electoral Integrity Matters. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Parry, Geraint (1969/2005). Political Elites. Colchester: ECPR Press.
Pareto, Vilfredo (1900). “Un applicazione di teorie sociologiche”. Revista Italiana di Sociologia, vol. 4, n°4, pp. 401-456.
Pennebaker, James W. y King, Laura A. (1999). “Linguistic Styles: Language Use as an Individual Difference”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 77, n°6, pp. 1296-1312.
Post, Jerrold M. (compilador) (2003). The psychological assessment of political leaders: with profiles of Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Putnam, Robert D. (1976). The comparative Study of Political Elites. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Ridings William, J. y McIver, Stuart B. (1997). Rating the Presidents: A Ranking of U.S. Leaders, from the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent. Secaucus: Citadel Press.
Rubenzer, Steven J. y Faschingbauer, Thomas R. (2004). Personality, character, and leadership in the White House: Psychologists assess the presidents. Virginia: Brassey’s, Inc.
Rubenzer, Steven J.; Faschingbauer, Thomas R. y Ones, Deniz S. (2000). “Assessing the U.S. presidents using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory”. Assessment, vol. 7, n°4, pp. 403-420.
Schafer, Mark y Crichlow, Scott (2002). “The “Process‐Outcome” Connection in Foreign Policy Decision Making: A Quantitative Study Building on Groupthink”. International Studies Quarterly, vol. 46, n°1, pp. 45-68.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. (1948). “Historians Rate the U.S. Presidents”. Life, vol. 25, n°18, pp. 65-74.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1942/2008). Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Thought Edition.
Shugart, Matthew S. y Carey, John M. (1992). Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Simonton, Dean Keith (1986). “Presidential personality: Biographical use of the Gough Adjective Check List”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 51, n°1, pp. 149-160.
Song, Anna V. y Simonton, Dean Keith (2007). “Personality Assessment at a Distance”, en Richard W. Robins, R. Chris Fraley y Robert F. Krueger (compiladores), Handbook of Research Methods in Personality Psychology. New York: The Guilford Press.
Srivastava, Sanjay; John, Oliver P.; Gosling, Samuel D. y Potter, Jeff (2003). “Development of Personality in Early and Middle Adulthood: Set Like Plaster or Persistent Change?”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 84, n°5, pp. 1041-1053.
Steenbergen, Marco R. y Marks, Gary (2007). “Evaluating expert judgments”. European Journal of Political Research, vol. 46, n°3, pp. 347-366.
Taranto, James y Leo, Leonard (compiladores) (2004). Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House. New York: Wall Street Journal Books.
Waite, Robert G. L. (1977/1993). The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler. New York: Perseus Books Group.
Williamson, John (1994). The Political Economy of Policy Reform. Washington D.C.: Institute for International Economics.
Winter, David G. y Carlson, Leslie A. (1988). “Using Motive Scores in the Psychobiographical Study of an Individual: The case of Richard Nixon”. Journal of Personality, vol. 56, n°1, pp. 75-103.
Arana Araya, Ignacio (2013). “Informal institutions and horizontal accountability: protocols in the Chilean budgetary process”. Latin American Politics and Society, vol. 55, n°4, pp. 74-90.
Arana Araya, Ignacio (2015a). “Budgetary negotiations: how the Chilean Congress overcomes its constitutional limitations”. Journal of Legislative Studies, vol. 21, n°2, pp. 213-231.
Arana Araya, Ignacio (2015b). The Quest for Uncontested Power: How Presidents’ Personality Traits Leads to Constitutional Change in the Western Hemisphere. Tesis (Doctorado en Ciencia Política), University of Pittsburgh.
Barker, Ernest (1962). Politics of Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Benoit, Kenneth y Laver, Michael (2006). Party Policy in Modern Democracies. London: Routledge.
Besley, Timothy y Reynal-Querol, Marta (2011). “Do democracies select more educated leaders?”. American Political Science Review, vol. 105, n°3, pp. 552-566.
Benet-Martínez, Verónica y John, Oliver P. (1998). “Los Cinco Grandes Across cultures and ethnic groups: Multitrait-multimethod analyses of the Big Five in Spanish and English”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 75, n°3, pp. 729-750.
Blondel, Jean y Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand (2007). “Political elites”, en Russell J. Dalton y Hans-Dieter Klingemann (compiladores), The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.
Blondel, Jean y Thiébault, Jean-Louis (1991). The profession of government minister in Western Europe. London: St. Martin’s Press, Inc.
Carreras, Miguel (2012). “The Rise of Political Outsiders in Latin America, 1980-2010: an Institutionalist Perspective”. Comparative Political Studies, vol. 45, n°12, pp. 1451-1482.
Coppedge, Michael; Gerring, John y Lindberg, Staffan I. (2012). “Variedades de democracia (V-Dem): un enfoque histórico multidimensional y desagregado”. Revista Española de Ciencia Política, n°30, pp. 97-109.
Costa, Jr., Paul T. y McCrae, Robert R. (1992). “Normal Personality Assessment in Clinical Practice: The NEO Personality Inventory”. Psychological Assessment, vol. 4, n°1, pp. 5-13.
Dahl, Robert (1961). Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Doyle, David y Elgie, Robert (2014). “Maximizing the Reliability of Cross-National Measures of Presidential Power”. British Journal of Political Science. doi: 10.1017/S0007123414000465.
Dye, Thomas R. (2002). Who’s Running America? The Bush Restoration. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Flett, Gordon L. (2007). Personality Theory and Research: An International Perspective. Ontario: John Wiley & Sons Canada, Limited.
Freud, Sigmund (1910/1989). Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Galton, Francis (1869). Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences. London: Macmillan.
Goldberg, Lewis R. 1(990). “An Alternative “Description of Personality”: The Big-Five Factor Structure”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 59, n°6, pp. 1216-1229.
González-Bustamante, Bastián (2013). “Factores de acceso y permanencia de la élite política gubernamental en Chile (1990-2010)”. Política, Revista de Ciencia Política, vol. 51, n°1, pp. 119-153.
Hagopian, Frances y Mainwaring, Scott P. (compiladores) (2005). The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America: Advances and Setbacks. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hamilton, Michael Braun (2009). Online survey response rates and times: Background and guidance for industry. Longmont: Ipathia.
Hoffmann-Lange, Ursula (2007). “Methods of Elite Research”, en Russell J. Dalton y Hans-Dieter Klingemann (compiladores), The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.
Joignant, Alfredo (2011a). “El Estudio de las Élites: Un Estado del Arte”, en Marcelo Mella (compilador), Extraños en la noche: Intelectuales y usos políticos del conocimiento durante la transición chilena. Santiago de Chile: RIL Editores.
Joignant, Alfredo (2011b). Las élites gubernamentales como factor explicativo de un modelo político y económico de desarrollo: el caso de Chile (1990-2009). Serie Avances de Investigación, nº 87. Recuperado el 11 de octubre de 2011, de http://www.fundacioncarolina.es
Judge, Timothy A.; Higgins, Chad A.; Thoresen, Carl J. y Barrick, Murray R. (1999). “The Big Five Personality Traits, General Mental Ability, and Career Success across the Life Span”. Personnel Psychology, vol. 52, n°3, pp. 621-652.
Knoke, David; Urban Pappi, Franz; Broadbent, Jeffrey y Tsujinaka, Yutaka (1996). Comparing policy networks: labor politics in the U.S., Germany, and Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lane, David y Ross, Cameron (1999). The Transition from Communism to Capitalism. Ruling Elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Lerner, Robert; Nagai, Althea K. y Rothman, Stanley (1996). American Elites. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Li, Yun-Ming; Lai, Cheng-Yang y Kao, Chien-Pang (2011). “Building a qualitative recruitment via SVM with MCDM approach”. Jounrla Applied Intelligence, vol. 35, n°1, pp. 75-88.
Maranell, Gary M. (1970). “The Evaluation of Presidents: An Extension of the Schlesinger polls”. The Journal of American History, vol. 57, n°1, pp. 104-113.
McCrae, Robert R. y Costa, Jr., Paul T. (1997). “Personality Trait Structure as a Human Universal”. American Psychologist, vol. 52, n°5, pp. 509-516.
McDonough, Peter (1939/1981). Power and Ideology in Brazil. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Meyer, Mary A. y Booker, Jane M. (1991). Eliciting and Analyzing Expert Judgment. A Practical Guide. London: Academic Press Limited.
Michels, Robert (1915). Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Hearst’s International Library Company.
Mills, Charles Wright (1956/2013). La élite de poder. México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Mosca, Gaetano (1896). Elementi di Scienza Politica. Roma: Fratelli Bocca.
Murray, Robert K. y Blessing, Tim H. (1983). “The Presidential Performance Study: A progress Report”. The Journal of American History, vol. 70, n°3, pp. 535-555.
Musson, David M., Sandal, Gro Mjeldheim y Helmreich, Robert L. (2004). “Personality Characteristics and Trait Clusters in Final Stage Astronaut Selection”. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, vol. 75, n°4, pp. 342-349.
Naím, Moisés (1994). “Latin America: The Second Stage of Reform”. Journal of Democracy, vol. 5, n°4, pp. 32-48.
Negretto, Gabriel (2013). Making Constitutions: Presidents, Parties, and Institutional Choice in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Norris, Pippa (2014). Why Electoral Integrity Matters. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Parry, Geraint (1969/2005). Political Elites. Colchester: ECPR Press.
Pareto, Vilfredo (1900). “Un applicazione di teorie sociologiche”. Revista Italiana di Sociologia, vol. 4, n°4, pp. 401-456.
Pennebaker, James W. y King, Laura A. (1999). “Linguistic Styles: Language Use as an Individual Difference”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 77, n°6, pp. 1296-1312.
Post, Jerrold M. (compilador) (2003). The psychological assessment of political leaders: with profiles of Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Putnam, Robert D. (1976). The comparative Study of Political Elites. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Ridings William, J. y McIver, Stuart B. (1997). Rating the Presidents: A Ranking of U.S. Leaders, from the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent. Secaucus: Citadel Press.
Rubenzer, Steven J. y Faschingbauer, Thomas R. (2004). Personality, character, and leadership in the White House: Psychologists assess the presidents. Virginia: Brassey’s, Inc.
Rubenzer, Steven J.; Faschingbauer, Thomas R. y Ones, Deniz S. (2000). “Assessing the U.S. presidents using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory”. Assessment, vol. 7, n°4, pp. 403-420.
Schafer, Mark y Crichlow, Scott (2002). “The “Process‐Outcome” Connection in Foreign Policy Decision Making: A Quantitative Study Building on Groupthink”. International Studies Quarterly, vol. 46, n°1, pp. 45-68.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. (1948). “Historians Rate the U.S. Presidents”. Life, vol. 25, n°18, pp. 65-74.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1942/2008). Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Thought Edition.
Shugart, Matthew S. y Carey, John M. (1992). Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Simonton, Dean Keith (1986). “Presidential personality: Biographical use of the Gough Adjective Check List”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 51, n°1, pp. 149-160.
Song, Anna V. y Simonton, Dean Keith (2007). “Personality Assessment at a Distance”, en Richard W. Robins, R. Chris Fraley y Robert F. Krueger (compiladores), Handbook of Research Methods in Personality Psychology. New York: The Guilford Press.
Srivastava, Sanjay; John, Oliver P.; Gosling, Samuel D. y Potter, Jeff (2003). “Development of Personality in Early and Middle Adulthood: Set Like Plaster or Persistent Change?”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 84, n°5, pp. 1041-1053.
Steenbergen, Marco R. y Marks, Gary (2007). “Evaluating expert judgments”. European Journal of Political Research, vol. 46, n°3, pp. 347-366.
Taranto, James y Leo, Leonard (compiladores) (2004). Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House. New York: Wall Street Journal Books.
Waite, Robert G. L. (1977/1993). The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler. New York: Perseus Books Group.
Williamson, John (1994). The Political Economy of Policy Reform. Washington D.C.: Institute for International Economics.
Winter, David G. y Carlson, Leslie A. (1988). “Using Motive Scores in the Psychobiographical Study of an Individual: The case of Richard Nixon”. Journal of Personality, vol. 56, n°1, pp. 75-103.
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