The research by Assistant Professor of Political Science and Policy Studies Baris Kesgin into the characteristics of hawks and doves in foreign policy was published recently in the journal Cooperation and Conflict.
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Policy Studies Baris Kesgin recently published research about the characteristics of hawks and doves in foreign policy in the international relations journal Cooperation and Conflict.
Kesgin’s manuscript sheds light on the frequently used metaphors to describe policymakers’ foreign and security policy stances, and advances a systematic and objective framework to profiling the so-called hawks and doves.
To contextualize this discussion, Kesgin looks at the case of Israeli prime ministers from the early 1990s to the present day. Kesgin argues that Israel and its leaders provide meaningful observations for this because of the prevalence of these metaphors in its domestic and foreign policy. Based on a quantitative profiling approach to political leaders, Kesgin develops theoretical expectations and traces these in the profiles of Israel’s prime ministers.
According to Kesgin’s findings, the metaphors are meaningful in that Israeli leaders profile correspond to the hawk-dove typology commonly applied to these leaders. The manuscript offers distinctive personality traits to hawks and doves in foreign policy: Kesgin finds that hawks think in simple terms, are distrustful and confident. In addition, according to the findings, hawks are relationship oriented (against the expectation that they would be problem focused). Kesgin’s paper successfully builds up the first systematic attempt to unpacking the personality traits of these commonly used phrases in foreign policy debates.
The manuscript, “Features of Foreign Policy Birds: Israeli Prime Ministers as Hawks and Doves,” is published in Cooperation and Conflict. The journal is one of the top venues for peer-reviewed research in international relations.