Understanding New Middle Eastern Leadership: An Operational Code Approach

• Published in: Political research quarterly Vol. 71; no. 1; pp. 19 - 31
• Main Authors: Özdamar, Özgür, Canbolat, Sercan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publishing 01.03.2018; SAGE Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Averages; Beliefs; Content analysis; Cooperation; Decision making; Dictionaries; Foreign policy; Hypotheses; International cooperation; International relations; Islam; Islamism; Leadership; Negotiation; Political leadership; Politics; Post Cold War period; Religion & politics; Software; United States > US; Tunisia; Egypt; political psychology; Rachid Ghannouchi; operational code analysis; Mohamed Morsi; leadership; political Islam; Muslim Brotherhood; foreign policy decision making; the Middle East; Khaled Meshaal
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912917721744
• ISSN: 1065-9129

Political Islam and Islamist organizations have broadly gained strength across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the post-Cold War era. Following the Arab uprisings, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), generally viewed as the world's largest and most influential Islamist organization, has shaped the wider landscape of MENA politics. This study examines MB leadership by comparing M. Morsi of Egypt, R. Ghannouchi of Tunisia, and K. Meshaal of Gaza as examples of Islamist leaders to explain their political belief systems and predict their foreign-policy behavior. We use the operational code approach, a content-analysis software and statistical tests to conduct the study. Results show that the three leaders' foreign policy beliefs are analogous to the averages of world leaders. Results also partially support the hypothesis that their foreign-policy propensities are similar to each other. We conclude that despite the conventional portrayal of MB leadership, these leaders use negotiation and cooperation to settle their differences in foreign affairs, and the best way to approach them is to engage in a Rousseauvian assurance game that emphasizes international social cooperation. Results also suggest important implications in terms of mainstream international relations theories.