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Interrogating the ‘Human Factor’
It is widely recognized among state leaders and diplomats that personal relations play an important role in international politics. The ‘human factor’ has been cited as one of the key ingredients for overcoming long-standing interstate hostilities. As the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said of his relationship with US President Ronald Reagan in front of the Politburo in 1987, ‘we clearly realized how much the human factor means in international politics… These people are guided by the most natural human motives and feelings’ (quoted in Matlock 2005, 271). Former British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher felt similarly upon meeting with her Soviet counterpart in 1984, famously saying, ‘I like Mr. Gorbachev, we can do business together.’ In the aftermath of the historic nuclear accord signed by the E3 + 3 and Iran in July 2015, US Secretary of State John Kerry described his relationship with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in the following way: ‘We were both able to approach these negotiations with mutual respect, even when there were times of heated discussion. And – he would agree with me – at the end of every meeting we laughed and we smiled and we had the conviction that we would come back and continue to process.’1 More recently, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested a crucial reason for pursuing diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un: ‘I'd probably have a very good relationship with [him].’2 Positive personal relationships, and the prospects of them developing, can seemingly pay significant dividends.
Yet, for every relationship where leaders form important bonds of understanding and connection with each other, there appear to be as many where the opposite is true. Examples of dyadic leader relationships where mistrust, suspicion, and hostility abound are ample. Whereas 30 years ago at the height of the Cold War, Gorbachev and Reagan were able to develop trust at the interpersonal level, and as a result settle state-level differences (albeit temporarily), the personal relationship between Putin and Obama was one mired in distrust and hostility. Social bonds can be both positive and negative in nature.
In this paper, we argue that variation in the outcome of face-to-face interactions and development of interpersonal social bonds is...