This user does not wish to be contacted by the media at this time.

Maryann Gallagher, Ph.D.

mgallag@uga.edu

University of Georgia

Address: 202 Herty Field Dr.

City: Athens, Georgia

Country: United States

Website

About Me:

Maryann E. Gallagher is a lecturer in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Emory University and her B.A. from Drew University. Prior to joining the faculty at UGA in 2014, she was an assistant professor at DePauw University. Professor Gallagher’s research interests include American foreign policy, decision making, and gender in international relations. She teaches courses on American Foreign Policy, Decision Making in International Relations, Women & World Politics, and War & Gender.

Research Interests

Foreign Policy

Political Psychology

Gender and Politics

Publications:

Journal Articles:

(2015) Taking Matters into Their Own Hands: Presidents' Personality Traits and the Use of Executive Orders, Presidential Studies Quarterly

Existing studies of executive orders tend to focus on two issues: how the frequency of executive orders has changed over time and whether the nature of presidential power has changed such that we should reconsider Neustadt's thesis that bargaining is the essence of presidential power. Although institutionalists bemoan the literature's focus on the “personal presidency,” no study of unilateral uses of power has taken into account the systematic influence of presidents' personalities. Instead, studies that consider why some presidents issue more executive orders than others focus on contextual factors, not attributes of the presidents. In this article we address this gap in the literature by examining whether presidents' personality traits significantly influence their propensity to issue executive orders. The results of our analysis demonstrate that both personality and institutional factors play a significant role in presidents' decisions to act unilaterally.

(2014) Presidential Personality: Not Just a Nuisance, Foreign Policy Analysis

Few systematic studies of US uses of force treat the inherent attributes of presidents as the key causal factors; nonetheless, the fact that individual leaders matter is evident to the public, the media, and foreign policymakers in other countries. This study advances the development of First Image explanations of conflict by empirically investigating the relationship between presidential personality and the variation surrounding foreign policy decision making. The importance of this type of variance has been understudied in international relations, and the consistency of leaders' policy decisions has important strategic implications for interstate conflict. Relying on Big Five measures of US presidents' personality traits, we find that leaders who have a high tendency toward Excitement Seeking are more likely to use force to carry out their foreign policy objectives, while those who are more Open to Action exhibit a greater variance around their foreign policy decision making. In sum, the personality traits of individual leaders influence not only the choices they make, but the consistency of their choices, which has important consequences for US foreign policy.