Heres a piece on Stratfors intelligence model, or guiding philosophy, which is heavily geopolitical, in the literal sense of the word; it emphasizes how geography and relationships in complex networks constrain the likely future actions of heads of state. The unit of analysis is the state. I think that Stratfor is terrific and that everyone should read and watch their content. Our Political Nature says this explicitly. But at the same time, there are other perspectives that complement their analysis, and that could be added to their model to strengthen it. And these elements come down to personality. Stratfor probably does not think that personality is important for two reasons: (1) the mainstream media focus obsessively on the personality of politicians; and (2) the personalities of many important heads of state are arguably not as important as the geopolitical constraints they face, especially to the extent that those states are democratic, with the many checks and balances that constrain leaders in democracy, even to the point of slipping into a vetocracy that overly constrains executive power (to borrow a term from the recent book by Francis Fukuyama). However, personality is still vitally important to a complete political analysis for two reasons: (1) in less democratic conditions, personality can become an equally important driver of a political leaders behavior. Even among the leaders of democratic nations, personality is in fact an important criterion that does affect perceptions, behaviors, and especially bilateral relations. And (2) the more democratic a country, on the other hand, the more personality becomes important because, taken at the collective level, individual psychological differences, on which political attitudes depend, and which influence views on context-specific issues, are the strongest predictor of public opinion. And in this age of social media and unlimited outlets, technology has injected steroids into the muscle of public opinion, which is becoming an increasingly formidable force even in decidedly undemocratic environments. In short, Stratfor could do a better job of critically measuring public opinion, considering it as one of the constraints on leaders behavior, and using it to predict the future. I think Stratfors model is immensely useful and overlooked by average news consumers, but that public opinion analysis and leadership analysis are important too.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:47:37 +0000
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