How Do You Like Me Now? World Leaders’ U.S. Education Experience as a Predictor for Cooperation and International Agreement

Ashley Doliber (will be taking 2^nd module)

Title: How Do You Like Me Now? World Leaders’ U.S. Education Experience as a Predictor for Cooperation and International Agreement

Background:

Last year, nearly 900,000 international students undertook courses of higher education in the U.S. – a growing trend, up 8 percent over the previous year. This opportunity for the exchange of ideas, cross-pollination of bright young minds, and investment in future global economic growth is important in and of itself. However, this great potential becomes even more intriguing when considering the significant number of past, present, and future world leaders who are among those numbers.

Prime ministers and presidents from Greece to Bhutan and Ecuador to Liberia have been educated at U.S. institutions. The likes of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, late former Pakistani President Benazir Bhutto, and the late King Abdullah of Jordan each claim an American alma mater. Experts and commentators alike have begun to take notice of these ties – recently noting, for example, the high percentage of the Iranian government leadership with U.S. degrees, or expected future Chinese leadership being educated down the street at Harvard.

It is not only U.S. allies, then, but also interstate relationships characterized by friction (if not outright hostility) that contain a linkage to U.S. education experience. In 2012, the U.S. State Department estimated that some 300 current and former world leaders had studied at American institutions. That is a potentially powerful network both in their exposure to U.S. values and leadership networks, as well as among one another at particular institutions.

Primary Guiding Question:

Does a U.S. education increase the likelihood of world leaders to cooperate with and demonstrate approval of U.S. leadership decisions?

Secondary Questions:

Is there an equivalent “good ole’ boys” network created at all/certain U.S. institutions, establishing patterns of like-minded action at the interstate level?

Can higher degrees of connection – i.e. attending more than one U.S. university, or multiple leaders in a given country attending U.S. institutions – create new avenues for influence within the global leadership community?

How much impact do leaders’ perspectives and linkages to the U.S. have on their citizens’ views of the U.S. and vice-versa?

Do other shared attributes, such as (longer) overlaps in specific years of study, foster any significant increase to the likelihood of leaders to act in concert?

Hypothesis:

There are important linkages and pathways created by shared U.S. education experience that foster greater understanding and common ground. However, if the country as a whole is not inclined to support U.S. leadership, its own leaders’ educational experience will not be enough to overcome these fundamental differences and act completely in concert with American policy.

Data and Methodology:

The research will begin by constructing a dataset of world leaders (defined as presidents, prime ministers, dictators, ruling monarchs, and/or other leadership with ruling power) and their higher education history. Current leaders will be assessed first, but a database of leaders from the last 3-5 years will also be built so as to analyze a wider scope of action. The data is readily available from public biographies and can be supplemented with news articles and potential U.S. State Department records, as well as directly from higher education institutions.

The attribute dataset can be expanded beyond name, country, and alma mater(s) with years of attendance and level of education. The two-mode dataset of leaders and schools that has been created can be further analyzed as one-mode matrices (leaders by shared institutions and institutions sharing leaders). Then, a review of key United Nations votes will be introduced as a stand-in for leadership opinion. Voting with or against the U.S. – as well as other countries or leaders connected in the network – will be used as an indicator of collaboration and agreement. These decisions can be overlaid as attributes as well as a second dataset to be combined with leader/school network connections.

Finally, use of Gallup data in its World Poll and U.S.-Global Leadership Project will reveal possible correlations between leaders’ decisions and their countries’ overriding views of U.S. leadership. At this stage, a deeper dive on several key countries and institutions will analyze the potential networks in greater detail. This will include select strategic international relationships, as well as the top universities educating leaders – not only the Ivies, but also other leading institutions for international education spread across the country. Additional data on American leadership (i.e. Presidents and Cabinet members) could produce important insights on linkages that generate greater (or lesser) coordination between the United States and other world leaders.

Important measures will include distance within the networks and number of linkages across years, schools, and countries. Any formation of cliques (and bi-cliques) based on UN votes or schools, as well as factions, core-periphery analysis (aligned with key votes and/or strategic countries and leaders), and cohesion measures, should be reviewed. The E-I Index may also be helpful in revealing any shared attributes among the leaders forming connections and taking similar decisions.

Note: sharing an alma mater does not necessarily equal a connection in practice, but it is assumed that the likelihood is high, especially when attending in the same year, but also by the virtue of alumni networks. Regardless, the common experience and mutual connections create a reasonable assumption of linkages between leaders.

Conclusions:

Although they did not know each other at the time, U.S. Secretary of Energy Moniz and the No. 2 Iranian nuclear deal negotiator studied at MIT at the same time. This shared experience no doubt gave them a basis for rapport and understanding during a difficult assignment. By identifying the networks created by such linkages to U.S. institutions, it is possible to: 1) begin to ascertain whether a given country’s leadership will be inclined to make decisions in cooperation with U.S. leaders, 2) capitalize on shared networks and previously unseen linkages from one part of the higher education of leadership network to another, and 3) identify opportunities to generate influence among future world leaders.

Sources:

Previous SNA work on this question was not identified. However, it is apparent that others are gathering data along similar lines and it is a regularly resurgent line of inquiry for those analyzing connections among and alliances between world leaders.