One man's wickedness : malignant narcissism and major blunders in international relations

Malignant narcissism is a personality syndrome marked by hubris, paranoia, and reckless indifference to the human consequences of decisions. Malignant-narcissistic leaders tend to commit major blunders in international relations. Examples include Saddam, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, and Nasser. Seventeen hypotheses are presented on malignant narcissism, exploring its relationships to cognition, domestic political systems, and blunders in international relations. The hypotheses are illustrated with historical examples to support their plausibility. Saddam is explained as a malignant narcissist who was especially prone to blunders throughout his political career.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Landau, Daniel B. (Daniel Bruce), 1969-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stephen W. Van Evera.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/28494

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/28494