ABSTRACT
Political psychology makes a fertile field for those political theorists who understand their work as preeminently conceptual: thinking about how we think. One of the merits of psychological thought is that it provides a framework for addressing both empirical and ethical considerations. Fortunately, political science has always been interdisciplinary. Political studies are inevitably affected by our conceptions of human nature, and if one is trying to anticipate the behavior of a contemporary or attempting to reconstruct the character of a past political actor, it is inevitable that our notions of what it is to be normal—or even human—are bound to influence. Despite all the controversies in the psychoanalytic literature, certain clinical modes of thinking are widely established and potentially enlightening to political observers. Political leadership, especially where controversies tend to be less about rival ideas of how one ought to live and more about mundane matters, requires an ability to manipulate people.
