When do leader backgrounds matter? Evidence from the President’s Daily Brief

Michael Goldfien, Michael Joseph and Daniel Krcmaric
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Michael Goldfien: 24348United States Naval War College, USA
Michael Joseph: 8784University of California, San Diego, USA
Daniel Krcmaric: 3270Northwestern University, USA

Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2024, vol. 41, issue 4, 414-437

Abstract: A wave of recent scholarship shows that the backgrounds of political leaders shape their behavior once in office. This paper shifts the literature in a new direction by investigating the conditions under which foreign observers think a leader's background is relevant. We argue that pre-tenure biographical attributes are most informative to outsiders during leadership transitions—unique periods where the new ruler does not yet have a track record—because a leader's background provides clues about how that leader might govern. But as time passes, foreign observers quickly discount the leader's biography and instead evaluate the leader's observable behavior. We test our theory by creating a systematic daily measure of attention to foreign leader backgrounds derived from the President's Daily Brief, a novel data source of 4991 recently declassified reports from the Central Intelligence Agency to the American president.

Keywords: leader biography; leadership transitions; Central Intelligence Agency; President's Daily Brief (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:compsc:v:41:y:2024:i:4:p:414-437

DOI: 10.1177/07388942231196109

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