Psychology of Political Decisionmaking and Leadership

Political decisions rarely come from cold cost-benefit math — leaders operate under stress, incomplete information, group pressures, and their own cognitive biases, and this course asks how those psychological forces actually shape foreign policy choices, crisis behavior, and electoral judgment. You'll work through case studies and behavioral research, with a research paper as the main deliverable alongside a midterm and final. It sits as an upper-level elective bridging political science and political psychology, useful background for IR, public policy, or anyone planning graduate work where understanding why leaders decide what they do matters as much as the structural explanations.