Psychopathology and Politics by Harold D. Lasswell is a study of personality types as they relate to politicians, business leaders, and church officials. First published in 1930, the work applies the concepts of clinical psychology to the future prediction and prevention of societal and political conflict. Born in 1902 to a schoolteacher mother and clergyman father, Lasswell was devoted to scholarship and philosophy from a young age. He dedicated his life to studying, teaching, and writing about the intersection of political science, psychology, and sociology. Lasswell received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1926. His dissertation, Propaganda Technique in the World War, analyzed the various government "information" campaigns of WWI. This expertise in propaganda would later lead to Lasswell's appointment as Chief of the Experimental Division for the Study of War Time Communications at the Library of Congress during WWII. His role was to review and evaluate Nazi propaganda films to understand how their persuasion methods earned the Nazis the support of the German people. Upon completing his Ph.D., Lasswell became an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Shortly after, he began work on Psychopathology and Politics, the first of over 30 books he would write over the next 45 years. The book argues that we must have insight into the hidden motivations and impulses of societal leaders in order to channel the desire to lead into healthy expression. Lasswell uses case studies to explore how early experiences inform the opinions that leaders hold later in life. As an example, we follow the preacher "A" through his childhood, youth, and adulthood. We learn about A's intense competition with his brother for their father's affection in childhood. And we're told that this is the cause of A's support for socialism. Looking after one's "brother" is compensation for his own fraternal dislike. Instead of relying on politicians to resolve conflict, Lasswell argues that it should be the purview of political psychologists to prevent it altogether by "reducing the strain and maladaptation in society." The "politics of prevention," he theorized, would require intense auditing of the effects of politics upon the politicians. For example, "When a judge has been on the bench thirty years, what manner of man has he become? When an agitator has been agitating for thirty years, what has happened to him?" After WWII, Lasswell became a Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale Law School and served as the President of the American Political Science Association and continued to write dozens of books and hundreds of scholarly articles. In one of these works, he pioneered the "five-questions model of communication." Also known as the Lasswell Communication Model, it requires identifying and analyzing each of the following five questions: Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect This model is still in use in the studies of communication and public relations. Lasswell's works are still studied today. After his death in 1978, political scientist Gabriel Almond said that Lasswell "ranked among the half dozen creative innovators in the social sciences in the twentieth century."

This unique work looks at the relationship between psychopathology and world politics. What happens when the brain/mind ceases to function properly? How does this impinge on world affairs? What is to be done, for example, when a leader ceases to act in a seemingly sane fashion and yet still commands the loyalty of those who maintain him or her in office? What is to be done when a leader''s advisers seem rational but are clearly not? Indeed, what is to be done when a whole society goes insane? This is to raise more questions than a single work can adequately answer. In lieu of a comprehensive account, which would be beyond the scope of one study, what this book does is first describe psychopathology in general terms and its relationship to world affairs. It then looks at denial in particular and at OC speaking the truthOCO as a potentially therapeutic antidote, especially in relation to nuclear weapons. It follows this by looking at delusion in general and at what being OC in touchOCO with reality might entail with regard to a so-called OC failed stateOCO. With topics ranging from Hitler''s mental health to the continuing threat of nuclear Armageddon, this book is a valuable contribution to the field of international politics and modern psychology, and will hopefully lead to a better understanding of contemporary world affairs and the global issue of conflict resolution.

Inspired by Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, this book examines the unconscious processes shaping contemporary political ideologies. Addressing ten fundamental questions, Robert Samuels identifies four basic political ideologies: liberal, conservative, Left, and Right, which are often placed in the structure of a logical square, determined by two binary oppositions, with a fifth structure of centrism complicating the square. He turns to psychoanalysis to explain the unconscious defense mechanisms that structure these political ideologies. Each chapter uses a recent, influential title as a gateway to the analysis of the ideologies and structures identified. Through this analysis, Samuels argues that belief in ideological structures is tied to triumvirates of institutions and ideals; conservatives being tied to premodern institutions of religion, feudalism, and monarchy, while modern liberals are tied to ideals of universality, objectivity, and empiricism. He concludes that this investment in universality shapes the ethics of modern globalization and democratic liberalism. Unlike other books, conclusions are reinforced through examples drawn from current events with an integrated model of different psychopathologies. The Psychopathology of Political Ideologies moves beyond providing an understanding of what drives different political investments, to offer a more rational and conscious comprehension of subjectivity and social organization. This book will be a great resource for those interested in politics, political science psychology, social psychology, globalization, and ideology.

The Psychology of Politics is an introduction to political psychology. The field has a long past, but as an organized discipline, it has a short history. The long past is detailed in Jaap van Ginneken's historical first chapter of the book. The short history of political psychology as an organized disci pline dates from 1978, when the International Society of Political Psychol ogy (ISPP) was founded (Stone, 1981, 1988). The formal establishment of an interdiscipline drawing upon various social sciences had numerous predecessors in the 20th century: Wallas's (1908) Human Nature in Politics, Harold Lasswell's Psychopathology and Politics in 1930, a book with the present title by Eysenck (1954), and The Handbook of Political Psychology, edited by the founder of the ISPP, Jeanne Knutson. Her Handbook defined the field at the time of its publication in 1973 (see espe cially Davies' chapter). The present revision of Stone's (1974) work is more modest in its aspira tions. It provides a selective introduction to the field, emphasizing topics that the authors believe to be representative and important. Many psycho logically relevant topics, such as political socialization, participation, voting behavior, and leadership, are not represented among our chapter titles.

First published in 1930, this classic study of personality types remains vital for the understanding of contemporary public figures. Lasswell's pioneering application of the concepts of clinical psychology to the understanding of powerbrokers in politics, business, and even the church offers insights into the careers of leaders as diverse as Adolf Hitler and Richard Nixon.

This book concerns the wanting, getting, and giving of power. Recent advances in medicine, sociology, and psychology have deepened our understanding of the motives, skills, and experience that operate between leaders and those who are led. Since power is about decision-making, it figures not only in offi cial institutions but in other organizations, including political parties, pressure groups, trade associations, business enterprises, trade unions, and many other types of organizations.A general theory of the political personality is set forth here. Lasswell describes the process by which power becomes a value of first importance and the way appropriate skills in exercising power are acquired. He shows that special political types such as agitators or administrators are related to basic types of character that contribute to how they lead. Finally, his analysis offers original perspectives to understand democratic leadership.Lasswell offers definite suggestions for perfecting self-observatories in national and world affairs and for forming democratic personalities, selecting and training democratic leaders, and reducing destructive conflicts in human relationships. Power and Personality followed the author's 1930 work Psychopathology and Politics, which was widely hailed for its pioneering approach. Power and Personality reevaluated the entire issue of the relationship between psychology and politics in the light of subsequent experience and scientific developments since publication of that earlier work. Lasswell's ideas continue to carry great weight and persuasiveness.

A classic book on propaganda technique proposes a general theory of the strategy and tactics of propaganda. This classic book on propaganda technique focuses on American, British, French, and German experience in World War I. The book sets forth a simple classification of various psychological materials used to produce certain specific results and proposes a general theory of strategy and tactics for the manipulation of these materials. In an introduction (coauthored by Jackson A. Giddens) written for this edition, Harold Lasswell notes that this study was partially an exercise in the discovery of appropriate theory. It raised the crucial questions of how to classify the content of propaganda—for instance, a distinction is made between "value demands" (war aims, war guilt, and casting the enemy as evil personified) and "expectations" (the illusion of victory)—and how to summarize the procedures employed in organizing and carrying out propaganda operations. Propaganda Technique in World War I deals primarily with problems of internal administration and lateral coordination rather than with the relationship between policymakers and propagandists. However, Jackson Giddens enumerates procedures in the book that illustrate an underlying assumption that decision makers were deeply involved in propaganda and influenced by considerations of public opinion. He takes the study of propaganda further by elaborating on the nature and meaning of the category of "war aims" and its relation to the propagandist, for this, more than any other category of content, "is the catalyst of transnational political action." Giddens's exploration of the development of a comprehensive theory of propaganda adds another dimension to Lasswell's study while confirming its value as outstanding groundwork for continuing research.

Fred Greenstein, an acknowledged authority in this field, lays out conceptual and methodological standards for carrying out personality-and politics inquiries, ranging from psychological case studies of single actors, through multi-case analyses of types of political actors, to aggregative analyses of the impact of individuals and types of individuals on political systems and processes. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, which was first published in 1936, is the classic analysis of power and manipulation by ruling elites and counter-elites. The themes that occur throughout this essay have become the guideposts for most modern research in techniques of propaganda and political organization. “It is unquestionably one of the most influential treatments of politics published in this century.”—David B. Truman, Prof.of Public Law and Government, Columbia University “This book is a landmark of modern political science.”—Daniel Lerner, Professor of Sociology, M.I.T. “For over three decades the students of politics have had their intellectual horizons constantly broadened by Harold Lasswell. There is probably no man in American political science who has brought to bear as many new approaches to the analysis of political behaviour as he has. There is perhaps no better way to get the essence of Lasswell’s thought than in his book, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How.”—Seymour Martin Lipset, Department of Sociology, U.C. Berkeley

Mapping the territory where political science and psychology intersect, Explorations in Political Psychology offers a broad overview of the the field of political psychology--from its historical evolution as an area of inquiry to the rich and eclectic array of theories, concepts, and methods that mark it as an emerging discipline. In introductory essays, editors Shanto Iyengar and William J. McGuire identify the points of exchange between the disciplines represented and discuss the issues that make up the subfields of political psychology. Bringing together leading scholars from social psychology and political science, the following sections discuss attitude research (the study of political attitudes and opinions); cognition and information-processing (the relationship between the structures of human information-processing and political and policy preferences); and decision making (how people make decisions about political preferences). As a comprehensive introduction to a growing field of interdisciplinary concern, Explorations in Political Psychology will prove a useful guide for historians, social psychologists, and political scientists with an interest in individual political behavior. Contributors. Stephen Ansolabehere, Donald Granberg, Shanto Iyengar, Robert Jervis, Milton Lodge, Roger D. Masters, William J. McGuire, Victor C. Ottati, Samuel L. Popkin, William M. Runyan, David O. Sears, Patrick Stroh, Denis G. Sullivan, Philip E. Tetlock, Robert S. Wyer, Jr.