Politician Image as a Factor of Foreign Policy: Cases of France, Germany

Leadership politics are being studied a lot, however, the field of image politics lacks researches on the topic of impact of politicians’ image. Image of politician influences both: domestic and foreign policies. In the case of domestic policy, image affects the electorate severely during the elections and thus results in the outcome of the elections. Speaking about domestic policy, image is a powerful tool used by politicians in order to gain votes, because people usually pay a lot of attention to an intuitive perception of the politician. In the case of foreign policy, it is argued that the image of a political leader constructs the image of a whole state, that leader is the representation of what happens inside the state and the aims and objectives of the state on the international arena. This work is directed at the scrutinization of several ideas. Firstly, the theoretical part presents definitions and notions of image politics and political image, political marketing and branding, political leadership typologies along with the description of components of a political image. Secondly, the work provides the case studies on two politicians: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of France Emmanuel Macron. Thirdly, the interconnectedness between image and foreign policy is discussed based on case studies. This paper is aimed at contributing to the field of leadership and image politics being a significant part of political science by discussing why the political leader cannot always be called a representation of state on international arena and its citizens.